In my previous blog post I referred to this anonymous article seemingly about the issue of illegal immigrants in India, but which also talks about a lot other related and unrelated issues using some comparisons of economic issues
In short that article, apart from other fallacies makes a mince-meat of sound economics.
The economic knowledge of the authors is so bad that I don't know where to start and how to methodically refute the many fallacies in them
Anyway I will still try
"1. We live in a nation where Rice is Rs.40/- per kg and Sim Card is free."
Point No. 1 : Comparing Rice to Sim Card is an 'apples to Oranges' comparison. It can also be called a false comparison. Still only those who don't understand how the commerce of mobile telecom works can make this kind of statement.
The Sim card is not really free. It is bundled with or included in the cost of mobile services. Even if there is no base fee or monthly fee, there are many ways to earn revenue on a mobile service like ringtones, special sms, downloads, games etc.
The domains and sectors of rice and sim card are totally different. Mobile telephony is a new and growing industry while agriculture is mature where most of the benefits of Green Revolution are already taken. Unless we can use bio-tech innovations more and more, there is a limit to which we can lower the cost of producing rice.
We can reform the PDS (Public Distribution System) to provide relief to the poor and make it compete with the open market instead of discrediting it and sabotaging and then blaming it all on socialism and corrupt politics.
When some states provide rice @ Rs. 2.00 per kg, many of us call it populism and wasteful subsidies.
When a Sim Card or a Mobile handset is being provided free, there are hidden subsidies working to make that possible. Only it is more complex and goes by the names of FDI, infrastructure tax breaks etc.
Since private sector is getting those subsidies, the public intellectuals have no problems with that.
They are enraged and cry foul only when subsidies are given to help the cause of the poor, miserable and the common people.
"2. Pizza reaches home faster than Ambulance and Police."
Point No. 2: False comparison again. Pizza is a product and that too a very highly compact and standardized one that can be transported in small or huge lots. It can go on a truck or trailer or even a bike, scooter or smaller vehicle. So it can be delivered in minutes, Ambulance and Police are very specialized services and the types of services are varied. Logistics is more difficult and need more planning here than in case of pizzas or fast food. Medical supplies are much bigger than a 12 inch pizza. So an ambulance cannot negotiate choked roads as easily as a small car or bike delivering pizzas. Other motorists have to make way for an ambulance which they may not do in India, because of its culture and habits. Govt. alone is not to blame for this.
"3. Car loan @ 5% but education loan @ 12%."
Point No. 3: Why the comparison of Car Loan with Student loans? Why not compare cheaper Car Loans with costlier Home Loans (Still 10% +). But that would defeat the case of the article below right?! The reason Car loans are cheaper is because of the very high demand for Cars in India now. Student loan is a relatively new industry in India and there may not be enough loan demand to make lower rates viable. The public sector and Govt. can help students. But that would be socialism which you all hate and are allergic to it. Anyway the point to note is poor knowledge of economics again
"4. Students with 35% get into elite institutions thru quota system and those with 90% get out because of merit."
Point No. 4: There are not many elite institutions in India so far, though that may change quickly. The hint is towards the IIM's and IIT's quota system for the backward classes. Reservation agitation is the result of upper middle-class backlash against mainstream parties. They are unfairly targeting the poor and backward classes instead of pressuring the govt to spend more on primary and basic college education. Do these authors know what percentage of population are these 'great meritorious' 90% when national illetracy and poor education levels are more than 60 to 70%?
One can give a long lecture to stress how external factors, the accident of our birth and favorable economic and social status make the fortunate ones including some of us 'very meritorious' so that people like us can walk with our noses in the air and look down upon the unfortunate, exploited majority and dismiss them as 35 percenters and undeserving.
But I will let that pass for now. I restrict myself for now by just terming this reservation barb as middle-class snobbery.
"5. Where a millionaire can buy a cricket team instead of donating the money to any charity. 2 IPL teams are auctioned at 3300 crores and we are still a poor country where people starve for 2 square meals per day."
Point No. 5: That is typical capitalism for you. What can politicians and govt. do here?!. You can levy high income and wealth taxes on the millionaire. You can also levy special transaction taxes on the outsized auction gains. But that would be socialism again which you all hate and are allergic to it.
Let us ask the Hindu nationalists to read the Bhagavad Gita( Bible cannot be read obviously!!) to those IPL millionaire and see if it melts their hearts and they give away all the gains to charity.
The point to note is unless you know or understand what makes the millionaires so filthy rich and why non-productive activities like IPL auctions are allowed in a system, you are nowhere close to a solution. Blame game is just cheap talk.
6. Where the footwear, we wear, are sold in AC showrooms, but vegetables, that we eat, are sold on the footpath.
Point 6: Poor economics and invalid comparisons again. Comparing organized retail (Footwear stores) with unorganized retail (vegetable hawkers) is like comparing apples to oranges. Hawkers cannot sell vegetables in AC rooms. If they could they would be Food World or Heritage or Food Bazaar. Organized fresh produce retail is slowing replacing/displacing unorganized retail of fresh produce. Authors of that article are again out of touch with newly unfolding events in Indian commerce and retail.
"7. Where everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to follow the path to be famous."
Point 7: Vague and general statement without any definitions or details. Hard to make any sense or meaning out of it.
"8. Assembly complex buildings are getting ready within one year while public transport bridges alone take several years to be completed."
Point 8: Some of it makes sense in that buildings occupied by politicians are built quickly. But then those structures are not resource and capital intensive. Residential buillding also come up very quickly. Because these are all standardized and low technology for most part. Public infrastructure has longer gestation and there are issues with funding of it which gets stuck in political wrangling. Surely here corruption and poor governance are delaying and derailing the projects.
"9. Where we make lemon juices with artificial flavours and dish wash liquids with real lemon."
Point 9: Sounds like a joke and not good enough to make one laugh
"Think about it!
If you cross the The North Korean border illegally, you get . . .12 years hard labour in an isolated prison ....."
The 'Think about para' are mostly examples from dictatorships and repressive regimes who deal brutally with illegal immigrants. Indian forces are doing that to some extent on the Kashmir border. So the complaint of the Hindu nationalists is that Indian security is not being so brutal and inhuman on the Bangladesh border. Casual and wild statements are made by those who don't want to understand how complex and difficult the issue of illegal immigration is. Soverign democracies have dilemmas resolving this and it is not always an open-and-shut case of law and order or border security. Human rights activists may not always be right. But then are we always right?. And nobody seems to care that Indian Govt. does not have a formal Immigration policy.
Now ....
if you were to cross the Indian border illegally, you get .....
This para from the article
is short on facts and proper statistics and long on exaggeration. What
are the numbers of illegal immigrants getting all of the 1 thru 16
privileges?.
The blanket accusation of these immigrants as enemies of the state or threat to Indian security seems very unjust and far-fetched. More balanced information on this subject can be tried at wiki link on illegal Indian immigration.
Points A thru F are nothing new, but very uncivil and abusive accusations. I completely fail to get what has pseudo secularism got to do with many of these problems. And then almost everybody is blamed for this. Looks like Hindu nationalists are the only blameless heroes and to earn this coveted title one has to just keep screaming 'Bharath!!' 'Hindu Rashtra!!', "Pseudo-secularism!!' and blame everybody else, even if one has no clue of how economics or society or govt works or how political and issues are to be deliberated or solution negotiated and how activism is to be preached and practiced.
At times it is very frustrating to be responding to this kind of emails and refute and condemn parts or mostly the whole of it. But the kind of perverse reactionary zeal of these communications is very overwhelming and disturbing and the ignorance and insensitivity of the authors and their intellectual confusions is really appalling.
Last but not least, it represents some of the lowest denominators of public intellectualism
I don't know how long we will have to carry out the task of refuting and protesting this kind of senseless bigotry that is so cheap and abundant on the Internet. Passing the parcel of this misguided activism is very easy. Refuting it and making people see the wrongheadedness of it all is more difficult.
In short that article, apart from other fallacies makes a mince-meat of sound economics.
The economic knowledge of the authors is so bad that I don't know where to start and how to methodically refute the many fallacies in them
Anyway I will still try
"1. We live in a nation where Rice is Rs.40/- per kg and Sim Card is free."
Point No. 1 : Comparing Rice to Sim Card is an 'apples to Oranges' comparison. It can also be called a false comparison. Still only those who don't understand how the commerce of mobile telecom works can make this kind of statement.
The Sim card is not really free. It is bundled with or included in the cost of mobile services. Even if there is no base fee or monthly fee, there are many ways to earn revenue on a mobile service like ringtones, special sms, downloads, games etc.
The domains and sectors of rice and sim card are totally different. Mobile telephony is a new and growing industry while agriculture is mature where most of the benefits of Green Revolution are already taken. Unless we can use bio-tech innovations more and more, there is a limit to which we can lower the cost of producing rice.
We can reform the PDS (Public Distribution System) to provide relief to the poor and make it compete with the open market instead of discrediting it and sabotaging and then blaming it all on socialism and corrupt politics.
When some states provide rice @ Rs. 2.00 per kg, many of us call it populism and wasteful subsidies.
When a Sim Card or a Mobile handset is being provided free, there are hidden subsidies working to make that possible. Only it is more complex and goes by the names of FDI, infrastructure tax breaks etc.
Since private sector is getting those subsidies, the public intellectuals have no problems with that.
They are enraged and cry foul only when subsidies are given to help the cause of the poor, miserable and the common people.
"2. Pizza reaches home faster than Ambulance and Police."
Point No. 2: False comparison again. Pizza is a product and that too a very highly compact and standardized one that can be transported in small or huge lots. It can go on a truck or trailer or even a bike, scooter or smaller vehicle. So it can be delivered in minutes, Ambulance and Police are very specialized services and the types of services are varied. Logistics is more difficult and need more planning here than in case of pizzas or fast food. Medical supplies are much bigger than a 12 inch pizza. So an ambulance cannot negotiate choked roads as easily as a small car or bike delivering pizzas. Other motorists have to make way for an ambulance which they may not do in India, because of its culture and habits. Govt. alone is not to blame for this.
"3. Car loan @ 5% but education loan @ 12%."
Point No. 3: Why the comparison of Car Loan with Student loans? Why not compare cheaper Car Loans with costlier Home Loans (Still 10% +). But that would defeat the case of the article below right?! The reason Car loans are cheaper is because of the very high demand for Cars in India now. Student loan is a relatively new industry in India and there may not be enough loan demand to make lower rates viable. The public sector and Govt. can help students. But that would be socialism which you all hate and are allergic to it. Anyway the point to note is poor knowledge of economics again
"4. Students with 35% get into elite institutions thru quota system and those with 90% get out because of merit."
Point No. 4: There are not many elite institutions in India so far, though that may change quickly. The hint is towards the IIM's and IIT's quota system for the backward classes. Reservation agitation is the result of upper middle-class backlash against mainstream parties. They are unfairly targeting the poor and backward classes instead of pressuring the govt to spend more on primary and basic college education. Do these authors know what percentage of population are these 'great meritorious' 90% when national illetracy and poor education levels are more than 60 to 70%?
One can give a long lecture to stress how external factors, the accident of our birth and favorable economic and social status make the fortunate ones including some of us 'very meritorious' so that people like us can walk with our noses in the air and look down upon the unfortunate, exploited majority and dismiss them as 35 percenters and undeserving.
But I will let that pass for now. I restrict myself for now by just terming this reservation barb as middle-class snobbery.
"5. Where a millionaire can buy a cricket team instead of donating the money to any charity. 2 IPL teams are auctioned at 3300 crores and we are still a poor country where people starve for 2 square meals per day."
Point No. 5: That is typical capitalism for you. What can politicians and govt. do here?!. You can levy high income and wealth taxes on the millionaire. You can also levy special transaction taxes on the outsized auction gains. But that would be socialism again which you all hate and are allergic to it.
Let us ask the Hindu nationalists to read the Bhagavad Gita( Bible cannot be read obviously!!) to those IPL millionaire and see if it melts their hearts and they give away all the gains to charity.
The point to note is unless you know or understand what makes the millionaires so filthy rich and why non-productive activities like IPL auctions are allowed in a system, you are nowhere close to a solution. Blame game is just cheap talk.
6. Where the footwear, we wear, are sold in AC showrooms, but vegetables, that we eat, are sold on the footpath.
Point 6: Poor economics and invalid comparisons again. Comparing organized retail (Footwear stores) with unorganized retail (vegetable hawkers) is like comparing apples to oranges. Hawkers cannot sell vegetables in AC rooms. If they could they would be Food World or Heritage or Food Bazaar. Organized fresh produce retail is slowing replacing/displacing unorganized retail of fresh produce. Authors of that article are again out of touch with newly unfolding events in Indian commerce and retail.
"7. Where everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to follow the path to be famous."
Point 7: Vague and general statement without any definitions or details. Hard to make any sense or meaning out of it.
"8. Assembly complex buildings are getting ready within one year while public transport bridges alone take several years to be completed."
Point 8: Some of it makes sense in that buildings occupied by politicians are built quickly. But then those structures are not resource and capital intensive. Residential buillding also come up very quickly. Because these are all standardized and low technology for most part. Public infrastructure has longer gestation and there are issues with funding of it which gets stuck in political wrangling. Surely here corruption and poor governance are delaying and derailing the projects.
"9. Where we make lemon juices with artificial flavours and dish wash liquids with real lemon."
Point 9: Sounds like a joke and not good enough to make one laugh
"Think about it!
If you cross the The North Korean border illegally, you get . . .12 years hard labour in an isolated prison ....."
The 'Think about para' are mostly examples from dictatorships and repressive regimes who deal brutally with illegal immigrants. Indian forces are doing that to some extent on the Kashmir border. So the complaint of the Hindu nationalists is that Indian security is not being so brutal and inhuman on the Bangladesh border. Casual and wild statements are made by those who don't want to understand how complex and difficult the issue of illegal immigration is. Soverign democracies have dilemmas resolving this and it is not always an open-and-shut case of law and order or border security. Human rights activists may not always be right. But then are we always right?. And nobody seems to care that Indian Govt. does not have a formal Immigration policy.
Now ....
if you were to cross the Indian border illegally, you get .....
The blanket accusation of these immigrants as enemies of the state or threat to Indian security seems very unjust and far-fetched. More balanced information on this subject can be tried at wiki link on illegal Indian immigration.
Points A thru F are nothing new, but very uncivil and abusive accusations. I completely fail to get what has pseudo secularism got to do with many of these problems. And then almost everybody is blamed for this. Looks like Hindu nationalists are the only blameless heroes and to earn this coveted title one has to just keep screaming 'Bharath!!' 'Hindu Rashtra!!', "Pseudo-secularism!!' and blame everybody else, even if one has no clue of how economics or society or govt works or how political and issues are to be deliberated or solution negotiated and how activism is to be preached and practiced.
At times it is very frustrating to be responding to this kind of emails and refute and condemn parts or mostly the whole of it. But the kind of perverse reactionary zeal of these communications is very overwhelming and disturbing and the ignorance and insensitivity of the authors and their intellectual confusions is really appalling.
Last but not least, it represents some of the lowest denominators of public intellectualism
I don't know how long we will have to carry out the task of refuting and protesting this kind of senseless bigotry that is so cheap and abundant on the Internet. Passing the parcel of this misguided activism is very easy. Refuting it and making people see the wrongheadedness of it all is more difficult.
good post
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