[extreme_torque]

Post deleted by the Team-BHP Support: Please do NOT post in a rude manner on Team-BHP. It's most important to be civil, polite & respectful, even in debate. Thanks for the support & understanding

[Fuldagap]

That's why it is said, auto enthusiasts are one of the most level headed people in the society. The discussion in this thread is an epitome example. I cannot but mesmerise at some of the arguments put in this thread regarding the topic as well as while countering somebody else's. When I see the likes of Lincoln and Gandhian views being cited here, my faith just gets emboldened in the society that we live in. 'The greater good' is a time tested example of how some people are always vulnerable, no matter the time in history, to experiencing 'pain' in the name of it. Having lived in different parts of the country and a witness to such portions of society where a 1 Re hike in expenses sends an individual's cranium to doldrums, one can only imagine what this hike would do to such people and the already shattered economy. Anyways, it was fantastic reading all the comments on this thread, it is in a long time that I've finished reading a whole thread in one go.

My two cents: People might know the difference between nationalism and patriotism but even then only a very few actually understand it. It is not hard to fathom that without putting a lot of concerted efforts to ones brain, which very few do, not much could be understood about where the current economy and vision of the country is headed. Having a certain educational degree doesn't mean the guy actually knows what he is talking about. Learning is a long and never ending process, even with fancy education or not. Fuel price changes affect the core of the economy for better or worse and have a multiplier effect matched by none other IMHO. There were times in history when even learned ones believed in the Broken Window concept, only to find out much later of it being a fallacy.
People happily competed against each other to kill innocent sparrows in China when Mao proclaimed sparrows of being capitalist in nature. The rhetorical phenomenon wiped out the entire sparrow population in China then and upturned the ecosystem to the point that China faced unimaginable hunger. A seemingly trivial belief of Chinese people in the idea propagated by the supreme leader and the results were disastrous. Same is sometimes the case in our country, people try to anyhow justify any wrong step by the govt and to try to base arguments on the premise of external threats and military and what not while some also take a back seat and say, if the govt has done so, they must have already thought very hard. Cheers!

[wildsdi5530]

Originally Posted by ramzsys

The top 10-20% here and elsewhere who root for cheaper fuel: are they prepared for the swarms of locusts (100cc bikes) and other big pests(160, 200cc+) surrounding their cars everywhere they go? Besides the air pollution and a surging import bill.

Again anyone who owns a 2-wheeler or a mobile phone is technically rich. If I remember correctly, BPL refers to those who make less than Rs 25/- in rural and Rs. 43/- in urban areas. Thus this fuel price hike is affecting only the relatively rich people.

Originally Posted by Stribog

Let's look at overall data from the last census

20% of our population walks to work daily

13% of our population takes a cycle

Combined 33% don't have any need for fossil fuels and these are our poorest sections

30% though report no commute needed (maybe they work out of the same Farm or office?)

Essentially a fuel price rise, esp on Petrol barely even touched 66% of our population.

Now those who do take motor vehicles,

13% two wheelers

2.7% personal cars / cabs

Exactly my point. Personal transport will account for <5% of fuel consumed in our country. Only these <5% need to pay this additional tax. This is similar to income tax which is paid by ~3% of the population. So it's not a direct burden.
Coming to the indirect burden, Transport costs less than 10% of the cost for retail goods and <2% for wholesale goods. Thus a 10% hike in fuel will barely increase the costs by 0.2%.

The only persons affected in this indiscriminate raise of fuel prices are the non voting middle class minority. They feel insulated from any war - medical or physical. And no one is really going to hear their voice.

PS I've seen BPL card holders driving in Jaguars and other fancy cars, but am yet to meet anyone who lives on Rs. 25/43/- per day. So Sometimes I wonder where these poor really are?

[jassi_jeeper]

Good to see fortuner fuel( diesel ) more expensive than a poor man's hero honda splendour fuel ( petrol ). Makes sense.

[NiInJa]

Looks like a case of desperate times, desperate measures. I can only imagine how bad tax collections must be at this point that government has to keep petrol prices around 80 Rs during bad times.

To be honest, anyone who thought that petrol prices would come down drastically even if crude became dirt cheap - Covid or not- is grossly mistaken. No state government would do that irrespective of what they say in their manifesto. Our late FM Mr. Arun Jaitley had explained it very nicely once.

[wildsdi5530]

Originally Posted by Stribog

2) does India need more MP's - your feelings aside, data suggests we need a 1,000 MP's at a minimum for effective governance

I'm not sure about number of MPs. But when it comes to doctors, we have an overabundance. The recommendation is 1:1000 in plains and 1:3000 in hilly areas. IE 1000 doctors per 1 Lakh population. We are currently at ~1200 doctors per 1 Lakh population which is way more than most developed countries in the world. But there is a severe lack of Infrastructure. In Bangalore, there has been no new govt hospital built post independence. Yes, small PHCs have been erected, but with no facilities. What I mean to emphasize is that just having 1000 MPs will not improve the situation. They need an entire ecosystem to run the whole thing. This COVID pandemic has conclusively proven that just because you have a doctor you cannot provide health care. He is just the leader, not a one-man army. The poor old lady who was found 8 days after dying in the toilet, for which 3 doctors were blamed, could not have been saved even if 1000 doctors were there. What was required was a patient assistant/ ward boy/girl who would help people go to the restroom.

Using all this extra tax mop-up for health infrastructure is fine, but what's going to happen is that more medical colleges are going to be created. Not Hospitals. Because of the increased revenue. Likewise for schools and other public amenities.

A larger parliament double the size of Bruj Kalifa is a wonderful idea. It will be like the second parliament house in Belagavi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvarna_Vidhana_Soudha

The way our taxes are being spent for grandiose ideas is what hurts most people. No one is crying crocodile tears. We just don't understand the principle of collecting money in the name of the poor and then spending it on something that we deem unnecessary.

Getting 1000 MPs will be a great idea considering that each MP will have a convoy. It will definitely pick up the automobile industry, at least the luxury car market. And the additional fuel used will be taxed heavily as well.

[fhdowntheline]

I wonder if the governments are using this opportunity to mop up revenue to compensate for GST income shortfalls in the current pandemic.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by Fuldagap

There were times in history when even learned ones believed in the Broken Window concept, only to find out much later of it being a fallacy.
People happily competed against each other to kill innocent sparrows in China when Mao proclaimed sparrows of being capitalist in nature. The rhetorical phenomenon wiped out the entire sparrow population in China then and upturned the ecosystem to the point that China faced unimaginable hunger.

Please desist from drawing false equivalences. Already we've had egregious instances like fascism being dragged in forcefully when logic failed.

The Broken Window theory and the Sparrow experiment were concepts that needed to be proven through actions and by validating with the results.

Here, it is a straightforward situation. Causation or even correlation is not under question. Percentage of taxes (including excise) have gone up because sales turnover is down. The product of this multiplication is necessary for Governments to function. If they don't function as expected, they'll be roasted by the same people who are complaining about the high taxes on petroleum. In fact poor people will be getting free rations etc. out of these very taxes that are levied on petroleum in these hard times.

So please add value to the discussion by suggesting solid ideas rather than by drawing such invalid equivalences. I'm not being dismissive of you - nor have I used pejoratives to put you down (whereas I've been called sympathetic to fascism for having a valid opinion).

How can our Governments run without tax revenues really? What am I missing?

[rahul4321]

Its very easy these days to open google, randomly search for a quote which looks impressive, feed the quote into the comments box of a discussion and loosely connect it with the discussion at hand in a bid to look or sound educated - or dare i say it, even impressive to the other members on the forum. It is laughable almost, the way certain concepts are drawn into a discussion when they have absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand but the need to input our own 2 cents is so overpowering, we will do so anyway without noticing that there is no value being added to the discussion.

Learning is indeed a long process and we learn each day as we go along. But what I have also learnt is to silent mop up the knowledge that is being spread around by people who know what they are talking about. As someone who is very interested in Aviation, Airplanes, MH370 in particular; what happened to it and how it went missing - I often feel like contributing to the threads discussing airplanes and aviation as I have devoured everything on the internet related to that topic and feel that I have more than a layman's knowledge on these matters.

However, while I have read those threads on this forum in full detail, I have never posted anything there as I clearly realize that I do not have anything to add to the discussion and more importantly - it is neither my field of expertise nor can i even claim to have full working knowledge of the topic at hand.

However, this does not stop me from reading, learning and studying in detail the incredible knowledge that is churned out by many of the experts in aviation on this forum and silently mopping up the nuggets of wisdom that they share with the group.

[Miyata]

When the thread started, I had a feeling it'd be a waste since this topic has been discussed ad infinitum!

I suppose most people might have been alright with this sort of volatility in the fuel prices (and almost no correlation with global crude prices) had the government been more transparent and forthcoming in real developments as experienced by common man (as opposed to just seeing statistical figures with no real impact).

I have/had been in support of this move that increased the fuel prices in the lockdown period.

I suppose, one element people can possibly try and implement on their ends is to see if they can mitigate the effects of this increased fuel prices by may be cutting back some other place; ensuring they don't have too much cash sitting around not earning any returns; trying to get additional income sources (tutions, freelance coding, freelance subject matter experts / content development). I fully understand that it's easier said than done, but thoughts and actions along these lines will at least be productive.

On the part of the government - I do hope they straighten up and ensure there is proper development and beneficiaries meant to receive any help actually do so with no corruption eating away any of the resources.

[romeomidhun]

Originally Posted by rahul4321

Learning is indeed a long process and we learn each day as we go along. But what I have also learnt is to silent mop up the knowledge that is being spread around by people who know what they are talking about.

Exactly. Lack of knowledge and education is the main problem we are facing nowadays. This lack of knowledge is the reason why we are believing what is said and shown in front of us, without doing any study.

In your case, it was the best thing you have done to stay away from the ongoing things till we achieve proper knowledge. If we are not doing that and keep on living in the false heaven that is created around us, there starts all the problems.

How many times the reason for fuel price hike and demonetization changed in front of us! And we believe all. And this was the start of a series of things which led to the current pathetic financial condition of the poor people. As an automobile enthusiast, it was heartening to see the sad state of the industry. Every time we dream of a recovery, there comes the next in line - GST, BS-VI transition, Covid, war, fuel price hike.. Is there any hope in the near future?

[rahul4321]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

Exactly. Lack of knowledge and education is the main problem we are facing nowadays. This lack of knowledge is the reason why we are believing what is said and shown in front of us, without doing any study.

I may be reading this wrong but are you trying to insinuitate that I did not study and do my due-diligence before putting forward my comments? If that is not your intention -please ignore the rest of my post.

However, If that was indeed your intention, please provide me with clear substantive irrevocable proof which evidences without a doubt that I did not study and do my due-diligence. I have opposed Government Policies of Economics as well as Economic Reforms when they did not match with the conclusions of my due diligence and have fully supported them when they have.

Please refrain from jumping to conclusions or assume things about me when you have no idea of the steps that I have taken to frame and support the basis and framework of my conclusions. I have been very respectful in my dealings with the wider group and expect the same level of decency from everybody in this forum and will not tolerate personal remarks directed at me from anybody on this forum (not taking any names here)

I also do not wish to be dragged into a debate centering demonetization because I do agree that it wasnt very well thought out because the results did not match the expectations. We are on the same side on that topic - however what I will say to your question is that there is no hope of recovery in the near future until the following problems are suitably addressed and taken care of.

(a) High Population (Resources are too thinly spread out amongst the population and are driving up prices of essentials and real estate to unhealthy levels)
(b) Corruption (All that money out of the country residing God-knows-where)
(c) Government Policies / Government Projects which are made by a Government in Power and rescinded the moment the next Government of a different party comes into Power which results into Sunk Costs / Blocked Costs on which we are often paying interest (I dont want to name anything specific but everybody has an idea of the few big ones that have happened recently)
(d) Lack of a basic Standard Education for everybody (minimum 10th Grade)
(e) Petty Politics which incurs huge costs and blocks projects from ever getting off the ground (I dont want to name anything specific but everybody has an idea of the few big ones that have happened recently)

As long as we live in our "Chalta hai" attitude, we will not progress as a nation.

[ABHI_1512]

With no disrespect to any member, after revisiting this thread once again, I suppose price hike for petroleum is necessary since we are fighting a pandemic as well as an enemy country which has entered into our territory and is trying to attack us from our land and we have to defend that. Money has to come from somewhere and hence the fuel price hike is justified.

At one point of time I remember, an increase of even a 50 paise for diesel amounted to massive protests. In fact, I used to think how can a car user who owns a car of 50 lacs and a farmer owning a tractor would pay the same price for a liter of diesel !! Or that only private car owners and two wheeler riders pay for petrol and the entire commercial sector runs on diesel and it would pinch the lower and middle class hard. But then I suppose things have changed now, so much so that all these now don’t matter at all.

We are doing everything for the country these days. Even the drunkards also feel they are contributing to the economy and supporting our armed forces by paying for higher prices. Liquor and fuel have been kept out of GST and this is like making full use of it by the authorities. You see, low hanging fruits are easy to pluck and middle class and lower class be damned. As a guy who knows little about finance, I feel proud !!

[romeomidhun]

Originally Posted by rahul4321

I may be reading this wrong but are you trying to insinuitate that I did not study and do my due-diligence before putting forward my comments? If that is not your intention -please ignore the rest of my post.

I was referring to your aeroplane discussion and MH370 incidence which you also agreed. Nothing more. Sorry if you felt otherwise.

[rahul4321]

Originally Posted by romeomidhun

I was referring to your aeroplane discussion and MH370 incidence which you also agreed. Nothing more. Sorry if you felt otherwise.

No need to apologize - Thank you for clarifying.