72 ... and going weak!

Six years ago, I blogged about the falling Indian rupee, which had reached "an all-time low of 55.03 against the dollar."

I am not an economist nor a finance person.  Common sense and critical thinking is all I have; I wrote then that "buying a dollar for 55 rupees might even sound like a good deal" because I expected it to keep falling.

Common sense and critical thinking did not prepare me for this, however:

On Monday (Sept. 10), the rupee nose-dived to a new historic low, ending at Rs72.45 to the dollar. In this calendar year alone, its value has eroded 12% against the greenback, making it one of Asia’s-worst performing currencies.

Yep, "one of Asia’s-worst performing currencies."

In that post, I compared India with one other country that has always been a grand failure--Argentina.  I wrote there, "India is not that far behind Argentina in that respect."  Here too, in the case of the slide against the dollar, Indians can comfort themselves that the rupee hasn't fallen like the Argentine peso, which has lost half its value!

In that post in 2012, I wrote:

Indians, similarly, ought to figure out how to get their monies back from the crazy politicians at every level whose personal riches have been at the expense of the regular folks who work hard. For starters, they can get vote all the bums out. The problem though is this: throwing the bums out will mean new bums will get in!

There was one comment to the post from a stranger, who ranted:

India would have been better off with ordinary people with common sense at the helm, rather than there cronies with brain-washed ideas from the west, tamely speaking in a "Phoreen" accent trying to sound more intelligent than rest.

The foreign accent was directed at the party that was in power then--Congress.  In the elections after, the "real Indians" voted for "ordinary people with common sense at the helm."  I don't know about that commenter, but to my common sense and critical thinking, 55 rupees to the dollar sounds like a much better deal for Indians than 72 rupees to a dollar ;)

As I wrote then, "throwing the bums out will mean new bums will get in!"  The new bums are well entrenched, and the modi-toadies are hard at work to re-elect them, and to also elect more such bums at the state offices. 

But then I am not a political scientist either; common sense and critical thinking is all I have.