Madame Bovary And The Budget

Balajee · Feb 1, 2020

Hi Nirmala Sitaraman, read any good books lately?> If I had written this blog before the budgrt, I would have suggested Gustave Flaubert’s MADAM BOVARY/ It is the ultimate book about budgets . No treatises by any economist can match it.
Huh ? Come again?What does Flaubert got t dop with budget. Bovary is all about extra marital affairs of a doctor’s wife, right? Well, right and wrong coz the focus of the novel is on balancing th budget.
The tragedy oF Emma Bovary is not that she screwed around but that she screwed up her family budget with expenditure shooting light years beyond the family income. And the family got screwed. . The moral is simple: If you earn a rupee don’t spend two. That is the basic rule for any budget.
Any budget should aim at boosting the economy, increasing production, creating jobs and what not. But you have washed your ha nds of it describing the present downturn as “cyclical” meaning happy days will be back but the government is not responsible for the slump. Of course it will take full credit for the better times, if and when they arrive.
Any boost to the e economy will have to come from an increase in demand and spending. To put it more simply, if you don’t buy stuff there will be no demand,. So production units will shut down and jobs will be lost. So to create jobs you have to buy stuff.
But thanks to your government’s , to put it mild,y, bizarre actions like demonetization ( Which killed some hundred plus in bank and ATM queues and benefited only JIO and PayTM) and GST (which led to the closure of small units many of them export oriented) people are scared and hold opn tightly to their cash following Iago’s sage advice to Rodrigo in Othello” “Keep thy money in the purse” literally although the poor chap said that in a totally dfferent context in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Few months ago , a small shopkeeper who appeared in a NDTV program complained that people have become hesitan even to buy small glucose biscuit packets which cost just five bucks. You can imagine the fate of larger purchases. According to various surveys . in the housing sector alone one lakh crore worth of houses remain unsold.
Does the budget address these issues and the demonetization mlaise that still persists? Nope. But to be faoir it does provide us the pleasure of watching a headless chicken dance.

When a chicken’s head is cut off to induct it into TCS (Tandoori Chicken Service and not Tata c Consultancy) or to butter it up the chicken moves around cluelessly before dropping dead. I can’t give a better description of your budget—a headless chicken’s clueless dance.. Like that chicken the has nary a clue on in which direction to move/

Thyagarajan · Feb 1, 2020

Balajee said: ↑

Hi Nirmala Sitaraman, read any good books lately?> If I had written this blog before the budgrt, I would have suggested Gustave Flaubert’s MADAM BOVARY/ It is the ultimate book about budgets . No treatises by any economist can match it.
Huh ? Come again?What does Flaubert got t dop with budget. Bovary is all about extra marital affairs of a doctor’s wife, right? Well, right and wrong coz the focus of the novel is on balancing th budget.
The tragedy oF Emma Bovary is not that she screwed around but that se screwed up her family budget with expenditure shooting light years beyond the family income. And the family got screwed. . The moral is simple: If you earn a rupee don’t spend two. That is the basic rule for any budget.
Any budget should aim at boosting the economy, increasing production, creating jobs and what not. But you have washed your ha nds of it describing the present downturn as “cyclical” meaning happy days will be back but the government is not responsible for the slump. Of course it will take full credit for the better times, if and when they arrive.
Any boost to the e economy will have to come from an increase in demand and spending. To put it more simply, if you don’t buy stuff there will be no demand,. So production units will shut down and jobs will be lost. So to create jobs you have to buy stuff.
But thanks to your government’s , to out it mild,y, bizarre actions like demonetization ( Which killed some hundred plus in bank and ATM queues and benefited only JIO and PayTM) and GST (which led to the closure of small units many of them export oriented) people are scared and hold opn tightly to their cash following Iago’s sage advice to Rodrigo in Othello” “Keep thy money in the purse” literally although the poor chap said that in a totally dfferent context in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Few months ago , a small shopkeeper who appeared in a NDTV program complained that people have become hesitan even to buy small glucose biscuit packets which cost just five bucks. You can imagine the fate of larger purchases. According to various surveys . in the housing sector alone one lakh crore worth of houses remain unsold.
Does the budget address these issues and the demonetization mlaise that still persists? Nope. But to be faoir it does provide us the pleasure of watching a headless chicken dance.

When a chicken’s head is cut off to induct it into TCS (Tandoori Chicken Service and not Tata c Consultancy) or to butter it up the chicken moves around cluelessly before dropping dead. I can’t give a better description of your budget—a headless chicken’s clueless dance.. Like that chicken the has nary a clue on in which direction to move/
Click to expand...

After reading this am dumbfounded.
If there is no job, what is the fate of another three to four lac that would come out of various universities in few months.
Existing employees face retrenchment or on vrs ( bsnl) . Deficit in collection of gst by few lac crores in current FY.
Where from revenue would come for spending.
Is government on brink of bankruptcy and would it’s own bankruptcy law would apply to it? Oh no Government is not under company act!
But deficit can make press work overtime to print notes plus currency notes can be imported.
Chicken production too might stop no buyers.
Thanks and Regards.

HariLakhera · Feb 2, 2020

Balajee Dear,
You are very right about the budget but the walls have ears. Using 'chicken head' and cutting it can be referred as separating seven sisters from Indian map. haha

sln · Feb 2, 2020

Balajee said: ↑

The moral is simple: If you earn a rupee don’t spend two. That is the basic rule for any budget.
Click to expand...

Dear Balajee,
Nice to go through your thought provoking article on the budget.Also nice to have your presence.I was an absentee for a quite a long time due to health issues.It is therefore quite rewarding to pick up the threads now.
I have not studied the budget and therefore this is only an interim FB.Eminent economists have suggested: Increase fiscal deficit even upto 5% to stimulate consumer spending and demand.Dont worry about inflation but keep the interest rates low. Ours is a cash economy.Parallel economy has spurred the demand in the past.That has taken a beating as snooping and catching the culprits has put a break on such spends.
Liquidity is affected and institutions are not lending fearing criminal action and so is the case with entrepreneurs.
Three areas were identified as the most disturbing.
Farmer distress-Quite a few steps have been announced including encouragement of direct interaction between farmers and consumers-e marketing should improve the earnings of farmers. Increased allocation to farm loans,incentives for alternate cropping instead of water guzzlers in irrigated areas is a good step.
SME sector has received special attention.This sector is the biggest job provider and also contributes to export growth. Credit guarantee scheme,free from audit upto a certain limit and increased duty on imports to protect the domestic industry etc should improve production and increase employment .Simplication of GST in April will be the biggest step to encourage SME sector.
Builders have had a gala time in the past without regulations quoting fancy prices asking for money under the table etc.There is reality check now and this sector is under stress due to unsold inventory.Reduction in interest rate,tax concessions for small houses etc will certainly improve the offtake-this will have a cascading effect on the off take of cement,steel and other materials apart from providing employment. Allocation for pending projects will also help the buyers who have locked up their funds..Similarly huge allocation for infrastructure will improve material consumption and job opportunities.Decriminalisation of IT disputes and lending decisions by Banks may help them come out of the shell and it should be business as usual.
As for as personal Income tax is concerned it is an eyewash.
The biggest worry is underemployment more than unemployment. Technically trained workmen are having a good time.Our painter,electrician/plumber,carpenter etc earn any where between 30000-40000 a month.I was pleasntly shocked when a technician repairing household equipments told me that he was earning 75000Rs a month.About a dozen ladies in ourcomplex[1000 flats[ earn anywhere between 60000-75000 Rs a month taking tuition classes.There are twenty ladies doing home chef and earning well.An M,Sc.graduate delivered food at my home as a member of Swiggy and he told me that this income during off time helps in meeting fuel and other expenses.This does not mean that things are rosy and many highly qualified people are underemployed.
I am yet to decipher the budget but somehow I dont feel excited-the feel good factor is missing.Hope experts will help us to decode the budget in the days to come
Regards
SLN

Agatha83 · Feb 3, 2020

Balajee said: ↑

Hi Nirmala Sitaraman, read any good books lately?> If I had written this blog before the budgrt, I would have suggested Gustave Flaubert’s MADAM BOVARY/ It is the ultimate book about budgets . No treatises by any economist can match it.
Huh ? Come again?What does Flaubert got t dop with budget. Bovary is all about extra marital affairs of a doctor’s wife, right? Well, right and wrong coz the focus of the novel is on balancing th budget.
The tragedy oF Emma Bovary is not that she screwed around but that she screwed up her family budget with expenditure shooting light years beyond the family income. And the family got screwed. . The moral is simple: If you earn a rupee don’t spend two. That is the basic rule for any budget.
Any budget should aim at boosting the economy, increasing production, creating jobs and what not. But you have washed your ha nds of it describing the present downturn as “cyclical” meaning happy days will be back but the government is not responsible for the slump. Of course it will take full credit for the better times, if and when they arrive.
Any boost to the e economy will have to come from an increase in demand and spending. To put it more simply, if you don’t buy stuff there will be no demand,. So production units will shut down and jobs will be lost. So to create jobs you have to buy stuff.
But thanks to your government’s , to put it mild,y, bizarre actions like demonetization ( Which killed some hundred plus in bank and ATM queues and benefited only JIO and PayTM) and GST (which led to the closure of small units many of them export oriented) people are scared and hold opn tightly to their cash following Iago’s sage advice to Rodrigo in Othello” “Keep thy money in the purse” literally although the poor chap said that in a totally dfferent context in Shakespeare’s Othello.

Few months ago , a small shopkeeper who appeared in a NDTV program complained that people have become hesitan even to buy small glucose biscuit packets which cost just five bucks. You can imagine the fate of larger purchases. According to various surveys . in the housing sector alone one lakh crore worth of houses remain unsold.
Does the budget address these issues and the demonetization mlaise that still persists? Nope. But to be faoir it does provide us the pleasure of watching a headless chicken dance.

When a chicken’s head is cut off to induct it into TCS (Tandoori Chicken Service and not Tata c Consultancy) or to butter it up the chicken moves around cluelessly before dropping dead. I can’t give a better description of your budget—a headless chicken’s clueless dance.. Like that chicken the has nary a clue on in which direction to move/
Click to expand...

Dear Balajee,

Ninety percent of the Indian population belong to the lower middle class and for these section of people, the budget hasn’t brought any cheer. It is the autowallahs, the mobile vegetable vendor and their likes who spend their daily income in buying tea at the corner shop, snacks for the family. Now these people have no money in their pockets to spend. How do you expect the Government economy to grow. This Government is pampering the rich and burning the pockets of the poor. A budget full of rhetoric but poor in substance.

Agatha83

Balajee · Feb 4, 2020

Agatha83 said: ↑

Dear Balajee,

Ninety percent of the Indian population belong to the lower middle class and

Agatha83 said: ↑

Dear Balajee,

Ninety percent of the Indian population belong to the lower middle class and for these section of people, the budget hasn’t brought any cheer. It is the autowallahs, the mobile vegetable vendor and their likes who spend their daily income in buying tea at the corner shop, snacks for the family. Now these people have no money in their pockets to spend. How do you expect the Government economy to grow. This Government is pampering the rich and burning the pockets of the poor. A budget full of rhetoric but poor in substance.

Agatha83
Click to expand...

for these section of people, the budget hasn’t brought any cheer. It is the autowallahs, the mobile vegetable vendor and their likes who spend their daily income in buying tea at the corner shop, snacks for the family. Now these people have no money in their pockets to spend. How do you expect the Government economy to grow. This Government is pampering the rich and burning the pockets of the poor. A budget full of rhetoric but poor in substance.

Agatha83
Click to expand...

Agatha the thing is the system is working to benefit a handful of corporate giants.The GST regime is designed in such a way that small and medium businesses collapse. I remember a medium industrialist tried to immolate himself in front of a district magistrate' s office along with his family because oif the debt burden caused by GST. Small units manufacturing hosiery in Tiruppur have shut down due to GST as screwed up tax regime has resulted in their expoet orders going to Vietnam and Bangladesh.In automobile sp[ares industry alone over three lakh jobs were lost last year. as thre is no demand. As for the lower middle class they matter only in times of elections.

jayasala42 · Feb 4, 2020

Very much hilarious as usual.I was awaiting your snippet from Saturday evening.At last arrived with a bang.
Please read my take under the head ' interesting shares 'about the price of masala Dosa.

budget on a lighter note*:

Masala Dosa price slashed from Rs 50 to Rs 40 !!!!
But from now, there will be no chutney.

Those who want chutney can buy it separately for just Rs 15 along with the 40 rupees Dosa.

The best part about this move is that it simplifies the whole process and provides flexibility to customers.

Earlier, even those who ate only dosa without chutney had to pay Rs 50, but now they can eat only dosa for 40.

What an idea!
It is just like giving blank chacolate papers duly covered as if there is chacolate inside.
Somebody, a bored man claimed that the Fiance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman's
Speech was long on sermon and short on substance. Normally long winding speeches
made the audience get tired. It is strange, unusual and unheard of that the Speaker got tired
and had to break her oration short retired on health ground.
I had already switched off when the Finance Minister started sidelining the gravity of the
Economy of the Country started singing the praise of her Prime Minister as if such
rhetoric had built in solutions.
Last time when they raised the threshold limit for Income Tax to 5 lakh they put an unnecessary
spokes by making it to a retrograde act of reverting back to the square, Rs.2.5 lakh with tax
liability.
When during her pre-Budget speeches she promised that one can hope for change in the
Personal Income rates so that she could help putting money in the hands of the
ultimate buyers.
Then when her chance came to deliver her promises, she indeed made the changes in rates
increasing it to seven slabs with varied rate of Tax.
Many were happy that they would clearly save 5 to 10% than the previous year.
Then she smilingly released the bomb introducing an option dove tailed to Savings
yea either give up and surrender all saving schemes, an onslaught even considering the
broader impact on boosting household savings slipping away fast.
It is an irony without any exception all Union Ministers are indulging in a Game of dividing
people of the Country on one premise or the other causing hurt and heart burn.
The Finance Minister has given the option of choosing between the devil and the deep sea.
They say this will have a serious and severe impact on filing IT Returns too.
An expert has opined by any reasoning and logic the Old System is beneficial though
the Finance Minister shed tears that she had to forgo a hopping Rs.40000/- crores due to this
change.

jayasala42

Thyagarajan · Feb 4, 2020

@Balajee @jayasala42
@Agatha83 @sln

I read all of Your views. You had raised funda questions. all of you brought out the shortcomings of Budget of the present, past & future. I was thinking of the man who had overseen printing budget “in camera” who could not attend to his dad’s funeral.
I felt very bad.

Looking at my reading so much on budget in the news paper, our domestic help desired to know about budget. She said...

Every budget seems to be a mystery. Who is helped on whose cost? Who gets always the best out of budget? If budget is good why prices going up year after year?when the prices would reach a plateau.

Is there any correct definition of common man? Am I belong to common man? Is he middle or lower middle or upper middle?

Why we should have budget only once in a year? Why the budget for a financial year?

If revenue generation by selling government owned WELL RUNNING or loss making PSUs or its shares stands exhausted, then what future governments would do?

Why governments are elected and formed only once in five years? If they flop in between even with brute majority, to what remedy do the electorate - the people or its citizens can turn to?

Budgets always robbing and impoverishing the poor to enrich the affluent class.

My head began swinging. I told my domestic help It is an attempt for any FM to be vainglorious.

Thanks and Regards.

God - I know You are perplexed with our budget or bankruptcy! No funds allotted for development of You.

Balajee · Feb 4, 2020

jayasala42 said: ↑

Very much hilarious as usual.I was awaiting your snippet from Saturday evening.At last arrived with a bang.
Please read my take under the head ' interesting shares 'about the price of masala Dosa.

budget on a lighter note*:

Masala Dosa price slashed from Rs 50 to Rs 40 !!!!
But from now, there will be no chutney.

Those who want chutney can buy it separately for just Rs 15 along with the 40 rupees Dosa.

The best part about this move is that it simplifies the whole process and provides flexibility to customers.

Earlier, even those who ate only dosa without chutney had to pay Rs 50, but now they can eat only dosa for 40.

What an idea!
It is just like giving blank chacolate papers duly covered as if there is chacolate inside.
Somebody, a bored man claimed that the Fiance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman's
Speech was long on sermon and short on substance. Normally long winding speeches
made the audience get tired. It is strange, unusual and unheard of that the Speaker got tired
and had to break her oration short retired on health ground.
I had already switched off when the Finance Minister started sidelining the gravity of the
Economy of the Country started singing the praise of her Prime Minister as if such
rhetoric had built in solutions.
Last time when they raised the threshold limit for Income Tax to 5 lakh they put an unnecessary
spokes by making it to a retrograde act of reverting back to the square, Rs.2.5 lakh with tax
liability.
When during her pre-Budget speeches she promised that one can hope for change in the
Personal Income rates so that she could help putting money in the hands of the
ultimate buyers.
Then when her chance came to deliver her promises, she indeed made the changes in rates
increasing it to seven slabs with varied rate of Tax.
Many were happy that they would clearly save 5 to 10% than the previous year.
Then she smilingly released the bomb introducing an option dove tailed to Savings
yea either give up and surrender all saving schemes, an onslaught even considering the
broader impact on boosting household savings slipping away fast.
It is an irony without any exception all Union Ministers are indulging in a Game of dividing
people of the Country on one premise or the other causing hurt and heart burn.
The Finance Minister has given the option of choosing between the devil and the deep sea.
They say this will have a serious and severe impact on filing IT Returns too.
An expert has opined by any reasoning and logic the Old System is beneficial though
the Finance Minister shed tears that she had to forgo a hopping Rs.40000/- crores due to this
change.

jayasala42
Click to expand...

You have described the new tax regime perfectly pointing to its absurdities The only thing good about the budget is Nirmala Sitaraman might figure in Limca Book of Records, if not Guinness for making the longest ever budget speecxhj. All verbosity and nothing substantial.

Viswamitra · Feb 4, 2020

Dear Balajee,

Thank you for presenting your perspective on the latest budget. The government is the only one that has the right to fill the deficit through the effective use of printing technology. A common man doesn't have that option and will have to live in debts or face bankruptcy. As long as the elections are driven by the funding by the richest people in the country, appeasing the rich with beneficial actions will continue with fine words of consolation to the poor. It is time to make it mandatory for the government to explain the impact of the budget in ratios as to how the budget would impact the income slabs of poor, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle, rich and very rich. In fact, that is the only thing everyone needs to read and everything else are details to be analyzed by the experts.