Economy - A glass full of possibilities

There are too many naysayers around infecting the general populace with economic dismay and general hopelessness. The pandemic and a directionless government have caused a sore throat and severe body aches to what could have been a vibrant and vivacious economy. However, the symptoms don't point to a long time malaise, at least not yet. 


A pandemic and an ensuing lockdown of this nature should have caused visible and irreversible damages to many sections of the economy. The lockdown logjam should have caused civil unrest. With constrained supplies, stagflation should have created an economic shock that would have sent the rupee reeling down and the consumer price index soaring up. Oddly though, Mayhem and despair are still limited to the elite commentators' editorials—their hubris notwithstanding. 


The immobility of the mobile device 

We seem to be oblivious to the fact that essential supplies are knocking at our doorsteps. Monies are exchanging hands with the tap of a finger. Deals struck, and contracts signed amidst the raging epidemic. The mobile device effectively immobilized us. Had the pandemic stuck two decades ago, we would have been in the throes of an early famine. The infrastructure and government delivery mechanism would have crumbled. While the world is hunting for a vaccine, we must acknowledge that technology has inoculated us from an untimely tragedy. We have many things to be grateful for - the cherished life notwithstanding.

 

Snare the opportunities; spare the opportunists

At various levels, we are at the cusp of an economic transformation. As Nilekani pointed out, " we grow despite the government, not because of it." The pandemic reboot has corrected our software glitches, caused our operating system to flush out memory sucking apps, and our RAM is optimized for a reload. Many crisis-induced policy reforms will begin to yield results both at a macro and microeconomic level. The rural economy is primed for spectacular growth partly due to agricultural and labor reforms but mostly due to an entrepreneurial free spirit. Platforms of disparity will even out as we see knowledge workers and entrepreneurs snare the opportunities. We will also see the redundancy of the middlemen both in the offline and online worlds. The commission and rent-seekers will disappear as we see buyers and sellers seek each other out without a jarring broker skewering the transactions. This is true for both the rural mandis and urban mandis.com. We must snare the opportunities and spare these opportunists. Middlemen.com has far outlived its utility.

  

No Proxy for Proximity; travel cannot be zoomed out


There is an exaggerated reverence to the new world order, which masks the long and arduous human history. The keyboard warriors will ask us to wash with soap the memories of being in proximity with one another. But there is NO PROXY FOR PROXIMITY. The zoom tech will not truncate travel but, in fact, foster it. Being an airport warrior will trump the keyboard warriors. As Manu Joseph incisively pointed out, "Even at the height of the AIDS hysteria, sex with strangers did not diminish; it just became rubber-coated. There will be similar modifications." Evolutionary biology and social psychology have consistently proved the importance of belongingness for the human species. Travel epitomizes that. 


The pandemic caused us to default on the promissory note of a promising start of the decade. But the check hasn't bounced yet. We will once again redeem our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  



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