Staring Laputa In The Face

There are two items in the news today that I would like to draw my reader’s attention to. The first is the report of a “full meeting” of the Planning Commission chaired by the prime minister. The words “full meeting” mean that the finance, power, railways, agriculture and some other “central ministers” were in attendance. What did their deliberations produce?

Let me quote:

…global recession and drought could retard nine per cent growth target for the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12) and may end up with 6.3 per cent growth rate for the current fiscal than 6.7 per cent achieved in the last fiscal.

Gobbledygook.

Recall my recent post, “Goodbye Growth Rate, Hello Liberty.”

Also, it seems that the “full meeting” of the Planning Commission believes the global economy is turning around; that money and credit creation out of thin air “stimulates” economies. For them, I recommend Peter Schiff’s latest vlog.

Oh! If only mankind could be cured of this false belief in printing-press money. They could then be saved a lot of grief.

Now, imagine the scene: There is Chacha Manmohan S Gandhi, deputy Montek, Pawar, Mamata, Shinde, Pranab, et. al. They are deliberating on a “national” growth rate. They are looking at the future of the global economy. They are up in the clouds.

And look at what is happening in the Very City where these deliberations are taking place.

The Times of India today carries a report headlined “Delhi's flyovers can't cope with rising traffic.”

This is because of “selective statistics”: one statistic that has never made it to such “full meetings” of the Planning Commission is the statistic on the number of cars being registered in Delhi.

Or Bombay.

Or Calcutta.

Or Madras.

Or Bangalore.

Ask me: I have traveled far and wide, and I daresay that the entire landmass is a transportation disaster.

A “centrally planned” transportation disaster.

It is this that is holding down our growth rate, apart from the lack of Liberty, because of legislative and administrative tyranny.

As Peter, Lord Bauer said:

“What limits growth in poor nations is not the limited capacity to export. Rather, it is the limited capacity to produce.”

Our transport disaster limits our capacity to produce.

We waste Time: the Most Important "factor of production."

We waste resources – like rotten fruit and veggies.

We remain poor.

The “full meeting” of the Planning Commission, chaired by Chairman Manmohan S Gandhi himself, did NOT discuss India’s transport disaster, and quick solutions to it. Some of the ministers present are running State-owned monopolies, as in electricity and railways.

I thought I was in Lilliput, but I must be in Laputa.

Makes sense.