India: Cash Is Back (But The Crisis Has Deepened)

Cash is Back

I know many wealthy and so-called educated people who have never used a bank card. Many simply won’t trust a machine. Most are incapable of learning how to use the cards. With people tired of corrupt, untrustworthy and unpredictable banks and payment portals incapable of providing reliable services, cash is coming back with a vengeance.

The economy, however, continues to be stagnant. Businesses continue to fail. If not for economic reasons, businessmen have grown tired of corrupt and rapacious bureaucrats and an extremely uncertain regulatory regime. Look at an Indian businessman and you will see an unhealthy, tired, soulless person.

Even today, vegetables sell for half as much as they normally do. Are poor people going hungry? Do not expect news on this in the media, which must toe the line of the Indian government.

Money — even in fiat currency form — is the blood of the system. Once the blood flow was stopped, even if it is fully revived later, clots will have appeared and organs will have failed. That is happening in India today. Job growth was already stagnant, but the situation is much worse now, making India’s so-called demographic asset, which never was an asset, a massive liability.

Domino effects continue to work their way up the food chain. Formal and big businesses are beginning to show signs of stagnation. Members of the salaried middle class are losing their jobs, but they have so far failed to connect the dots and continue to support Modi.

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