Sithanen Statements That Don't Survive A Fact-Check

1. No country invests more than 50% of their reserves in gold. Saying otherwise is pure folly (2009). Really?

What Did Trees in Beau-Vallon and Our Savings Culture Have in Common?

Another bleak reality is the decline in national savings rate. It has fallen from an average of 26 percent of GDP in the period 1996-2000 to 24.6 percent in the period 2001-2005. CSO is forecasting a very low savings rate of 19.5 percent for 2005. Here again, we must be utterly concerned. 

Rama Sithanen, 2005

... il a fait beaucoup de tort à la culture d'épargne des Mauriciens en enlevant les exemptions fiscales sur les prêts immobiliers ainsi que les études supérieures de leurs enfants, 

tout en taxant les intérêts bancaires.

Dan Bundhoo, 2014

Simple. They had gone through plenty but survived. There's a word for this and it is resilience. Granted it's a term that has been abused in Mauritius over the past decade. But it's easy to show what it really means. As RAFAL wrote about the resilience of trees recently I will focus on our savings culture. 

Pope to Spend Day With Victim of Unbridled Capitalism

He will find a Mauritius that's a lot more vulnerable than when John Paul II visited us thirty years ago. The damage done by an extreme version of trickle-down economics — 'dung of the devil' as Francis quoted a fourth century bishop to his Santa Cruz, Bolivia audience back in 2015 (as reported by The Guardian) and which has been dubbed Shaitanomics here since 2010 — is extensive and captured in chart 1. 

Not a Lot of Business Done

Since the moronic World Bank's Doing Business rankings were put on a pedestal by a couple of bean-counters and our taxation structure flattened starting in 2006. See the promised 8% growth over the last 13 years should have produced a little over six trillion rupees of national output. But as chart 1 shows Mauritius generated only about four and half trillion rupees of GDP. The difference – the Sithanen toohrooh – should cross the trillion-and-a-half-rupee mark by the time you play a famous U2 song a couple of minutes after 23h58 on the last day of 2018. Breaking down this shortfall yields important political insights.

Freymwurk Pu Analiz Dekolonizasyon

Kifer Gandhi pankor mor?

Sel reaksyon Winston Churchill, selon Shashi Tharoor, se sa not la dan fayl

bann memo kot ofisyel Angle ti pe dir li ki dimunn pe mor lor sime dan Bengal  

Enn Ti Kestyon

Si mo dimann zot ki pei tiena pli gro lekonomi pandan plis letan dernye 2,000 banane ki zot pu reponn? Langleter? Lamerik? Lafrans? Lespayn? Non. Len. Len tiena pli gro lekonomi pandan 85% sa letan la. Sa ve dir 1,700 banane. Sirpri? Pa tiapran lekol? Pa konvinki? Be pran enn minit sink segon pu get sa zoli ti video ki The Economist ti fer an 2014 la. Li korobor seki Shashi Tharoor ti dir dan emisyon Q&A TV Ostralyen ABC Septam lane dernyer. Kav usi get enn rapor ADB pu gayn enn lot pies pezel. Len se enn ka interesan pu konpran konpleksite linpak kolonizasyon lor enn pei.

Why You Forgot 2018 is The Year of The 'Second Economic Miracle'

... je pense que vers 2008 nous pouvons réaliser un taux de croissance de 7/8%.

Rama Sithanen, 2005

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. 

Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation 2013 

No Miracle in Sight

Half of the fourth year of the Lepep government is almost gone and still no trace of the exceptional economic performance SAJ had promised for 2018. Only growth rates of less than 4% so far and the next two years are not likely to be any different. These are the lowest in decades. 

Wong Had Little to Do With Massive Amount of Poverty Created

Because he was not Finance Minister (FM) during any of the past eleven years when by far the most backward policies -- top tax rates were set too low and this broke the economy -- our country has known were implemented. For sure he has been a member of Cabinet during the last two and half years and as such has to accept part of the responsibility of the mess we're in because he could have vehemently asked for the end of the worship of the golden calf. Or at least distanced himself from it. Besides he was until recently a member of a party which has two interesting words in its name: Social Democrate.

XLD, Less So

Of course Xavier-Luc Duval (XLD) has a lot more to do with all the poverty created over the last decade because he was in the driver's seat for quite some time -- close to three years. But before we look into this let us not forget that poverty and the fight against it is heavily dependent on two quantities: the size of the economic cake (GDP) and how it is shared. From the 2012 household budget survey (HBS) -- which tells us about the sharing -- we know for a fact that the poorest two-tenths of Mauritian households saw their shares shrink by 10% to 15%. That's their smallest shares in at least two decades if you care to know. So we don't exactly get bonus points here. And what about GDP?

How Bad is Trickle-Down Economics?

Trickle-what???

What the hell is that? It's a deceptive argument that the economy can grow a lot faster if we keep on reducing the top tax rates. It was first tried by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and failed miserably. For example the national debt of the US increased from $1 trillion to $4 trillion over a 12-year period. This regressive taxation regime was reversed as from 1993 when one William Jefferson Clinton won the Presidential elections. And what has been its impact on Mauritius?

It Has Screwed Up Our Economy

Well, you've seen what it has done to our country after Sithanen implemented a pretty barbaric version of it as from 2006 – the flat tax – with the blessing of one pseudo-socialist. The bottom line is that we ended up with the smallest national cake baked over a five-year period as far back as we can remember and the cake-cutting was pretty bad too. At the end of 2012 there was already a cumulative GDP shortfall of about 275 billion rupees – that's the GDP of Mauritius for 2008 by the way – with respect to the promised 8% robust growth trajectory. If we make the very conservative assumption that government would have reduced its revenue collections to 15% of GDP this translates into a revenue shortfall of over 40 billion rupees – you multiply the last two numbers. 54 billions if it kept its revenue share of GDP at 20%.

Lev Pake Reste Turns 10

Yes. Already. A recap. So Ramgoolam nominates Bheenick as Governor -- one of his best decisions ever but that too after a year and a half of doing God knows what -- but Sithanen is unhappy so he threatens to resign or maybe he does. The PM is out of the country at the time but makes an appeal to the Minister on national tv. The latter eventually changes his mind -- after about a week -- when his pick as the BoM chief gets the SBM chairmanship. But not before swallowing something that's not exactly a grass snake and creating an urgent need to amend one famous Chevenement formula.

That was a really strange week. See if a Minister cannot be present at his office there has to be a colleague who steps in for him. We've seen this so many times: another member of Cabinet will answer parliamentary questions on behalf of the officeholder when the latter is out of the country. If a Minister resigns our excellent constitution takes care of that seamlessly. And that too without the PM having to be at his desk. The Ministry can also be reassigned to another colleague. For example SAJ held the Ministry of Finance for a few months last year. So did Ramgoolam in 2014. But none of those happened back in February 2007.

Plenty to Learn From US Election Process

Americans know pretty much what to expect from the person they will elect as President of the world's second largest economy today. And that's thanks in no small measure to the candidates thoroughly discussing the main planks of their plans and to several independent groups of people scrutinising them. If it's Trump they are aware that the extreme version of trickle-down economics he's proposing – a flat tax of 15% – would add 5 trillion dollars to the US national debt, make 3.5 million people lose their jobs and potentially throw the economy into a recession. If it's Clinton the economy should keep on growing from the middle out and that too without a Great Wall that Mexico would be made to pay for. The fiscal policies of these candidates are also consistent with the DNA of their parties: Democrats don't believe and rightly so that tax cuts for the wealthy work while the Republicans do.

Will the Budget Be a Non-event?

"On ne parachute pas au ministère des finances quelqu'un qui ne sait pas calculer la dette publique et qui ne connaît pas l'impact de la fiscalité sur la croissance...."

Rama Sithanen, 2009

Like last year's and most of the budgets since 2006? Well, it doesn't have to. It will essentially depend on a single decision. But first let us understand how we got into a deep mess for ten whole years.

Old Policy Crap in New Bottle

The last part of the quote above – emphasis mine – summarises pretty much the main economic story from Mauritius over the last decade. While tax rates definitely impact growth rates – and both of them drive government revenue – the relationship is far from being linear. And it depends to a great extent on the relative ability of our public and private sectors to create wealth or make things happen. In the 1980s for example, as Paul Krugman reminds us, American top tax rates were cut from 36.5% to 26.7% over nine years but they never got the growth rates that would have financed those cuts. What they did get though is a Federal debt ballooning all the way from less than a trillion dollars to four by 1992. And two decades later US politicians were trying to clinch a deal hours before Uncle Sam was scheduled to go into default. The Economist summed up the situation as essentially the product of two tax-cuts, two wars and one stimulus package.