On Anna Hazare... And Bangalore's Metro

I thought that this perceptive article on India and Anna Hazare from TheDailyBell.com titled "The Corruption of India's Economic Miracle" is well worth a read. It rips a Wall Street Journal article on the subject apart - and I place the concluding remarks below:

For another, the article assumes that the current Indian vitality is the result of inexorable cultural and entrepreneurial shift. We would argue this is entirely incorrect. India's resurgence is driven by central banking money printing and may not be seen as a natural expression of industry and society.

It is extremely important that the progress of the BRICS be placed in perspective. Brazil, China, India, even Russia, all have aggressive central banking policies. China and India, especially, have economies that are obviously being stimulated by excessive money printing. Both countries have a problem with price inflation as a result.

Progress built on printing money from nothing is ephemeral. In America and Europe, thanks to the debasement of money and the vast resources it grants (temporarily) to government, economies can seem quite healthy  one moment and then ill the next.

Money printing hollows out economies. It distorts business and job growth. It makes people feel wealthier than they are in reality. In both China and India, economic implosions will eventually take place. It cannot be otherwise, because central bank money stimulation inevitably leads to an exaggerated business cycle and subsequent busts.

For this fundamental reason in particular, the Wall Street Journal article is flawed. India has not necessarily experienced a resurgence of business and market creativity. It is simply going through the same cycle of monetary stimulation that the European PIGS and America went through recently.

As Ludwig von Mises cautioned in his great book Socialism, an ideology he abhorred and battled against all his long life:

There is no evidence that social evolution must move steadily upwards in a straight line. Social standstill and social retrogression are historical facts which we cannot ignore. World history is the graveyard of dead civilizations.

We can go backwards any time.


And the proof of that is the photo above of the Bangalore Metro on MG Road. They have DESTROYED MG Road, the prime property in this Fair City, with this ugly overhead train. If it had been underground, the properties on MG Road would have trebled in value. Now, the open space around this magnificent thoroughfare has been blocked. Property prices may not rise much in this ugliness.

The Day The Music Died...

It was an excellent Sunday afternoon in Bangalore, beering, smoking and singing at The Sherlock Holmes Pub on Coles Road. After we were seated, some dudes with some chicks came in and seated themselves across us. Then, another guy joined them - a guy with a guitar. And would you believe it, very soon these guys abandoned their chicks and seated themselves across me - and I sang as he played. I kept time with my beer-mug. It was a Great Party.


Sometime later, the guy with the guitar said that people like him were NOT allowed to play live - and that he deliberately plays in public to defy the ban.


The next day, I read in the papers that discos are banned in Karnataka.


It may be the same in Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu, too.


Now, on my last day in the NIMHANS Hospital, there was Kannada Disco music playing in the reception area - and it was great.


And on two occasions here in Pondicherry I have heard Tamil Disco music - and it was great, too.


I see NO REASON why an entrepreneur cannot establish a Tamil or Kannada or even English disco - so that girls and guys can meet and dance, instead of just getting stuck with shaadi.com.


Yeah... these morons have killed the music.


Story of My Life.

Karnataka's Horrendous Booze Tax

Let me begin by stating the obvious: 

The higher the taxes, the poorer the people.

Nothing else is true. The professors of "public finance" are all State employees. And this The State relies on "inflationary finance." To willingly pay taxes to such a regime is a "moral crime."


Yes, right next door to IIT-Delhi is The National Institute of Public Finance & Policy. All State-employed professors there. They know NOTHING. They are just APOLOGISTS for this The State.


Now, let me say something about Bangalore. I first came here in 1980 - and have been here many times since. In my second book Antidote2: For Liberal Governance there is an essay called "The Destruction of Bangalore." This book is dated 2003, and this essay is at least two years older. I saw it coming. And you people never listened.


Bangalore was once known as the "Pub Capital of India." I remember Ramda's Pub on MG Road way back when a mug of draught was Rs. 3.50. I remember pitchers at less than 40 rupees.


Today, the prices of beer and alcohol are KILLING.


Goa is cheap. Pondicherry is a little bit worse these days. But even Pondicherry is MUCH BETTER than Bangalore. So I am going back tonight on the Volvo bus. No road, of course, for such a magnificent bus. What are you paying taxes for? For the MGNREGA? 


In Goa, I used to buy cases of the local beer, "King's," for 200 rupees a case of 12 pint bottles. Tuborg pint retailed at 25 rupees. In Pondicherry, a big bottle of Tuborg costs 55 rupees. Here in Bangalore, I buy beer at 90 rupees a bottle. A pitcher of beer at The Sherlock Holmes Pub costs 300 rupees. Is this a FUCKING JOKE or what?


Now, let me tell you how all these high taxes make you all poorer.


When taxes are high, sales are low: Obvious. Less beer and alcohol are sold. The beer and alcohol factories work less, and hire less staff. Ditto for the transporters. Ditto for the retailers. And let me add that there are very few retailers in Bangalore. Goa is FREE. 

I LOVE GOA.

So free yourselves of this ONEROUS TAXATION, Bangaloreans.


It is a "moral crime" to willingly pay taxes to a regime that relies on "inflationary finance."

BE PROUD CITIZENS.

DEMAND LIBERTY!

DEMAND GOOD STREETS AND FOOTPATHS IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR TAXES.

YOUR ROADS AND FOOTPATHS SUCK.

And as for your taxes, they suck real bad.

Real bad.

And they entrench poverty.

Do NOT willingly pay these taxes.