[deerhunter]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Remonetization is an example of political will, isn't it? (same is GST).

Plus the govt will most likely lose political capital too if it tries hard measures to every extent possible. Common people suffered in this remonetization exercise and will suffer in any follow up plan as well.

It requires even less political will to actually go after evaders using law enforcement. Then why not do it? How will common people suffer if the law enforcement tries to catch evaders?

I was a supporter of demonetisation in the beginning. But looking at the way in which they are changing the targets and deadlines, it looks as if they have some vested interests.

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Regarding probability of not knowing in 50 days about the policy, well if someone is managing to live in complete oblivion, cut out from the everyday life, he/she probably don't need (or don't have) 500/1000 rupee notes with them. Else, RBI still accepting old currency.

If you are living in one of those remote villages, in Odisha for example, you will understand what I mean. People travel outside of that village maybe once every few months. They are not recluse, but the whole village might not have known about demonetisation. Just because they are too miniscule compared to the total population of India, doesnt mean that we can totally ignore such people.

Also, I thought RBI is accepting money only from NRIs, that too only at the main RBI centers and not at regional centers. I maybe wrong. But if true, imagine a tribal who has 4000 rs travelling to Mumbai to exchange it.

Originally Posted by sachinpk

Yes, "helpless" people but all of them had lacks of rupees in Rs.500 & Rs.1000 notes. And they could not exchange it, because no one told them. In such a village which you mentioned there economy would never be based on high denomination notes. I don't think India has such a backward place where even after 50 days people have not realised that some type of notes are invalid. The Kerala lady's problem was that she was a recluse who just stayed inside her home and only went outside bare minimum. These are exception rather than the norms.

In India, even if the number of people not aware of demonetisation is 10000, you can still say it is an exception and not the norm, because population is huge. Also just because that Kerala lady had 4 lakhs, doesnt mean every person unaware of demonetisation has lakhs. For the poorest even 4000 will be 2 months worth of food. All the members in t-bhp are well off than most Indians. That is why it is unbelievable for many of us to even think about not knowing demonetisation for 50 days.

Originally Posted by perty

Certainly, but what's the scale of the problem that will be caused ? A few people dead or deprived of livelihood. How many such people is an 'acceptable' number ? 10 ? 100 ? 10000 ? (even if 10,000 lose their lives or livelihood it's just 0.001 % of the population, so maybe its not such a big deal after all ?)

If the laws are lax or poorly implemented or ineffective for whatever reason, then that's the problem which requires fixing. Making every citizen pay at the least or suffer (die?) at the worst for this historic ineffectiveness of law enforcement is pathetic. Right now, it looks like the house has been set on fire to solve the persistent problem of rats.

The intentions behind this might have been laudable, but the implementation has been downright horrendous. The govt seems to expect that we should swallow this in the name of patriotism or forgive all implementation shortcomings under the garb of necessary secrecy.

Wouldn't true patriotism mean that we care for and work towards the welfare of every fellow citizen of this country and ensure that even the weakest of them is not left behind, instead of standing up to forgive and forget everything that the rulers do.

Just as the above story shows, the authorities seem to have swooped in happily to take away 4 lakh from some poor lady, while not a single politician has been raided or caught in the past 2 months.
Are we then paranoid in assuming that the politicians are corrupt ? Surely, if more than 2 months of demonetization hasn't caught a single politician, then maybe they didn't have any black money after all ?

completely. I want the demonetisation supporters to address this.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by Samurai

And will it be problem free and nobody will be hurt? Until we go down a certain path, it is impossible to predict every possible problem. And there is no problem free solution in this scale of operation.

Most of what i said involves methods which have been tried before with much less disastrous consequences, so the risk could have been minimized significantly. At least i don't recall seeing anybody die because of the previous rounds of demonetization

Originally Posted by sachinpk

For Big Data to work, there should be data in the first place. Cash was used to ensure that no formal record of high volume transactions take place. I buy a piece of land and register it showing Rs. 10 as the sale value. Where as I have purchased it using Rs.100, where Rs.90 was unaccounted money. Data only exists for Rs.10. With that what analysis could be done? The person to whom I paid the unaccounted money would also not deposit it in a bank as there is no incentive/force for him to do so. Now every body's real economic worth is pretty much known.

I believe you missed the part where i said

phased introduction of mandatory cashless alternatives for purchases

Originally Posted by sachinpk

What do you mean by "phased demonetization"?? Inform every one that Rs.500 & Rs.1000 notes would become invalid six months down the line? Well, I am sure that the black money hoarders in India would be some dumb that they would feel that the government is joking and just sit doing nothing. If such a time window is given these Rs. 500 & Rs. 1000 notes would be issued out to all and sundry (or invested in gold or land) and laundered neatly. No Traceability would exist even then

1. Any analytics / traceability tools that the govt is planning to use now for the new notes could have been used for the old notes just as well. There is a question of building a back end and the analytical models. When i say trace ability - i mean to say serial number trace ability. Do note that the cashless for large value purchases (mentioned earlier) would have to be made mandatory.
2. Money has been laundered just as well with this initiative also,

[carwatcher]

Why does the articles mentioned by Liberals etc always have a healthy dose of poor, villager, women, etc. type people's plight. Remember poor school headmaster's son story from Kashmir.
The most number of extremely poor are in Left ruled states where there is almost negligible middle class.
Then we have references of Democracy which is generally not present in most of the political parties which all are run like family business.
Debates on poverty, corruption, agriculture sector, low tax base, loan waiver of poor farmers, black money, etc. are running since time immemorial and will continue till next 100 years, but the best part is that we have become so used to it that we have lost complete hope.

End of Rant.

[bblost]

Originally Posted by carwatcher

The most number of extremely poor are in Left ruled states where there is almost negligible middle class.

Statistics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian...ked_by_poverty

This data is from https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/Publi....aspx?id=15283

The wiki link is sortable, so gave that as well.

[ashokrajagopal]

Originally Posted by deerhunter

In India, even if the number of people not aware of demonetisation is 10000, you can still say it is an exception and not the norm, because population is huge. Also just because that Kerala lady had 4 lakhs, doesnt mean every person unaware of demonetisation has lakhs. For the poorest even 4000 will be 2 months worth of food. All the members in t-bhp are well off than most Indians. That is why it is unbelievable for many of us to even think about not knowing demonetisation for 50 days.

It is hard to believe that for this news of a lonely lady who is cut off from neighbors, the problem No.1 is the number of notes seized from her. How would she have survived if an earthquake announcement was made ? The civil society around her is to be blamed for a condition like this.

[Nav-i-gator]

In cars with no OBD port and no way to extract data, one still have to do partial dismantling of components to get to the root cause. Cash in circulation had no trail, no data to track and find illegal transactions. How are we supposed to catch tax evaders? we can't go on a IT raid rampage without any data or proof of illegal activity.

What I understand, this whole exercise was done with secrecy and little time was given to allow very little leeway in terms of time and ways to convert huge cash hoards into other "hard to catch" assets like gold, real estate etc. Additionally, it demanded all money to be re-routed through banking system, thereby creating a data and a trail that can be tracked and traced.

As for hardships faced by people - I could manage without cash in NCR, but got in ATM line, waited for 1 hour and got the cash to pay my maid and other domestic helps coz I didn't want them to suffer because of me. A lot of people did that. Compare that to businessmen who gave out salaries in old currency notes to employees and hospitals who turned away people and let them die as they didn't have cash. Morality can't be distributed by a Govt.

For all the flaws (or eventual futility) of the exercise, even if 1% of illegal business changes to legal one, even if there is an increase of 1% in no of taxpayers, it would be worth it. Even a small change should be welcomed.

I no longer go to the nearest market from my house now, as no grocery shop owner has installed POS machines and are still dealing in cash only (the vegetable vendor, however, accepts all cards and is having a good business). I don't pay cash anymore (except when I have to change that 2000 rupee note) as far as possible. Pay in cash only to small vegetable vendors, small street food sellers and other poor and small roadside businesses like tailor, hair dresser etc. That is what I can do.

And these poor and small business owners do not curse Govt for the remonetization exercise, the big grocery shop or restaurant owners are cursing Modi all the time. Just an observation.

[carwatcher]

Thanks for the quick enlightenment, kindly mention data about middle class too.

Originally Posted by bblost

Statistics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian...ked_by_poverty

This data is from https://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/Publi....aspx?id=15283

The wiki link is sortable, so gave that as well.

[deerhunter]

Originally Posted by carwatcher

Why does the articles mentioned by Liberals etc always have a healthy dose of poor, villager, women, etc. type people's plight. Remember poor school headmaster's son story from Kashmir.

India's constitution is liberal and if all Indians follow the constitution (atleast part 3), they will be liberal too. Most Indians are poor by global standrads and most Indians are in villages, so no wonder those two are highlighted prominently.

Originally Posted by carwatcher

The most number of extremely poor are in Left ruled states where there is almost negligible middle class.

Not true. I live part of the year in a left ruled state. It has one of the least, if not the least, income disparity in India. Infact poorest 10 states in India has never had left rule.

Also India has negligible middle class, according to Credit Suisse, (Link) so it doesnt matter if someone is in left ruled or not, chances of someone being in the middle class is low. But atleast the state where i live (a left ruled state) has a thriving middle class. Look at the last reported state wise car sale figures and you will know.



I dont know why you club liberal and left-ruling together. A liberal is not always a communist.

[carwatcher]

That's why I didn't mention Left-liberal or Left-leaning liberal.

If everyone believes these kind of sob stories, lives under belief that media is very honest, unbiased and noble.

To be honest the open naked bias the media is showing in India and US really make get me nauseated while mentioning the world Democracy by the same media while they themselves are attacking democracy by not respecting people's mandate.

Originally Posted by deerhunter

India's constitution is liberal and if all Indians follow the constitution (atleast part 3), they will be liberal too. Most Indians are poor by global standrads and most Indians are in villages, so no wonder those two are highlighted prominently.



Not true. I live part of the year in a left ruled state. It has one of the least, if not the least, income disparity in India. Infact poorest 10 states in India has never had left rule.

I dont know why you club liberal and left-ruling together. A liberal is not always a communist.

[deerhunter]

Originally Posted by carwatcher

To be honest the open naked bias the media is showing in India and US really make get me nauseated while mentioning the world Democracy by the same media while they themselves are attacking democracy by not respecting people's mandate.

Media bias works both ways, liberal and non-liberal. Biggest example is Breitbart.

I dont think the media is working against people's mandate in the US. Maybe against constitutional mandate, but not the people's mandate. Trump actually got almost 3 million less votes compared to Clinton, so definitely not people's mandate.

Same here in India. No ruling party (current or past) can take sweeping decisions claiming people's mandate. For eg: In 2014 elections, the total turnout was around 66%. The ruling alliance got 38% of the total votes. That means 62% of the voters voted for others. If you consider total population of India, only 25% voted for the ruling alliance (it is irrelevant because voter turnout was only 66%, but still).

So what I am saying is that they cannot claim peoples's mandate to give legitimacy to all their actions/inactions. What they can instead claim is constitutional mandate. They both are not the same. What the rulers do (both present and past) is to twist this constitutional mandate to make it look as if its people's mandate, and publicise the same.

People's mandate is one of the most commonly misused words.

[carwatcher]

I have come to strongly believe that we have Democracy but with constitutional mandate and not people mandate. Now I must say that actually we have Klyptocracy. I am starting to get why its often said that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing and why the person with too much knowledge can't take strong decisions.
Our previous PM is a glaring example that comes to mind.
I really am beginning to laugh at the way too many smart thinking brains in our country and the net result of that in all these years and way too hard working Americans who made their country one of the most powerful, developed and rich.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by deerhunter

Media bias works both ways, liberal and non-liberal. Biggest example is Breitbart.

I dont think the media is working against people's mandate in the US. Maybe against constitutional mandate, but not the people's mandate. Trump actually got almost 3 million less votes compared to Clinton, so definitely not people's mandate.

Trump won with in the current constitutional framework of USA. So no one can call him illegitimate president. But media there is hell bent on proving this. Look at the way this is being twisted now. Media is out there to prove he won because of Russia hacking DNC. So you are essentially saying people in US are so stupid that they can be influenced by an enemy country. If a person keeps his password "password" even a kid can hack him.
The biggest irony is Trump won by electoral college vote not popular vote. Media had started calling Hillary Madam President one month to election. Pundits predicted there is no realistic route for trump 271, even if he may win popular vote. But what happened after that was truly tragic for the snobbish media. If there is no electoral college system in US mostly California with 12% population will always determine the president of US and that will be always a democrat.

[deerhunter]

Originally Posted by poloman

Trump won with in the current constitutional framework of USA. So no one can call him illegitimate president. But media there is hell bent on proving this. Look at the way this is being twisted now. Media is out there to prove he won because of Russia hacking DNC. So you are essentially saying people in US are so stupid that they can be influenced by an enemy country. If a person keeps his password "password" even a kid can hack him.
The biggest irony is Trump won by electoral college vote not popular vote. Media had started calling Hillary Madam President one month to election. Pundits predicted there is no realistic route for trump 271, even if he may win popular vote. But what happened after that was truly tragic for the snobbish media. If there is no electoral college system in US mostly California with 12% population will always determine the president of US and that will be always a democrat.

Trump definitely won legitimately. No doubt about that. I was only talking about the people's mandate part of it. He can never claim that he has the support of the majority.

Also, have you ever thought about why California will always be with Democrats? Btw, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 2 term governor of California, was a Republican.

[sachinpk]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

When i say trace ability - i mean to say serial number trace ability. Do note that the cashless for large value purchases (mentioned earlier) would have to be made mandatory.

When we do an activity in a phased manner, it is also giving a chance for the trouble makers to know that some thing is going for a change. As I said digitisation is just an off-shoot of this excercise, and not its primary aim. Till a time when Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 are legally valid tender black money hoarders would find a way to distribute it in the society. Remember, an MLA in Kolar dt. was even giving out of Rs. 5 lakh loans to people (in old notes) but with proper agreements. So if he is given a six month time he can distribute all his money in this way and after the demonitisation is complete use the loan agreements to recover the money back.

Money has been laundered just as well with this initiative also,

The volume of money laundered also has to be considered. How much got laundered, and how much could have got laundered in when demonitisation does in a phased manner. Other wise expecting 100% positive results from a scheme may not be the right way.

Originally Posted by deerhunter

I live part of the year in a left ruled state. It has one of the least, if not the least, income disparity in India.

When you say you lived in a left ruled state, it actually narrows down the options to two states (earlier it was three, but after very credible leftist rule one state has decided to keep away from them). Was the income disparity less because of a large amount of money coming from other countries (because a good size of workable youth worked out of that state and country)? Was it more like a "money order" economy? One such state may see some financial crunch. That is because real estate business, high end vehicle purchase etc. were all done using unaccounted money. There were really lot of "poor people" (as per leftist classification, and even as per their BPL ration cards) who were really rich thanks to the unaccounted money they had. And it was these folks who managed to get every thing over priced.

In 2014 elections, the total turnout was around 66%. The ruling alliance got 38% of the total votes. That means 62% of the voters voted for others.

But then why did'nt they win? India for ages have the "first past the post" concept. I mean who gets the absolute winning number alone, wins the elections. And this reasoning of "62% voters voted for others"; I am hearing it for the first time in 2014. And I have been a voter for nearly 20 years now. This reasoning was also put up by a leftist leader to say that the current government does not have popular mandate. In return some one asked about the voting percentage for the leftist parties at the national level. The leftist leader had a very ugly face for some time. Leave alone having popular mandate, they need not even be considered as national level political outfits. One "national" level leftist party has one Lok Sabha MP (from the entire country).

[JLS]

Originally Posted by deerhunter

...
Same here in India. No ruling party (current or past) can take sweeping decisions claiming people's mandate. For eg: In 2014 elections, the total turnout was around 66%. The ruling alliance got 38% of the total votes. That means 62% of the voters voted for others. If you consider total population of India, only 25% voted for the ruling alliance (it is irrelevant because voter turnout was only 66%, but still).
....

People's mandate is one of the most commonly misused words.

I would love to see any single example of an election result in a good size democracy, where in a single party has won with a clear majority, i.e. getting more than 50% of ALL eligible voters.

If there is no such example, or only extremely few cases, it would mean that hardly any democratically elected government has got peoples mandate. And that any government, which had taken a bold step, and caused either miniscule or major difficulties to people - HAD MISUSED the constitutional mandate.

Anyways, I know this argument of peoples mandate v/s constitutional mandate is only used to attack and defame government of different political ideology. This argument never comes out otherwise.