Thursday, April 26, 2012

What is the value of rupee?

What is the correct value of rupee? You may have wondered many nights sometimes without sleep. Is 50 rupees equal to a dollar?
If I were to be a consultant in foreign exchange, I will advise my customer with the statement "Rupee is nothing but an acceptance that an Indian needs a lot of things". It is not enough that I have a bag of rice. I need some wheat, some cement, some clothes. How to go about it? Rupee is the answer. It is very basic definition actually.
So, next time someone says the bottle of whisky is 5400 in India. It is only 100 in US. Then, just thank god that you get to drink the stuff. Do not worry about anything else.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Inflation - Who causes it?

Inflation happens when prices of common items rise. The poor are unable to buy food because of this. They then die in many numbers because of inflation.
Agriculture output is more or less constant or rising. Because of better technology. Demand is same. Then why should price rise? The factor that causes inflation is what lies between. Transport. The transporters may not cooperate and may refuse to take load or may charge exhorbitant or may be facing margin pressures due to hike in fuel price. But it is now clear that inflation is more or less caused by transporters.
But how inflation mechanism is controlled?
There are three or four things involved here. Fuel (comes from refineries), grocery malls, financial wizardry. There are private companies which are into all the three above. They are into refineries, malls and finance. It can be said with more certainity now that they are better placed for triggering inflation.
So next time when you eat roti knowing fully well that a poor fellow does not get to eat the same; you know whom to blame.