Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Dumb Freakin AAM Aadmi

The Headline inflation number has caught each one's attention. Political newbie pundits/analysts along with their economic counterparts have gone about beating the bush on how inflation has ruined their lives. Channels that have always succumbed to pressures of the market and that are part of an inextricable rat race are now singing the tone of the AAM Aadmi and how much he has to endure during this period of rising inflation.

Channels who've hired individuals that resemble the "MBA fresher types" (-- from 2nd and 3rd rung B-Schools who have no clue about Financial Planning, don't know anything about budgeting cause they themselves haven't been through that exercise, who have no clue about basic economics and have only heard about Mutual Funds post their internship and to whom inflation means reduced expenditure in CCD) who seem to conveniently chose socialism over market economics are now presenting stories about how the poor cut down on their meals and prices of goods have risen.

The typical stories that have made headlines are the poor slum dweller, village labour,sweeper , the usual middle-low income groups that constitute the voting populous.

You Dumb AAM Aadmi, are you telling me that a person who lives on ration like Tur dal and basic rice, wheat, fertilizer(all of which is subsidised) is actually consuming less of all of it cause the steel prices have rocketed and have made cars more expensive??? Is this person bearing the brunt of increased fuel prices when Govt. transportation facilities have not increased their prices???? Is that stupid housewife that bothers about her household budget cause LPG prices have shot up by less than Rs 2 per day (Increase from rs300 to rs350 per month per cylinder) relevant at all when the fact is that the middle class has had the going very good for the past 3 years??????

Lets get fact clear. The stories of Sweepers and daily wage earner eating less is stupid cause of two reasons.
1. These stories have come post WPI increasing drastically.
2. The prices of food articles have not shot through the roof and has come down in most cases.

SO you dumb MBA whose hired for smooth talk and a Bigger Ass get certain facts right.

1. Food Articles constitute 15% of WPI in which prices of pulses are down approx. 11% and cereals are up 5% which is nominal
2. Prices of vegetables are up 7.7 YoY but down 30% since Sept last yr.
3. Prices of fruits have remain the same over the past one year. Probably only the fresher MBA has started consuming less in the quest to look better.

All this gyan was taken from the Index Components. Go to you normal shop and check about the prices of goods and invariably your household budget would remain the same or nominally increase.

Yup the sweepers has started consuming Imported and premium variants of basmati rice and the shortage of its supply has driven up prices. Yeah Right!!

The sharp rise in prices is attributed largely to the metals index given the soaring commodity prices we've seen in the past one yr. other than just oil. Metals price have shot through the roof cause the sweeper has started using broomsticks made of platinum and bought gold chappals to whack its politicians in the impending elections. Surely consumers are having steel noodles for breakfast and Iron dosas for dinner and the steel/iron price hikes are affecting them.

The other logic of trickle down effect....oil affects other commodity prices et al.... then why haven't vegetable prices Host through the roof. "Hey Dude, you know what, my plane ticket just got way too expensive- inflation impact you see"

When did Airplanes become the mode of transport for the Aam Adami? 90 million travel domestically and 3% of India has passports so 3 % of international travel. There is a good %age of this travel being covered by Corporates.(employee audacity)


Given that most of India lives in a subsidised environment and have still not been benefited by the reform process it's foolish that inflation has impacted him. It luck in a sense that inflation has hit largely a privileged section whose voices are generally heard through the media which has the audacity to state that things are getting worse for all when it's restricted to a small privileged section given how large we are.

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