I'm starting this blog--my first--to talk about my favorite topic. How do you promote capitalism across India--businesses, states, communities--and make our country richer, faster.
It seems that the week after the Wall Street Crash isn't the good time to talk about the virtues of capitalism. But, the crash itself offers one good example to India. The speed at which businesses have shut, merged, or been bought is a good contrast to the delays that happen in India.
Take two examples. When UTI was in trouble, it took one committee many months to recommend that the government take over UTI and separate it into good and bad parts. Eventually, the government profited by this, but the weeks and months it took to agree to this, contrasts poorly with the hours for the Government, for buying banks (BoA, Barclays, Lloyds) to decide. Heck, they worked on Sundays too. Now, things aren't so bleak for Lehman, and the stockmarkets have also digested this (of course, with lots of help from Uncle Sam!)
The Harshad Mehta scandal took a parliamentary committee years to unravel. The case between NHB and Standard Chartered had to go to the Supreme Court many years later.
Lesson from last week. Good capitalism is fast capitalism. Some of India's businesses are fast as elsewhere--telecom, IT. Some are as slow as other countries--picking the winning bidder for airport privatization--and I mean this as a compliment. Some, unfortunately are much slower. POSCO's steel plant has been talked for years; yet, it's not even started construction.
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