Latest / Trumponomics / Surprise! Your Cash Is Now Worthless

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Surprise! Your Cash Is Now Worthless · Trumponomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The stores were just deserted. Now I knew Delhi. In
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: all of my visits over the past twenty years, I've
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: never seen so many empty stores, jewelry stores, clothing stores,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: even sorry emporiums which do brisk business on a regular
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: business day. Today, on benchmark, it's all about cash, cold,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: hard cash. While it seems to be disappearing from people's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: daily lives in the developed world where plastic or PayPal
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: or Venmo, whatever you prefer, all those are ascendant, travel
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: halfway around the world to India and the opposite is true.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Most Indians get paid in cash. If they want to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: save it, many do it the old fashioned way. They
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: stuff it into boxes or mattresses. Two years ago, some
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty three million Indians that's almost one
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: fifth of the population didn't have a bank account at all.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: That same number, that's almost two thirds of the population
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of the United States. I'm scot landman. With me in
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: our Washington studio is my colleague Show Chandra, who was
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: born and raised in India and happened to visit the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: nation in December. Were also joined remotely by Cornell professor
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Eshwar Prasad, who was also a Brookings Institution fellow and
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: former official at the International Monetary Fund. Eshar thanks so
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: much for joining us today. Thanks for having me on
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and show. Thanks for being with us in the studio too,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: as Scott, thanks for having me to your point, Indiana's
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: reliance on cash isn't just an inconvenience. It also creates
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: opportunities for corruption and dodging taxes. That explains why Prime
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Minister rain Modi suddenly announced in November that he would
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: invalidate almost nine of cash and circulation, making it worthless overnight.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Everyone holding five hundred and thousand group bills, which are
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: what about seven and fifteen dollars each year, would be
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: required to trade them in for brand new currency. Right,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and that move sent hundreds of millions of people rushing
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to banks and waiting in crazy long lines from what
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I've read, to exchange their money. It was a big
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: mess and the impact is starting to show. Not too
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: long after India had surpassed China as the world's fastest
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: growing major economy, it's now in danger of losing that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: title to the Middle Kingdom again. So each Hre, can
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you just walk us through why India would take such
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a drastic action like this. The objectives were noble ones,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and I think there were multiple objectives. In fact, one
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: show pointed out was to try to deal with the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: corruption problem. A lot of economic activity in India works
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: through the shadow economy, and on major transactions safe for
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: housing purchases, a significant part of those transactions are conducted
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: in cash and order to avoid the tax net. In addition,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: there was a big concern about a large number of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: counterfeit notes circulating in India. M estimates suggest that a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: very significant proportion of the notes actually in circulation might
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: have been counterfeit. So this was meant as a strike
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: against the shadow economy, against counterfeit notes, and most importantly
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: against corruption. The sense was that a lot of ill
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: gotten gains were being held in cash, and that this
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: move would be a strike against corruption, and in particular,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: this would be one reform where the rich, who presumably
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: had slightly larger cash holdings and in some cases much
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: larger cash holdings, and the poor would be much more
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: severely affected. Of course, the implementation could have been done
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a little better, but then there is a question about
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: whether in a country like India, there is really an
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: effective way to implement such dramatic move that strikes said
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the pocket books of the wealthy and the elites, without
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: doing it in a disruptive way. Um I too was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: in India in December, and I got the sense that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: while many lower and even middle middle income class people
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: did not like the implementation, they felt that finally Mr
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Mody seemed to be taking a big hammer to corruption.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So they were broadly supportive with the more but certainly
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: incredibly been implemented better. So has it actually achieved the goals?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Even if whether or not people are in favor of it,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: is it is it something that you can judge it
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: or is it too soon? It's hard to say. Um.
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  Speaker 1: There was a sense that if a significant proportion of
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  Speaker 1: the currency didn't come back, that would imply that these
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: had in fact been ill gotten gains that the corrupt
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: would not want to sort of bring out into the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: open um. There was a tax amnesty put in place,
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  Speaker 1: the idea being that if there was money being held
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  Speaker 1: without taxes having been paid on on the income that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: created it, um that you could put the money back
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: in the bank at new currency notes and pay um
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a slightly higher tax than normal, but escape punitive measures
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: based on all those indications. I think there is a
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: sense of the amount of money that was brought back
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: into the system was not as large as expected, but
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: certainly it has put the fear of God into those
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: who may have been using cash for corrupt transactions. Um
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: and I think it's had a positive effect at least
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in terms of giving Mr Modi some credibility if you
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: were to use it to push forward more economic reforms
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and if you were to put in place more measures
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: to tackle corruption. There's been some movement on that front,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: but not as much as I had hoped for. So
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: we'll have to wait and see. Each way you talked
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: about implementation, is there a better way to tackle the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: goal that Prime Minister Modi had in mind? There was
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a shock value to it. Understandably it couldn't have been
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: announced ahead, But is there really something more that could
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: have been done to captackle corruption, strinth AP, parallel economy
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  Speaker 1: and what else is being done in India right now? So? First,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: could there have been a less disruptive way to do this?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: That's that would have been difficult, And this is where
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the difficulty lies, because it turns out that, as you
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: pointed out earlier, India is an economy UM that runs
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: largely on cash, and the value of the currency notes
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  Speaker 1: taken out of circulation by this move of taking out
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the five thousand rupee notes amounted to about eight six
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: percent of the value of notes and circulation, and in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: India there there are some estimates at about two thirds
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  Speaker 1: of all the cash and circulation is actually used for
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: day to day transactions. So that was a large hit
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: on the economy. But the significant thing in that number
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: again is that about one third of the cash that
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: was out in circulation was not really circulating. It was
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  Speaker 1: held as well. So that's where the hope was that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: there would be a hit in terms of corruption UM.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So I don't think there was a much better way
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to implement this, but certainly they could have acted faster
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: once the Act was put in place, recalibrating the A T.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: M machines, getting new notes out into circulation UM, that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: perhaps could have been done faster. But my sense again
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: is that the Reserve Bank of India and the government,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: we're doing all they could to print notes quickly and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: get them out into circulation. What one was hoping Mr.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: No They would follow by was additional measures to deal
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: with the corruption issue. In particular bringing uh financing of
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: political campaigns more into the open. In the budget, there
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: was a modest measure taken towards this end um, but
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I think a lot more needs to be done to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: deal with the root problem of corruption, including changing incentives
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: for public officials to engage in corruption, which in turn
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: would require reducing the intrusiveness of the government in the
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: overall economy. On those fronts, a lot more remains to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: be done. So have they have they gotten through all
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: these implementation issues yet if things returned to normal yet
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in the country or they still got a ways to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: go so um. Speaking from personal experience, I was in Mumbai,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the largest commercial capital in India, and mid December and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: virtually none of the ATMs, even in the commercial area
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: had any money in them. By the end of December,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: which is about forty five days after the move had
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: been announced, many if not most of the ATMs, at
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: least around the central area did have money and there
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: weren't long lines. But the urban areas are not that representative.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: In fact, in the rural area, as I understand that,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: there was much more disruption because that's a more cash
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: lity economy. The interesting thing however, is that I, of course,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: as an economist, could not resist asking every taxi driver,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: every Uber driver that I encountered how they felt about
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the move. And there was broad support for the intentions
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: behind and behind Mr Modi's move. But as I started
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: investigating further, certainly they were concerned that there was disruption
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: in the rural and urban areas caused by this move,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and people wish they had been less disruption. So my
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: senses that those problems I've been dealt. It was to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a significant extent. But really the issue now is whether
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Mr Moudy has followed through in terms of the broader
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: corruption problem. So what about your experience did you have?
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Did you have similar impressions to what you sure I
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was talking about when you were there a couple of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: months ago, similar and different as well. I visited New
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Delhi more than a month after the announcement, so this
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: was around mid December. Delhi, of course is the capital
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of the country. You could see that the shock was over,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: but the pain was still rampant, and I felt too.
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  Speaker 1: For one thing, the long lines each were touched on
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  Speaker 1: what was happening at the banks. I personally visited the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: bank I had some old notes lying around the line,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: stretched out the door around the block. Customers were getting impatient,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the bank officials were harried, and everybody had to just
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: wait in long lines um to see how much bank
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: currency would be available. And then the bank officials would
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: decide how much they were going to give you each day.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: If you wanted more, you had to come back the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: next day and stand in line all over again. In contrast,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: there was another very powerful visual which spoke to what's
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: happening um the impact on businesses and on the economy.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: The stores were just deserted. Now in New Delhi, in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: all of my visits over the past twenty years, I've
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: never seen so many empty stores, jewelry stores, clothing stores,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: even sorry emporiums which to brisk business on a regular
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: business day. They just had people sitting around that The
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: staff was, you know, just waiting for customers to walk in.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Grocery stores the same thing. So business seemed to have
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: come almost to a standstill, uh because people didn't have
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the money to pay and the storekeepers didn't have any
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: other means of accepting payment. And then finally, apart from
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: these visuals, there was this feeling of fear of what's
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: coming next. You'd have fresh rumors every day about what
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: was going to happen. People were picking up the newspapers,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: listening to the radio and television. The rules were being
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: made up as things unfolded. And UH, to give the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: government it's some credit when they realized things were not
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: going the right way, they were trying to adjust things
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to to make it easier. But of course there was
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of confusion and people felt the pay so
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: so clearly this was a disruptive event. Uh. The government
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: just gave its budget presentation a few days ago where
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I think they made some projections for the deficit and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the economy. What would have to be done or what
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: kind of facts would have on the economy. Is this
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: a short term disruption that will depress growth this year,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: is sure? Or is this something that that the ripple
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: effects could be felt for some years to come. There
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: are two ways of thinking about It's got. One is
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that this has created a lot of uncertainty in the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: business climate, and as show pointed out, in terms of consumption,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: which is some an important driver of growth in India,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and that's not good for growth. On the other hand,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: if this is seen as one of many reforms that
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: have been instituted in upcoming and signals that Mr Modi
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: is finally getting serious about the big reforms that are
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: necessary to get growth going, that could stimulate more investment,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that could stimulate more foreign capital inflows and have a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: positive effect on long term growth. And they should be
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: seen in the context of some things that have been
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: accomplished over the last year. UM. The implementation of the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Goods and Services tax is now on track. UM, It's
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: gotten through parliament, although the implementation is still being delayed
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: for some technical reasons. There was a bankruptcy law put
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: in place last year, there have been a few other
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: reforms so in scene. In that light, it seems that
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Mr Modi is finally using his political mandate to start
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: rolling out some bigger reforms, even while maintaining some discipline
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: on the fiscal side. The latest budget that you mentioned
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: does allow for a little bit of slippage on the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: phisical targets, but I think overall it's gone down quite
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: well in terms of UH, not too many populous measures
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and overall a reasonable amount of fiscal discipline. So if
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the government can maintain discipline on the fiscal front with
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: inflation seeming to be under reasonable control um and if
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Mr Mody starts rolling out some big ticket reforms, that
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: could be enough to solidify confidence at the economies on
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the right track that Mr Mody is serious about economic
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: reforms and that could have a positive effect on growth.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: But if all this disruption turns out to be for
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: not in terms of Mr Mody not using the additional
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: support he has gained right now to push over big
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: economic reforms, that could be a damper on growth, both
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: in the short term as well as in the long term.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So what's the bottom line here? Putting aside the questions
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of whether the GDP numbers in India and in China
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: are credible or not, as as you're very familiar with
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: US issues, will India continue to grow at a faster
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: pace than China or is China going to take that back? Well,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: India has all the potential to grow much faster. And
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: if you think about the relative sizes of the economy,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: is China is now an eleven and a half trillion
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: dollar economy, India has barely to trillion dollars. So India
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: could certainly grow much much faster given that it has
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a much lower base to again with but in India
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: growth does remain fragile to some extent because of the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: age old problems making it hard for the manufacturing sector
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to gain traction, although it has done somewhat better in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: recent months. The services sector again has been doing reasonably well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: although there are concerns about whether it has enough momentum um.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: But I think getting beyond the short term issues unless
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: India can tackle the big long term problems that where
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the list has not changed over time, having to deal
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: with infrastructure, improving the banking system, getting the labor market fixed.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Unless those big changes are made, I think India's growth,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: even if it does pick up a little about China's growth,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: is going to remain fragile for a while. Could there
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: be any consequences in India besides the economic impact of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: this move? There are some important state elections coming up
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: in the next few weeks or a few months um
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and how Mr Modi's party does in those legs could
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: um end up determining whether he starts taking a more
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: populous turn or rides the wave of some support that
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: he has received from this reason to move and pushes
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: forward using the political capitalism he has gained to get
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: some economic reforms under way and that will have a
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: big impact on India's growth again, both in the shot
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and long terms. All right, well, char thank you so
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: much for being with us today. This is a really
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: fascinating conversation. My pleasure, Scott, thanks for having me on
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and good talking to you to show and show. Thank
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you too. Thanks. Alright, well, Benchmark will be back next
• 16:40
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