On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Deepak Shenoy <[email protected]> wrote:
[...] >> # Mukesh Ambani with a known personal wealth of $22.6 Billion could >> run the NREGA for 3-4 years on savings >> - i.e. he has 2-3 times more money than 42 million Indian households >> put together earn in a year. > > I'm not sure how this matters, but more power to him, and more power > to make people earn more money and pay taxes. We need more > billionaires not less. Umm... ok, wow I guess? Sorry, no offense meant, but your mindset is so radically different to mine. >> Even if one believes that merely adding $5 Billion to the rural >> economy can cause a 13% jump in food inflation, which I don't then it >> is a scathing criticism of the income inequalities in India - the >> money is going directly towards food - these are people who are >> otherwise starving. > > I think we'll find it's the other way - people continue to starve, teh > marginal guy gets some extra money which he ends up paying extra for > food so he hardly benefits. Either ways it's not the $8 billion (not > $5B) that causes food inflation, it's how it's done. The world is going through a food crisis, heck, the Arab spring is being attributed to it, and you blame the NREGA for the high prices? Your single cause inflation theory isn't the truth - it is far more complicated than that. Food inflation has been caused by numerous reasons: http://www.ft.com/foodprices has a bucket load of causes listed. - Broken markets - speculation and commodity trading made wrong bets { Financial speculators responsible for rising global food prices, claims report Influence of financial players on agricultural commodity markets blamed for global food price inflation and hunger http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/13/financial-speculators-spiralling-food-prices } { Broken markets - How financial market regulation can help prevent another global food crisis http://www.wdm.org.uk/sites/default/files/Broken-markets.pdf } - idiotic agri-policies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_vs._fuel { UK food policy blamed for global hunger Modern technology push seen as harmful http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/790ba3a8-f822-11e0-8e7e-00144feab49a.html#axzz1n8GwF3iu http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/17367-government-food-policy-fuels-hunger } UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation are giving the global food market ‘critical’ status Indian sugar cos. are hoarding sugar http://video.ft.com/v/679555154001/What-s-driving-food-prices- >> I don't see any mention in the constitution of a duty to create more >> Billionaires, or luxury car owners. > > There is no such "duty" - like there is no duty in the constitution to > provide air for you to breathe. But it happens. Billionaires should happen like air? That is... interesting. Again, sorry, not going to attempt to bridge philosophical differences - too deep, too wide. >> If there aren't enough laborers in the villages during harvest season >> that is truly good, NREGA is pushing up the local wages, and helping >> the poor to fight established brokers and middle men who keep wages >> low and exploitative. > > In the context of inflation it's bad. It may be a better in the short > term, but we create a bad bad long term hazard. You increase wages > through proper competition, like Ford who paid his labourers more and > got his productivity. The short term impact of NREGA is higher local > wages, but teh important part is: higher local wages because the > competition is, largely, earning money for no work. The very rich do > that, now the very poor do it, and us middle class fellows get shafted > for it. Douglas Coupland has a word for it: Blank-collar workers: "Formerly middle-class workers who will never be middle class again and who will never come to terms with that." [...] > NREGA needs quite as much to go as our banking system needs fixing. > Both have become necessary evils politically now. Though if you asked > me I would privatize all public sector banks and cut off government > lifelines first. Oh look, America did that and see how responsibly the banks acted. Indian private banks, like ICICI send goons home to break your knees when you miss credit card payments - you want to aspire to that ideal? >>> Some of the aspects I've mentioned have generalizations because that's >>> what it is - the long term effect of NREGA can only be known in the >>> long term, and no amount of "data" will satisfy an observer. >> >> Again, I point to Article 47 - India has a duty to do this. > > Disagree that Article 47 says NREGA is the duty; of course NREGA is > constitutionally ok, but the duty lies in creating sustainable long > term solutions, and NREGA is not either. I would much rather see the > land reform, the power and road connectivity, the ability for those > that NREGA supposedly benefits to actually become entrepreneurs, and > create employment as a side effect of their growth rather than > anything else. I don't have a problem with this - make it possible to take away the crutch one day, but don't deny the crutch while the healing is still happening.
