Let's talk politics again. We both enjoyed it last time. To be fair last time the politics extended to about seven words before I apologised and changed the subject. This time though, I'm going to risk saying something misinformed (/ obvious / trite / regrettable or looking like a sixth former who has just read his first broadsheet or sounding like an over-privileged member of the middle-class elite), and talk about actual politics. Because this affects all of us. By which I mean all of us in this room. By which I mean me (and 1.2 billion others)
And no, I'm not talking about THAT politics:
a. I've been expecting that since June. Go on, admit it, you have to. Once you saw that people could be completely self-destructive just to make a point, you knew that sense and fact and competence and experience didn't stand a chance. We've all had enough of experts.
b. There's enough bureaucracy in the US to stop any really stupid ideas growing legs (I think - there must be some halfway sane Republicans in the Senate, right?).
c. It's pretty much a footnote to the news here. One of those kitten stories to amuse you away from the real issues at hand. "Look at what those funny Americans have done now."
I suspect that the news here has been somewhat overshadowed by the news elsewhere (that news involved English speaking, white people after all), but they have demonetised some of the banknotes.
You've read that sentence and you haven't understood it. You've maybe got distracted by the "demon" and assumed some voodoo ritual. Or else you have completely understood it but ruled it out as ridiculous. But no, you're right. And no it doesn't make sense. The logic behind it is sort of sound, but the implications...
India is largely cash-based. Two thirds of the population are rural and don't have access to a bank (that's approximately the population of Europe). To say that the cash is worthless without giving any real provision for people to prepare is ridiculous. Seven o'clock Tuesday night you could go to a cash machine and get cash out, the cash would be given to you in either 500 or 1000 notes. At 8pm it was announced that in four hours time 500 and 1000 notes would be "worthless bits of paper".
Obviously you can change old notes up at banks over the next month or so. But all banks were closed yesterday and were understandably bonkers today.
What's that? Go to the cash machine and get more cash out. No problem, except cash machines have been closed since the announcement too. Presumably because the current largest note in circulation is worth £1.20 which even here doesn't buy you that much - stocking cash machines is going to be a big old job.
And the cash machine thing is fine for us over-privileged idiots. I can gad about bouncing between shopping malls and putting everything on a card (maybe they are using the fees for expats using foreign bank cards to fund the gap in the economy). Not so good if you are any of the working class service industry - tuktuk drivers for example - relying on other people being able to access cash. Days without cash for a cash based society are going to be hitting the bottom end of society pretty hard.
And I understand the aim and intentions. I applaud the Prime Minister for taking drastic action to fight terrorism and corruption. I understand the need for the surprise tactic to try and make black money worthless. I just can't help but think there must have been a way of doing it without pulling the bottom out of the economy.
So yeah, that shinyhaired game show host with the new job, not really that important.
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