Those who criticize Nirmala Sitaraman are people who have

a) never done any business on their own and

b) have never done any forecasting successfully – includes research

So start at the very beginning. There will be a lot of comorbidity. A 55 year old who was wondering what to do with his business will now close down the business – and the 13 people whom he employs will be left unemployed.

The small hospital who has an EMI to pay will close down simply because there is no business. Municipalities which have taken over hospitals are unlikely to pay on time. This is going to create more problems for the smaller hospitals.

Pharma companies are supposed to be doing well? Well, a pharma sales head tells me that he does not know where to sell (doctors are not writing prescriptions, hospitals are closed). He has no clue which hospital to sell to, he does not know which hospital will pay on time. So don’t get carried away.

Trying to see what will go wrong is tough. Trying to see what will go right is tougher. Remember this is just the beginning of the year. April and May if  the FM were to spend all the money, what would happen if the situation got worse in September? Where would she find the resources?

Projections (and strategy or policy making) is very difficult in terms of uncertainty. We have no clue who the next 12 months are going to be. Will we grow at 2% or de-grow at 5% or de grow at 2%, we are still guessing. Imagine, we are unable to see how much will a tech company do next quarter..

What should she do if the virus starts spreading? Especially to small towns? Right now the Corona is an urban problem. What happens if there are more deaths? I mean astronomically? In smaller towns like Surat, Satara, Sangli – what will NS do if the spread is like wildfire?

Are we prepared for some thing like that?

People who talk stupidly of looking at US and UK seem to be forgetting that all the people in those countries pay Income tax. What would happen if the gov said “as an incentive we will give a 10% reduction in the Income tax that you have to pay” – how many people will it impact? a miniscule number of citizens. With such a small IT paying base, tax concession does not make sense at all.

Can the govt put 5k in everybody’s Jan Dhan account? Sure, yes, but what will be the impact?

And far more importantly, where will we find the resources from?

I do agree that this is not the time to worry about cost of funds, but to do a major spending spree is not exactly what the doctor ordered. We need to preserve our energy to see how the virus and the vaccine behave. I have friends talking about 24 to 35 months for an effective virus. Do we have the patience to wait that long?

Our friends working in AMC are sure that the  SIP figure will remain the same over the next few months.

Now come to how badly were you hassled by one particular event? what did you do?

How good have you been in decision making under duress? How many times did you change your mind?

Did you admit to anybody that you changed your mind?

Now come to running a country with so much of uncertainty. Every idiot and his donkey can comment on the work that you do.

I am not subject to any scrutiny in my private portfolio, but still it is shared with my CA. Sometimes we find it difficult to admit our mistakes EVEN to ourselves.

Imagine being a fund manager – or even worse imagine being a Finance Minister in a cabinet run by a strong man. Nobody knows whether this is NS’s budget, or Namo’s budget. There is no way to find out either.