By Rajiv Goyal
Slowdown has become a buzzword nowadays, it is used at all platforms, by all, every time, to make people at large to believe it.
Yes, parameters used by politicians over last 15 years to exhibit their governance as the model to generate hopes of good days among voters.
Data on GDP, credit growth, employment rate, fiscal deficit, inflation and foreign reserves are no more subject of people who work in finance sector but even an uneducated foot soldier of political parties can talk on these for hours.
In the current times, the very same parameters are down arithmetically and therefore it’s very easy to infer that lower these parameters, lower is growth and if these parameters are down for months consecutively, it’s nothing, but slowdown.
Hope economics would have been so simple to learn & understand, especially in connection with world, solutions would have been much better & fast to change the numbers which are otherwise going down.
Having said that, surely the idea is not to infer that present time can be considered as growth.
Issue is whether last 15 years were year of growth? No, this was not growth, but crony capitalism which resulted into loot of lakhs of crores of public money, not only in India but across the world. Shopping became past time, consumption of products & services replaced by obscene spending in the name of brands. It created two groups, one who was very minor in number may be 0.2% in each country but possessing not only 40-50% wealth of country and balance 99.8% which became slave to rules & policies made by other 0.2% in anticipation of gaining their own pie of wealth.
We exploited nature & mother earth without any responsibility & accountability leading to mass destruction & havocs created by weather, earthquakes & tsunamis etc. In such a situation can same things remain prevalent till eternity, if we think so, we are planning to eliminate life on, at least on planet, called Earth.
Environmentalists across world are spreading information on such vulnerable situation of earth and endanger to our upcoming generations. The new generation, who are now in age group of under 30, understand this. Shared economy has developed in connected world. Value for money concept, is growing now which is taking brands of their sheen and thus premiums. People are now focusing on comfortable mobility rather than possessing cars. They are interested in tasty food which they can source from some aunt supplying through Zomato or Swiggy rather name of restaurants. Yes, still there are millions of people, who are still living same old style of life, but billions are choosing the other path.
“USAGE” has taken over “Owing”, which in corporate parlance is reduced consumption. Growing pressures on governments for transparent and welfare governance has taken down millions of jobs. For example Saket RTO shifting to fully automatic & IT enabled RTO at Sarai Kalekhan has said to wiped out inefficient ecosystem leading to loss of livelihood to more than 500 people who were engaged in petty jobs like tea-seller, form supplier, file movements at Babu table , etc. There is another example in Delhi & at other places near hospitals. Now government hospitals are providing medicines from its counter leading to closure or down in sales of pharmacy in nearby areas. Now in both the cases, on economic parameters, there is slowdown but such slowdown is good or bad for society, I leave it to the readers to answer.
Let’s understand impact of slowdown. People will lose jobs but then they will find other jobs, may be at lower monthly salary. People will do some different business may be with lower margins. Many may shift back to their hometown when they find equal saving potential, which is called reverse migration, and across world, it’s considered as good symptom for society’s happiness. There may be some areas which have not even touched for economic activities, may become new markets. Example is North East and in U.P., Bundelkhand and Eastern U.P.
Let the pressure of EMI be done away by general public as used to happen in 80s & 90s, what we earn, we used to spend only 80% of that. We were more satisfied society.
Before we listen to someone complaining about slowdown, we must assess, whether it’s good or bad or it is for building a happy society.
