India's demonetization in retrospect
On the same day that Trump won the presidential election Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the destruction of 86 percent of his nation’s currency.
India is a highly cash-oriented society. Poorer Indians rely almost entirely on cash, despite the Modi government’s pressure to get most of them to open bank accounts. Reliance on credit and debit cards as well as electronic payment methods is far more limited than in the industrialized West.
Kalraj Mishra is Minister of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises, which suggests that he should be concerned about micro, small, and medium businesses, which have been hardest hit by the currency “reform.” However, he dismissed the sometimes catastrophic losses as “nominal and temporary,” and predicted “industrial momentum will be back” as soon as sufficient currency is restored. No doubt, he is feeling positive since his salary still is being paid.
Despite the extreme hardships inflicted upon hundreds of millions of poor Indians, the financial leaders of the world were nearly unanimous in support of the demonetization effort.
For example, CNBC had this headline: India set to be Asia's standout economy as demonetization effect ebbs, HSBC says
In reality, the hard data shows the effects of demonetization continue to be negative.
India’s oil consumption fell for a third straight month, with the use of bitumen and naphtha declining and diesel demand growth flat, amid the continuing effects of demonetization.
Five months after Modi's currency move the job market of India is still depressed.
Demonetization and scarce capital availability has led to a 10-50% drop in employee hires in India’s startup ecosystem this year.
Other than hiring woes, the rate at which pink slips are being given to employees has also increased in this nascent sector of the Indian economy. According to research platform Xeler8, startups in India fired 9,200 employees last year, compared to about 5,500 in 2015. This year, the trend is expected to continue.
...
“We were planning to break-even in January. But demonetization hit, (the option for cash payments on delivery) disappeared and sales were down. We decided to move our focus outside of India,” said Vivek Gaur, founder of YepMe, which recently began operations in the United Kingdom.
Whereas industry insiders have blamed the tough funding environment for the job cuts and lower levels of hiring, others have put responsibility on demonetization for the current bloodbath in India's startup ecosystem.
The demonetization move was based on the theory that criminals and tax evaders were sitting on stacks of cash. Thus, this move was anti-crime.
However, in just the first month 82% of bank notes rendered worthless by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise move were validated.
This renders the rationalization for the dramatic change false.
On the flip side, demonetization boosters are quick to point out how the cash crunch is over, but they rarely tell you why it is over.
However, with the remonetisation process well underway, use of debit cards at point-of-sale terminals have also come down in February, while cash withdrawal is going up, RBI data shows...
“People are again going back to cash,” he said. “Withdrawals for cash have increased and we will see them getting back to more or less [the levels in the] pre demonetisation period.”
Total cash and currency circulation in the system was ₹13.32 lakh crore as on March 31, which is 76% of the ₹17.97 lakh crore that was in circulation before November 8.
So the cash crunch is over because there is more cash around. India has been remonetized.
Meaning this entire "bold" monetary experiment was completely pointless.
It accomplished nothing but hurt a lot of poor people.
Well, that isn't entirely true.
There was one side-effect that needs to be acknowledged - it gave the government a tremendous amount of power over people's lives.
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Comments
Every time a country does some kind of economic 'reform'
or proposes new monetary/economic policies you know, regardless if it's intent, that the only people who are affected and in the end suffer, are the poor and middle class. The well connected and rich never feel a thing.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I don't fully understand this, but I do fully understand
that poor people got hurt
for the first time in world historyas usual.Ain't we got fun?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7F3_MaVh2Q]
when i asked a friend of mine who still has family
in India, he told me that the main motivation for the whole effort was that the company, or government, or whatever (south african, he might have said?) that had made the plates for India's currency had sold duplicates to one or more criminal (terrorist?) factions in Pakistan, and that India was being flooded by counterfeit currency from Pakistan.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
@UntimelyRippd
Figures... just freaking figures...
Thanks for the info! And I'm glad that the people who sorta survived this in India are at least able to re-monetize. So stupid to unnecessarily make everything dependent on functional power and systems, especially with increasingly violent weather anticipated globally and a greater likelihood of more frequent/longer outages/disasters.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Still a problem
link