There are three kinds of people who claim to have some knowledge of the state of the economy — economists, quacks and students of economics. I believe I am a student learning economics every day since Eco 101 in 1967-68. Most of my learning was on the job as Commerce Minister or Finance Minister.
My first teacher was Dr Simon Kuznets. I am proud to count among my teachers Dr Manmohan Singh, Dr C Rangarajan, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Dr Venugopal Reddy, Dr Bimal Jalan, Dr Parthasarathy Shome, Dr Saumitra Chowdhury, Dr Jahangir Aziz, Dr Raghuram Rajan and many young economists. Those names should ring a bell. Each one of them occupied a key position in the UPA government and, at any time, four or five of them were available to advise the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister. Each one of them was a renowned economist and did not indulge in quackery.
Demonetisation was quackery. There was absolutely no reason to disrupt the economy by declaring, in a near-midnight strike, that high-value currency notes would no longer be legal tender. After talking to a number of people I had predicted that the cost to the economy would be between 1 and 1.5 per cent. I am not happy that I have been proved right.
via Across the aisle: CSO calls the government’s bluff | The Indian Express
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