If Obama did, I think it will help Trump with his base. Trump can cop out saying he cannot deport 12 million people now ignoring the fact that it is impossible to do.
This notion, Bernie would have definitely beaten Trump is just a ludicrous assumption. 66% americans view socialism very negatively and Trump would have the same message against Bernie that he hadn't done anything in the last 40 years of public service. Only thing that would be going for Bernie would be his "trustworthiness".
Assange has been taunting about those mails for a while, they could've released all of them at once not drop by drop with the last one being on the weekend before the elections.
This was played for maximum effect, they had them likely for months, if not longer, this is a score settling not an exercise in democracy.
To be fair though, if they released them all two years ago no one would remember it at election time. The great unwashed masses tend to have an attention span and memory that can be measured in seconds.
It is hardly going to fix the black money problem. Rich people have so many employees to do the bank run for them. Within the next month, you will see a huge spike in real estate market. People with black money will dump it in the real estate market. (If you are not an Indian, this is how it works. You buy an apartment/home/building for the amount X. But you declare it to the government that you bought it for X/10. The guy who sold it now has the black money which he can reinvest or based on his income level, can deposit in the bank. If he is a farmer, he can pretty much claim it as agricultural income and pay no taxes). So, basically, black money will trickle down rapidly in the next month or so.
The government has become pretty smart - their standard rates have increased quite a bit (since they lose tax revenue)
Secondly, I don't think people are going to touch the old notes - just too much risk involved.
Infact, I would speculate that since a lot of black money is now worthless, we might see rates go down, especially for new constructions
I second this comment. Real estate in tier-1 India cities is fueled by black money. Now with people not having black money to invest in the market, I'm expecting to see the trend go downwards.
"Dumping in real estate" will require the seller to "convert" that money which isn't trivial, keep in mind the seller himself would be trying his best to get it converted. Will it completely solve the black money, probably not, but at least it is the biggest step towards any kind of a solution in future.
On the contrary, real estate market will stop for next couple of months. Cash is a big component of the price for the seller. And the current cash is useless as it has to be deposited in banks and declared, thus removing the whole rationale for taking cash. The seller is already paying tax on the non-cash portion.
Actually dumping into real estate, gold etc. is not bad because your govt will get taxes out of the transaction at the least. Problem with black money is not that some body hoarded it. Problem is some body hoarded it with out paying taxes.
Not really. Conversion to cash is limited to Rs.4000. Rest goes into your account. If you convert more than 2 Lakhs, that is notified to the IT authorities. You can't withdraw more than Rs.20000 per week or some such limit. Trickling down will take a long time, and even then most of it will be watched. If someone is withdrawing more cash than they ever did before, the govt., will probably question them beyond certain limits.
Real estate? No. What builder/seller would want to stock up 500/1000 notes?
Same for gold. How much can one goldsmith/jeweller's revenue increase in a year? Same for agricultural income. Can you suddenly declare 500% increase? (Oh well, agriculture income could have been declared earlier too anyway).
I am not sure how that will work out if the denomination itself has been declared illegitimate. Why would anyone accept 'black money' of any kind if he can't spend it elsewhere?
If you are in the low income bracket or a farmer, you can accept the money and deposit in the bank without any ramifications. All this will happen before the deadline.
It is comforting to know. the world is same!
As a student from a government run poorest rural village school in India, my college professors constantly questioned how I was outperforming and even suggested that I might be using the bribery system to get good grades in standardized final exams. TBH, I actually enjoyed that experience.
I ask a dude standing on a corner to give me directions to a place. Now,the dude is supposed to publish his logic as to how he arrived at those steps in the directions?
Another destination: India. If you are a female, then south India. You can stay at descent hotels in Bangalore or Chennai for $25/day. Another $20 per day for food. Watch how multinational IT companies treat their employees. Feel good about yourself and come back rejuvenated.
My destination recommendation would be Taiwan. Not quite as cheap as Thailand or India, but still very inexpensive. Eat some of the most amazing street food for a dollar per item; take super convenient, clean and cheap public transit; and hell, there's even cheap and good quality health care. Spend $20 to get your teeth cleaned and cavities fixed while you're there. You'll also meet some of the nicest people you'll ever know. It's like a cheaper, friendlier Japan.
I don't spend $20/day on food in Boston or Paris. Does it really cost that in India? Are my nationalist blinders on? Somehow I imagined that it would be much cheaper there.
Although the third world can be surprisingly cheap, it is often surprisingly expensive. Add that to the cost of flights (a $990 round-trip flight to a place equals $33 a day if you stay a month) and things begin to add up. And although billions of people in the third world do eat for cheap, the cheap/local food and what you want to eat may not match up. Combine that with different prices for foreigners and your lack of local knowledge about cheap, good places and you'll be paying a lot more than you'd think.
Only go to places that maintain an illusion of hygiene and prices will rise fast. For example, you might pay the equivalent of $3 more per meal for a place whose employees wear gloves. But in reality, the dirty-looking place next door is actually cleaner; they throw lemon juice on their boards after cutting meat. At the same time the nicer-looking place lets raw chicken touch everything while handling money with the same gloves they use for food.
You can easily spend a tenth of that and get good food in India if you eat at places where the average local person does. However, speaking as an Indian, most foreigners probably don't want to play that crapshoot, because there is always a chance you'll get sick due to lack of hygiene in food prep.
The hotels that cater to Westerners typically charge a lot more, and rates are more comparable to hotels in a cheap European city. Theoretically, with them you get a guarantee of food that is prepared with better safety standards. Whether this is practically true I have no idea.
Ironically, the cheapest way to live and eat in India would be to rent an apartment and get a trustworthy cook to come in and cook fresh food for you every day. Your daily bill will be way less than $20. However, setting this up requires a fair amount of legwork and contacts, which (understandably) someone who is looking for a vacation will not find attractive.
> Theoretically, with them you get a guarantee of food that is prepared with better safety standards. Whether this is practically true I have no idea.
Anecdotally, working in Maharashtra with Indians in an Indian company for a few months I was never ill. This was eating $1 "luxury" 8 course meals brought to me in the morning by a dabbawalla on his motorbike which - as with all my co-workers' food - stayed out in the searing heat for a few hours before lunch; I also eventually had him bring me dinner. I lived in the same company housing as everybody else. No idea how you'd find a dabbawalla though, I just took the stack of leaflets dropped at the office and tried them all until I found a good one.
Coming back for 2 weeks to Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore staying at a famous and very nice 5 star hotel chain and eating only in their restaurants, I caught the worst bout of my life. Bit wary of hotel kitchens since then.
I realize this is a fucking gross idea that amounts to poop pills, but there is probably a market for a market for digestive inoculations against local bacteria. Being able to build up a resistance to the local gut bacteria in advance - before you have to commit 100% to all of the local fauna - would be invaluable. Gut bacteria almost certainly play a large part in that balance.
They exist. Cost me $15 at a local chemist (in Australia) to get an immunization for common stomach bugs in Southeast Asia/India). It also isn't impossible to buy antibiotics before you go and to take them with you.
> Ironically, the cheapest way to live and eat in India would be to rent an apartment and get a trustworthy cook to come in and cook fresh food for you every day.
I met a seed-stage startup person who has this setup (somewhere in India) while traveling through a hostel in SF recently. Two meals cooked per day and cleaning. It sounded like a great setup and much more affordable than what that would cost in the US.
If you are travelling in Boston or Paris (e.g. not cooking your own meals) $20 is really a pretty restrictive budget. Scaling your expectations elsewhere similarly will mean you can probably also do it on a lot less in India...
You mean eating out? When I'm traveling on a budget, I tend to just buy bread and cheese in a grocery store, and use a knife (or whatever I can improvise) to make a meal on the go.
Although I agree with you it's also worth pointing out that very often the bread and cheese _is_ the local food. Even in places that aren't known for their cheese, if you head to a market you might find an inexpensive, unique and rather tasty cheese.
No, that's not healthy. I didn't say "eat nothing but bread and cheese". If someone recommends you try the bonbons in France, do you eat 3 meals a day of only bonbons for 30 days? When people suggest you try a food they usually aren't suggesting you try and make it your entire diet. I was instead recommending eating the local bread and cheese (of course in moderation.) For the places I've lived in this holds:
- NYC? Get a bagel with cream cheese, or a chopped cheese ($3).
- Idaho Falls? Go to Reed's Dairy and the bakery by the public library with free samples (can't remember the name.) Amazing stuff, and pretty cheap.
- Netherlands? Cheese is pretty cheap and good quality everywhere in the country. Bread is incredibly cheap, and even if you're literally surviving off change you find on the sidewalk you can afford it.
- New Hampshire? Go to Cabot Cheese. Best cheddar in the world.
Of course also remember to eat fruits and veggies, but those are always cheap. I just bought 3 large peppers and a kilo of apples for €1.50 here in the Netherlands.
There's nothing wrong with inexpensive food. You should try the bagel and schmear in nyc, and if you haven't had pork belly buns, tacos de lengua, or pupusas con curtido you should drop what you're doing and fix that. All of those are amazing. Pupusas, in particular, are pork and cheese in a pancake.
Cabot cheese is the best cheddar though? That's fighting words if you grew up near Wisconsin. If you're ever near there go to Bobby Nelson Cheese Shop. The aged cheddar is amazing and they make their sausage.
Have you tried Cabot's whole assortment? For a few weeks a year they lay out a truly ridiculous assortment of cheeses, all free to try. Their hyper-local stuff kicks the ass of the (still fantastic) Cabot you'll buy in the grocery store. What you guys get in Wisconsin trucked across the country is probably not even close to what I ate when I lived a stone's throw from Cabot.
Also, my tastes run seriously sharp. Does Bobby Nelson have anything really sharp? If so I've got to check it out.
Secretly, my favorite cheddar - which I'd bet trumps Bobby Nelson, even if Cabot's hidden stuff doesn't - is made by an older woman who wraps all her cheeses in black paper and sells them at various markets around the Quechee Gorge. But it's somewhat expensive and very hard to find. The last time I bought some I weighed it before and after eating to make sure nobody else touched it, it's that good.
If you want to get more global, try obscure Welsh cheddars. Amazing but expensive. They go very well in between scotches.
So, basically, what she says is, if you earn in US, healthcare is affordable in India. She seems to think $4,300 is cheap and affordable for all Indians. Only the upper middle class and the rich in India can spend that kind of money. (Only about 25% of Indians have health insurance).
