Of Lockdowns and Beyond

Just when airlines thought they had got their act together and would fly higher into profits, the Covid-19 has virtually grounded them all. Domestic flights too, till April 14th. (in India)

So after the lockdowns end, when they do, will normality return to air travel, hospitality, and all the rest? Business travel is likely to pick up first, followed by a cautious uptick in personal travel, and finally, leisure travel or tourism. People are likely to be wary of international travel for a few months at least.

What about retail? A lot of business has actually come to the small kirana stores, as they are within walking distance of most houses, and are an essential service. Maybe bigger stores will take a while in India at least, to get back all their customers. They might have to incentivise customers. We are, in the meantime, re-discovering the virtues of small businesses. Hopefully, mom and pop stores will continue to thrive in India, and not just for groceries- given the employment challenges, they have the potential to keep the families working.

Hygiene-related products may see a sustained interest, because this crisis has taught everyone the importance of washing hands and disinfecting surfaces that you can.

A simpler lifestyle might result for a while, having got used to the necessities and being able to live without a lot of discretionary spends. Marketers of many discretionary goods will have to work harder to attract customers.

Getting the lost mojo back into many economic sectors will take quite a while. Hope it happens within a year or two. If not, education may also suffer-higher education, more so. Hopefully, allocations to the health sector will go up across countries.

Joblessness and Other Indexes

Ok, Indices, maybe..I don't know. But the point is, I am coming up with some new ones, like the soap companies do, on a regular basis. Unlike them, I really had to think these through. Why should Sensex have all the fun?

Joblessness Index- Hours spent doing useful things, divided by hours spent on Social Media+Hours spent on Cell talking+Hours spent on Netflixing (this is not a word yet, I invented it..if Googling is an accepted word, this will be too)..for better results, interchange the numerator and denominator, so the number appears large, and you can then make speeches worrying about it.

Economy's Health Index. Doctors' earnings for all doctors divided by Patients' Bank Balance (Amount reduced by paying medical bills) indicates the economy's health- can you argue with this?

Pseudo-intellectuals Index. This is the total number of posts forwarded in a day about anything that sounds intellectual but is not, multiplied by 1000.

Real Intellectuals Index. The number of people who did their homework (or any work) without Copy/Pasting anything.

Smart Bloggers Index. This species does not exist, and therefore this index is not needed.

As the Dust Settles

I am writing this as an impartial observer, without any political leaning of any kind. As the dust settles on the "demonetisation" and some realities seem to sink in, it may be a good time to look at the pluses and minuses so far- this may change due to subsequent actions of various stakeholders.

The shock value was delivered impeccably- an achievement in itself.

The initial reactions indicated that broadly, people supported the decision, assuming all would be back to normal in a few weeks.

It is not clear why the government chose to change the size of the notes, requiring recalibration of all ATMs. This delayed the functioning of ATMs at full capacity.

The cash supply has not yet returned to normal, at least not in the ATMs. This is from personal experience in at least three cities that I travelled to in the past week.

Possibility of corruption in RBI, banks and so on seems to have been overlooked. This has siphoned off a lot of money that could have reached the common man, giving the government a  bad name.

Now, a question. Could there have been a better way to catch the guys with black money (not just in cash, but real estate and so on)? Were they explored?

People have certainly learnt how to stand in a queue, as a by-product, and maybe some nationalism has come in where it was not explicit.

All told, it was a great disruption in many lives. I hope it will not affect the economy too badly, particularly the daily wage workers.

Book Review-The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley

I am in the middle of a fascinating book about how everything has evolved, and will evolve. No, it does not tell you what will be the end result, but says that it won't be planned. Instead, it will evolve as a result of various events, pulls, pressures and so on. And this covers every aspect of life as we know it.

Almost anything you can think of is covered, not just our evolution from a Darwinian standpoint. Culture, religion, morality, civilisation, institutions, the Law, and almost everything. The central argument of the author is that you can only achieve so much through planning, and free enterprise actually works better than control. Human action helps, but design, planning,...very little.

All you control freaks out there, you need to take a chill pill, if what he argues is even half-correct. For instance, he finds that the Epicurean principles espoused by an ancient author were suppressed a long time because they were inconvenient to, and contradicted the Church. The author's writings were accidentally found and propagated to an extent (or at least were out in print) in the fourteenth century.

Many interesting fields bound together by a common thread. There are references to another book I had read a long time ago, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, about our evolution.

I can't wait to read the rest of it. See you later.

GNH from Bhutan- A Primer

That is Gross National Happiness. We had a first hand account that it really is measured in Bhutan. Dr. Saamdu Chetri, who heads the Centre for GNH in Bhutan, was on campus for a guest lecture. He explained in simple terms that we are measuring the wrong things in the conventional GDP or GNP measures.

For instance, if a two-parent family hires a maid and both parents go to work, the GDP grows. Happiness may decrease, because the child may not be reared properly, compared to one of the parents staying home to do the job (at the cost of GDP growth). Or, if a married woman goes through a depression, medical (or marital) problems, and consults lot of doctors and psychiatrists (or lawyers), GDP goes up. If she is happily married, and does none of the above, on the other hand, GDP goes down!

Burning fossil fuels is not sustainable, as it contributes to carbon emissions, and therefore, global warming that may result in dire consequences. Energy can be renewable, if research is adequate. Meanwhile, public transport should play a greater role. We need to be a little calmer, and reflective about wasting earth's resources. We consume too much, be it clothes, food or anythng else, raising unnecessary demands on earth. Human values like sharing and collaboration should predominate.

Happiness is actually measured on several parameters, and the website explains how.
(link http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/articles/). I was happy to learn of an alternative measure of what we are and ought to be, from one of the smallest countries of the world.

Coincidentally, also read a review of a book about how GDP came to be the main measure of well-being of a nation after the Great Depression in the U.S.

Learning From Big Brother

We live and learn. So it is that we learn from the Big Brother. There's only one left after the Gorbachev ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika, in case you haven't noticed.

Like everyone else, Big Brother also suffers scams, budget deficits and trade deficits. But unlike everone else, BB has a solution. There are two major angles to this.

1. Count the number of countries in the world. Around 190 at a rough count.

2. Bomb one every 2 years. Reasons, like an audit of a forest strewn with a few skeletons, can be found if you look hard enough. Any reason with a word like genocide, weapons, and innocent civilians sounds convincing enough. Soldiers on a draft have no choice, in any case.

You are now Ok for 380 years. After that, Martians may take over anyways.

The spinoff benefits on the main and ancillary industries, can keep you going for two years at least. There could be some add-ons if you also get oil cheap from the enemy of the country you bomb, in case the bombing happens in the Gulf region. Got it? Keep it simple, stupid, is the policy.

Ideas for GDP Growth

Who says India cannot grow at 10% a year? We just have to re-align our economy to what is right for us, instead of looking at it through jaundiced Western paradigms (ha, managed to use this word). In other words, we have to reposition our economy as The Festival Economy. Dubai has something called festival city, so why not a festival economy out here?

All the nation's resources must be concentrated on the festivals. We can easily count around 300 festivals, so that'll keep us buzzing almost year-round. All products and services, supplies, and infrastructure should focus on the festivals. And there should be no shortages, to ensure that the Gods don't go crazy and punish us. So we have to have power for all, roads for all, sugar and oil for all, and so on. The people who have to produce these get fined if they don't produce enough to supply to all the festivals. Those who do, get rewarded with more festival orders.

Everything would be hunky dory, because who can compete with us on the number of festivals, and each one longer than the last one?

Uff, just got another problem off my back. Enough work done. Now let me go join the festivities..

Simple Cures for Global Slowdown

My top five cures for the global slowdown.

1. Lock up all economists. Who will then tell you whether there is a slow-down or a fast-up?

2. Ban news on the GDP, economy, exports, budgets etc. from all neswpapers, TV and online media. If individuals (like birds) twitter about anything else, let them.

3. IPL matches should be on 365 days a year. In any case, they are on for two months. What's another ten? This can provide global employment to out-of-work cricketers, and the unemployed audience can spend time watching the matches. Talk about killing many birds with one stone. PETA, please excuse the metaphor.

4. Extend the concept of IPL to other games, for backward nations that don't know how to waste time!

5. Make David Dhawan and Sajid Khan films compulsory viewing in India. This will tremendously boost the GHP or Gross Happiness Index (which, unlike the GDP, will be measured). This will be due to people laughing at intended and unintended jokes.

Hope in Times of Gloom

Indian stock market indices like the Sensex are doing cartwheels of joy, after hearing about the reforms that were announced over the last week. This is actually like an Oktoberfest of our own.

It is without a doubt because of the 1991 reforms that we are a strong country today. But for them, we would have been in the depths of despair, and probably hungry, disintegrated and disoriented. The ability to market these and more would probably see our economy grow at a fair clip in the next two decades.

With gloom pervading the European and American markets, this is our chance to show the world that we can lead it for a change. Let's do it!

One Solution to Global Economic Woes

I don't understand what the fuss is about, in Europe, in the U.S. and elsewhere. You have an easy solution and also have the core competence to implement it. It will solve at one shot all the economic problems (and a few more). The solution is - BUILD MORE MALLS. Building railway lines for economic recovery is passe.

The social and economic benefits of building malls are many.

1. People remain in an airconditioned environment when inside a mall, and therefore, are cool.

2. Malls reduce people's intelligence levels, and hence their questioning ability. So it's good politically!

3. They are lulled into a sense of well-being while inside.

4. If they actually shop, it directly increases the country's GDP, creating jobs for people who have to man/woman the counters.

5. It boosts the (mall) construction industry, even if nothing else happens.

Merkel, Obama, and co., I hope you are listening!

The Bank Strikes Again

No, this is not a  Star Wars sequel. It is only that the guy who counts your cash (after licking his fingers, usually) at a window near you, will no longer do so. Today and tomorrow, there will be no such delights available. Senior citizens who like to go to the bank to chat with the cashier (because all the customers now go to the ATM) will be lonely, and may go into a depression.

The other major community that will face the brunt is the dons who use these channels to transfer their considerable earnings across landmasses (read countries, or states) so as to benefit the rest of humanity. But don't expect this segment to sit and twiddle their thumbs. They have already alerted the hawala operators to do extra duty during this period. This hawala business, incidentally, seems unique to India, and could be patented, if so.

But strikes in general, as I have earlier commented elsewhere, are good for the nation's health-and yours. They also reduce pollution, increase the income of multiplexes (Ek Tha Tiger may make a few more crores). I would recommend that all European banks learn from ours and go on strike, to kickstart their economies. After all, what's the fun in working if you are only staring down the barrel of an impending crisis? At least boost the tourism industry, take a holiday!

Economy- It Does Not Exist

There's actually nothing  like the economy! I just discovered this fact yesterday. A finance minister, the RBI governor, and so on are mythical characters. What does it matter to a man on the street (just a phrase, by the way, he may not actually be on the street), the aam aadmi?

There is no such thing as the economy. What is there is a commodity and a price for it. And either you can afford it, or you can't. Think of anything at all, and it fits this description. The rest is hoopla, baloney, verbiage,  and so on. So that the pink papers survive, like their yellow counterparts.

For an average person, there is nothing like the economy- only a set of commodities, services or products, sold to him by other services, like advertising, retailing etc. and some of these he ends up buying. And we teach people how to do these things.

So what do econo'mists' do? They create the mists that others try to peer through, and don't succeed. So their profession can thrive.

Naming Rating Agencies

There's a serious problem we have on hand. No, it's not the European meltdown (sounds like a chocolate sauce, does it?), or the American Presidential election of Obama versus Romney, (though this one has the potential to be included in our discussion), or even our own (Presidential election).

We have a REAL problem- and that is, to find out who named the rating agencies who go around rating everything from financial instruments, to countries, and now it seems, even educational institutions. The guys who did it need to be institutionalised- seriously!

I mean, Standard and Poor? What kind of a name is that? If the goal is financial inclusion, either they should rate everybody as 'poor' or everyone as rich, with nothing in between. But couldn't they have found a better name?

Fitch is another one that sounds suspiciously like another word that rhymes with it and is much more popular, particularly in cat-fights. Cats don't talk, except in Murakami novels, so I am referring figuratively to our own species.

Moody's though, is the ultimate among the naming goof-ups. I mean, we are talking serious stuff like a country and its people's future here. Or at least a financial instrument. How the hell can anyone trust a rating from someone who is moody? Your rating would then be expected to yo-yo, based on the mood-swings of these esteemed personalities manning the agency.

God, please give them sense enough to rename themselves. If we can rename our files at will, why can't they? A brand consultant could make millions doing the job, and create a few to save the crashing economies, in the process!

India, Tests and the World

There was a news item about Indian students doing badly in some test of Maths and Science in a world competition recently. We are not doing so well in the Tests of cricket right now too.

We often crib about India lagging behind on economic indicators. Could be true to an extent, we can do better on some of them. But those of us that have lived abroad for a length of time, say 4-5 years, probably realise that it is nice to live in India. In many advanced countries, loneliness and boredom is a bigger issue than anything else. Public transport like a bus or an auto is not easy to get, or is exorbitant.

On an average, people in a western, advanced nation are indebted and/or addicted to buying stuff they don't need, more than Indians. This is not statistical, but based on observation and experience. Happiness in general is not correlated to GDP, as an excellent book by some author whose name I have forgotten, told the readers. Bhutan even has a Gross Happiness Index that measures how its citizens feel.

So what could make us happy? That old ad of Thums up just about sums it up. Food, friends and Thums Up. You could actually skip the Thums Up, and maybe substitute it with a drink of your choice that you can afford- water too. Maybe I would add books and films, and in deference to today's world, an internet connection. And you don't need to be a zillionaire to have access to all these.