[Cessna182]

Originally Posted by poloman

I wonder some of esteemed forum members are veering in that path



The problem currently we have is a little peculiar. There is no dearth of demand in the basic sectors. There is enough supply as well.

Please read the annual reports of the companies in sectors like FMCG for the recent quarters before sharing wrong information. Demand has reduced substantially and this is being felt especially by SMEs. Small factories making chips, namkeen, processed vegetable etc are a huge contributor to jobs and have mostly shut down due to low demand.

I again request members not to share fake or unsubstantiated information, and also not to declare any "inconvenient fact" as a "political opinion". Thanks.

[iamwhatiam]

Originally Posted by ZenMaster

Things I have understood from the discussions in the thread...

Kudos to you for an excellent summary of the situation and the discussion.

Notwithstanding our political affiliations and biases, there is no doubt we are facing a substantial challenge as a country; quite likely the biggest we have faced ever, quite likely one of the biggest faced by any country due to COVID.

Another poster above mentioned the concept of velocity of money, and I think it's important to note the importance of this concept. It doesn't matter how many assets people have unless they're willing to spend it. Unfortunately, regardless of the intentions of the govt., each of the recent moves (demonetization, GST, COVID lockdowns) have successively reduced the velocity, hence the situation we are in today.

Increasing the velocity of money is what will get the economy moving again, and I hope the government does what it can to enable it. Otherwise we are in for dire times.

Originally Posted by superbad

The biggest reason for the mess we're currently in (aside from Covid) is our high population... At the risk of sounding callous, I'll say that people who already have a hand-to-mouth existence should've better sense than to give birth to a large family & when their livelihood is robbed, blame it on the government for inadequate support...

Your point comes from the privilege of prosperity, education and reason, that a lot of us also have. I suggest reading literature that explains why the poor and uneducated have more children before making assumptions and blaming an entire mass of the underprivileged. Otherwise, yes, you 'risk sounding callous'.

I am happy to have a side-bar if you'd like to discuss this further.

To mods: Apologies for making 2 consecutive posts; I tried to edit my previous one but was unable to.

[avishar]

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

Australia, Japan, New Zealand declared that they are undergoing recession. But we still have not. The Wire, Telegraph, The Hindu keeps publishing some articles on economic and fiscal health, GDP etc. But then they are not considered worthy in front of Republic, Aaj Tak, Times Now.

One cannot declare a recession unless there has been two consecutive quarters of decline. This is true for many other countries but not for India since we grew during January - March 2020. However we will be declaring recession sometime in late October when the Q1 2021 GDP growth comes out (which will be negative surely; -12-15% my prediction).

[stanjohn123]

Originally Posted by dealer

I concur with what you've said. Sadly, I am forced to believe that people like me, yourself and many others on the forum who see a growing problem in the country are in the minority. /

Originally Posted by v1p3r

There is no real solution to any of this unfortunately, because it is the result of systemic rot and years of negligence. We can't fix this with easy sops. However, if anyone has any ideas, I am willing do to what I can to support it.

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Secondly, the governments by now should realise young healthy people, even if they get the virus it is going to be asymptomatic or very mild. Schools and Colleges must start.. Education is a big part of the economy. Give a month to plan and start physical classes from 1-Nov; so families can isolate parents and other vulnerable members to safer locations.

Let all businesses open with reasonable safety restrictions. This is a psychological pandemic of fear, more than a medical pandemic, and it has to be treated as such.

Originally Posted by iamwhatiam

Increasing the velocity of money is what will get the economy moving again, and I hope the government does what it can to enable it. Otherwise we are in for dire times.

I honestly feel the people who debate and think like us on the forum are in absolute minority in the country. I am sure most of us are trying our best to contribute and help our society any which way possible.

The problem is clear and fault lies with both the people and government alike. On one side you see people still walking carelessly without masks outside and on the other hand you see an irresponsible govt which has a wrong set of priorities.

This government did take 1.76 lakh crores from RBI much earlier than when the pandemic arose, due to shortfalls. Like many have pointed out, the economic downturn in rural areas started much earlier with demonetization and GST, but due to the shadow economy they somehow survived, now it has got much worse with the pandemic though but with them this time even cities are struggling. The hue and cry you hear now is because of loss to white color jobs too, since most of them can voice their concerns on social media.

This govt does not have data on anything, no data on deaths of migrant workers, no data on deaths of medical staffs, no informal sector employment data, a bit ironic when the same govt wanted it's citizens to prove their citizenship with 70 year old documents. I digress sorry.

Anyways the biggest scam here is PM cares fund which can not be RTIed , neither audited by CAG for reasons unknown. That money itself handed out to our people would have been more than enough to get the economy running again. As far as I know, TN govt just gave a pitiful 1000 bucks for one month and that's it.

Many of you were asking for a solution to this problem. The solution is , convince the govt to handout 5,000 Rs per month to every family in India, be it lower, middle or upper class people. The govt just needs to redirect it's fund from other welfare schemes to this basic income scheme.

With money in peoples hand, the economy will jump start as per Keynesians theory as it will spur spending.

I am working with a small group of people to promote this basic income to let our govt hear and implement this. We have a national campaign on 25th. Anyone who wants to know more about this campaign can read it here https://basicincomeindia.in/economics/.

We know that the government lacks sight and probably has no clue what to do, but Instead of just blaming them, lets show them the right way as well.

[avishar]

Originally Posted by Cessna182

Please read the annual reports of the companies in sectors like FMCG for the recent quarters before sharing wrong information. Demand has reduced substantially and this is being felt especially by SMEs. Small factories making chips, namkeen, processed vegetable etc are a huge contributor to jobs and have mostly shut down due to low demand.

I again request members not to share fake or unsubstantiated information, and also not to declare any "inconvenient fact" as a "political opinion". Thanks.

That person is not entirely wrong. It has been a pretty good quarter for FMCG companies overall, considering the situation.

Infact this quarter (April - June 2020) has been one of the most profitable quarters for some of the big FMCG players in the country.


Here's a quick overview of Q1 2021 (April - June 2020) results. You will notice that the growth or degrowth is between 10% or flat or -10%. However, almost all of them seem have better managed their costs and has not only been profitable, but has shown pretty decent profit growth.


Read the table as Revenue for the quarter and growth percentages as Year-on-Year.




Source: https://trendlyne.com/dashboard/resu...sector/7/fmcg/

Couple of reasons could be that with the population staying indoors for an extended period of time, the demand for daily household necessities had increased. Demand for home cooking had also increased a lot since you are not eating elsewhere. Atleast it had increased to a point where lockdown related production losses where made up by higher growth in June.

[satyamkolhe]

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

The major difference is in the utilization of fund.
The PMNRF is primarily used for natural disasters like floods, cyclones, earthquakes etc. Whereas PMCares is specifically constituted for expenditure related to Wuhan/Covid virus.

The PMNRF managing committee includes the President of the Congress party specifically and the PM has the sole discretion in the management of the fund. In 1985 the then PM also appointed a 'secretary of the fund' who has the authority to operate the bank accounts of the fund on his behalf.

IIRC the PMNRF still functions without a trust deed, essentially it gives unlimited powers to the PM with Zero accountability.

In PMCares there is also a provision to set up an advisory board of not more than 10 persons — selected by the trustees from among the medical practitioners, healthcare professionals, academicians, economists and lawyers.
The responsibility of the trustees in PM-CARES has been defined, unlike in the Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF). The latter has no provision of an advisory board.

Maybe all the points you say are true. But what I dont understand is why was PMCARES kept out of the RTI. Why can not they just release all the details of the spending done through PMCARES. Because as far as I remember, PMNRF could easily have been used in this disaster and it could have been audited to make sure that it is being spent in a way which is good for people. If they are really spending from PMCARES they why can't they just release the details and get it audited. I want to know where did MY MONEY go after I trusted the government and donated to them instead of all the local NGOs whose work I can really see happening on the ground.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

China has so much hold over even US social media companies that they routinely censor any anti-China claims.



Source

So is Dr. Fauci also paid by China?
https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...nspiracy-theo/

This theory of "Looks like human fingerprint" has been debunked by Virologists all over the globe.

Unless all leading virologists are in pocket of china, well then we have bigger problems than COVID 19.

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, (the scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told National Geographic in May.

Except for a 6 minute rant on Fox news, the "whistleblower" has not offered any evidence except that "to her it looks like human fingerprint".

And if you follow the money, the "research" is backed by organizations linked to steve bannon.

Was this virus created in a lab? Well lets see peer reviewed research. Its not like the Genome is a secret. A genealogy or even pharmacology major in any country can sequence it and see it for themselves. They do not have to take permission from anybody. Just get it from any infected person.

[kiku007]

I would like to share the below story to bring down the tension in this thread.

Link: https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...20no%20clothes

The emperor has no clothes
Used to express when many people believe something that is not true. Used also to express something as untrue. See also the expression "the Emperor's new clothes".

Based on Sufi wisdom, Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale in his "The Emperor's New Clothes", the story this expression derives from. In it. there existed an emperor who loved wearing fine clothes and spent all of his people's money on them. He had a different set for each hour and was, without doubt, the finest dressed man in the land.

One day, two swindlers claiming to be weavers entered the emperor's city and proclaimed they were capable of making the finest, lightest, most magnificent cloth the world has ever seen. So extraordinary was this cloth, it was invisible to anyone who was incompetent or stupid.

Hearing of the weaver's amazing "talent", the foolish emperor thought he could use such cloth to weed out undesirables in his city. He paid the swindlers an enormous sum & they set out to "create" the clothes; knowing they would only need go through the motions.

The Emperor sent several advisors to guage their progress and all the advisors reported the cloth magnificent, not wanting to appear unworthy for seeing nothing at all; the cloth didn't exist!

Finally the clothes were "finished", the swindlers already having counted the gold and jewels they had received. A procession was arranged to show off the emperor's new clothes and the entire city gathered in the center to view them. Having been "dressed" by the swinglers, who remarked how wonderful he looked, and how light the cloth appeared on him, he appeared before his people.

The people, having heard of the weaver's abilities and the cloth's fictitious properties, were amazed and offered thunderous applause to the now beaming Emperor. None of them were willing to admit that they hadn't seen a thing; for if anyone did, then he was either stupid or unfit for the job he held. Never before had the emperor's clothes been such a success.

While expressing admiration at their emperor's new "invisible" clothes, a small boy cried out... "But the Emperor has no clothes!".

------------------

Let's try to keep our conversations civil and polite. If some people think that the Indian Government has done everything it can possibly do then, I have only one thing to say. It's not good enough for some others and you don't have to accept that.

[COMMUTER]

The Goverment must reduce the insane taxation in fuels to goad growth in manufacturing and exports for us to stop championing the unemployment record, instead of trying to 'develop' by grabbing more money from the honest taxpayers(salaried middle-class).

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

Can anyone tell me here if the railway coaches which were turned to Covid wards were used even once across the country ?? Try knowing the amount of money spent on turning coaches into Covid wards and even without using once, those same coaches have been turned back to normal train coaches again. But yes, so what if whopping amount of money wasted, intention was right I guess !!

I've always said that this disease is an evolving disease and we still don't know many details about it. Everyday new complications are being noticed. Post COVID sequelae is claiming lives. So as far as preparations are concerned, no one knew what was needed to be done. In that respect, the government gets a breather as everyone was equally clueless. Our health setup has never been great to speak about. Lockdown did help in some ways, can't say it was wrong. But people need to understand the correct usage of mask. Similarly, train coaches were used to act as buffer. Our city had a 22 coach train put up for use in exigencies but it wasn't used as the patients were managed at hospitals and home isolation. So we cannot put blame squarely at one place.


Link 1 Coaches being used at Mau station.

Link 2 This states that the coaches were meant to be used once the state health setup was full with no available beds. Thankfully, it didn't happen.

[AirbusCapt]

What would happen if there was no lockdown? Forget about increase in number of cases, we cant stop infection via lockdowns, only delay the inevitable. Could it be that the lockdown prevented "X" number of deaths? The government claims a bombastic 87000 deaths prevented through their "timely" lockdown, this even if true is at what cost? A -24% degrowth in the economy? Do we really want to save the co-morbid at the cost of millions losing their livelihood and millions more facing a 40% salary cut?
Now that the deed is done, what has the government done to help the people who lost their jobs? Simply say we don't have data. How convenient!! That means they agree they put down a half assed lockdown without an iota of data analysis, simply at the whims of one pompous orator? These are the questions we need answered from the government.

[veyron_head]

If the number of posts on my LinkedIn feed everyday by people who lost their jobs and asking for help is any indication, I do think we are heading towards an unprecedented disaster. Some roles in the corporate sector like recruiters are most affected and so are people whose jobs can be replaced by a junior person with half the experience and hence half the salary. Seeing these posts is rather disheartening and in a way frightening that I could be next in line.

[superbad]

Originally Posted by puntOOs

Sorry but I disagree. World over several countries (India included) have proven that investing in health and education especially for the girl child will lead to lower fertility rates in a few years. People start to treat children as an investment rather than income source once they cross a threshold of health/education levels. They have fewer children and give them more resources to develop themselves.

If you are against direct transfers to poor people, that's fine but there are policy changes that only a Govt can make that will directly lead to lower fertility rates. Please check out India's spending on these 2 critical headers over the last few years.

The Govt exists to solve problems that an individual or small group of individuals cannot solve. Poverty is one such problem. If they aren't solving such problems, why have a Govt.?

No one's stopping the kids in the family from going to a government school with zero fees, mid day meal scheme & free books. Nor anyone's stopping them from getting healthcare at a government hospital. But the motivation & will to do so has to come from the family, not the government.
Anyway, I think that's off topic. Point I'm trying to make is no government in the world has had a perfect response to Covid, in fact among the worst affected countries are the European elites & USA, the most developed countries in the world, with a fraction of our population & multiples of our per capita income.

[puntOOs]

Originally Posted by superbad

No one's stopping the kids in the family from going to a government school with zero fees, mid day meal scheme & free books. Nor anyone's stopping them from getting healthcare at a government hospital. But the motivation & will to do so has to come from the family, not the government.

Agree on the motivation bit. But the respective Govts. need to be responsible for the quality. In my view the level of investment and the processes to ensure accountability aren't adequate to do a good enough job to make the difference.

The fact that any family which is just about able to eke out fees for private schools/hospitals switch immediately from Govt options shows the quality issues.

Originally Posted by poloman

These arguments can go on till eternity. I hate politics sneaking in on this forum. Already we have so much hatred and divisions in the real world. Don't want that to happen on this forum.
So excusing myself.

You bring up very good points on the difficulty of a stimulus right now.

I think if we can focus on merits of the points while being respectful toward each other and any 3rd parties we speak about, we can have good discussions even when we may disagree. It would be nice to have such discussions. It may be my nostalgia speaking but I think this is how politics (or anything for that matter!) was discussed pre-Social Media.

Mod Note : Please use the EDIT or QUOTE+ (multi-quote) button instead of typing one post after another on the SAME THREAD!

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Malyaj

In March this year I permanently shut down my restaurant but I am still in touch with my former staff because I am trying to help them get a job through my social media network.

I am very sorry to hear this. I admire your efforts and intent in securing employment for your colleagues. Rare is the person who makes such an effort in such times.

Originally Posted by su1978

First of all, the situation is going from bad to worse due to the environment that has been created by the so called entrepreneurs. I have many such people living in my society who earned millions every month all these years. They could not sustain the salary which was hardly 20% of their profits for these workers. Instead, they chose to drive them away.

Just out of curiosity, how can you afford to live with these despicable capitalistic entrepreneurial maggots?

Originally Posted by su1978

Secondly, coming to the working class, i would again say that not everything is so bad as is being portrayed by most of the members on the forum. As an active jobseeker, i am seeing many vacancies from good companies like reliance/canon/panasonic/suzuki/maruti to name a few, being posted on websites like naukri.com.

Ah, Reliance. That good company run by a humble entrepreneur who doesn't throw parties, doesn't have a fancy house, and has no fancy cars either.

Originally Posted by su1978

Hope we remember the award waapsi gang and other scandals which come up everytime there is an election.

Originally Posted by poloman

Team BHP is the new twitter. Either the forum is full of bleeding heart liberals or other side is quite silent.

So either people are good and silent or they are 'bleeding heart liberals', which seems to be some form of insult?

Originally Posted by ashish.uno

Only socialists and freeloaders have chronic hatred for entreprenuers. I have nothing but respect for them, their perseverance, commitment and contribution to society.

So, in your opinion, which one is our friend su1978?