No growth, no fur and no gas

The best piece I’ve read on the Indian economic malaise is Shekhar Gupta’s editorial in the Indian Express where he talks about the various policy failures and self inflicted problems that are worsening the Indian economy.

I can’t think of even a single economic metric that has improved in the last two years, and if things continue to be this way then we’re in for some bad times ahead.

It is no surprise then that Morgan Stanley’s 2012 Indian outlook predicts a pre – crisis level growth. They forecast a 6.9% GDP growth rate in 2012, and while these estimates tend to go wrong and have to be revised several times – they do accurately reflect the gloomy scenario that we see today.

Beyondbrics reports on a dispute between Reliance Industries and the government which is in turn delaying BP’s participation in Reliance’s deepwater exploration.

China has had problems of its own this year, and their stock market has done quite badly (not as bad as Indian ones though), and that’s one reason why a hedge fund that shorted the credit of companies that will do badly in a Chinese slowdown has returned over 52% this year.

The problems of the BRIC countries are getting quite a lot of attention these days, and I see quite a few references of BRIC as Beyond Ridiculous Investment Concept on my Twitter feed these days.

Over at the US, they are fighting a bill that allows censorship of the internet, and several prominent American businessmen and investors have been writing about it for quite some time. Sergey Brin joined them yesterday.

Prof. Jayanth Varma gives a few examples of currency breakups.

Finally, a new theory on why we lost our fur.

Enjoy your weekend!

8 thoughts on “No growth, no fur and no gas”

  1. Agree to the coments given above but still we are much better of than Europe or USA of the world . Though fiscal deficit is expected to increase furthur and there cauld be downgrade in the valuation but we are still not in defaulters list .
    Reforms may remain at back list due to political reasons but timely action of RBI and SEBI at various ocassions canot be ignored .We have to look at positives around us .

      1. In comparison to USA , iwould say we are not the cause of melt down in the world our regulatory agencies like RBI have handled and managed a lot better in crises .On moral grounds we have never been invaders in other territories . We do have shorts comings but still better of than lot others,

        1. US is not the cause of the meltdown in the world. US is the cause of the problems in US and European countries are the cause of the problems in Europe. Similarly, China is the cause of problems in China. Since global trade and finance is integrated – international banks from one country affect and get affected by what happens in other countries.

          India has a large number of self inflicted problems mainly due to the dysfunctional political system, and pointing fingers on others or denying them will do nothing but lead to another 91 type crisis.

          1. Intentions were not to point ouy fingers on others but if an economy is big enough to have replicate effects than maturity and checks are also required. Well my point was to look at positives of india and not just to blame for various reasons . Political problems or 91 crises as a nation lot has been learnt and lot would be learned .
            Positives or negeatives are two sides of the coin it is just what we look at and this is what i had pointed .

            1. I think a lot of Indians think that this growth path is irreversible and a sense of complacency has set in which is dangerous because this growth path is not guaranteed and right decisions will have to be made and difficult decisions will have to be made in order to sustain the progress that has been made in the last 20 years.

              The Commonwealth Games were a national embarrassment of a scale that wasn’t witnessed for many years before that and yet that pales to some of the other issues like the growing budget deficit, double digit inflation, lowering corporate profits that we have recently witnessed.

              There are a few bright spots like normal monsoons or being able to carry out the F1 properly, but they are few and far between. In my opinion the situation is worsening and it will continue to worsen till we accept it – just saying there are good and bad things won’t cut it any long. The bad is overwhelming the good in quite a hurry.

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