Rant. Just Rant.

Ok, I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here, because I'm angry. You don't have to read further if you don't want. 

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination rich. Like most other people making just about enough to keep their heads above water, I invest as much of my surplus earnings as I possibly can spare in safe government schemes which 

1. Offer a guaranteed rate of interest and

2. Are not subject to the vagaries of the capitalist enterprise. 

There are few such ways of investing, and I'm actually stuck with three:

1. Bank deposits which return almost no interest at all. 

2. Life Insurance Corporation of India policies, which are essentially untouchable as far as access to funds is concerned until the policies mature and

3. A post office recurrent deposit scheme which all these years has been returning 8.6% interest.

The post office and life insurance policy investments are, as of now, tax deductible.

Now, our beloved Hindunazis have in the recent past imposed a service tax on everything - and kept it creeping up steadily, from 12.3% through 14.5% and on – until we're paying a service tax of 15% on all goods, all services - everything. Whether you're rich or poor, to access the same service, even to pay rent, you'll pay a 15% tax. On top of that they haven't raised the income tax exemption limit and tried to impose an additional tax on government employee provident funds.

What do they do with all this tax money? Well, someone has to pay for Modi's endless trips abroad, haven't they?

Right, but these taxes aren't apparently enough. So now they're reducing the interest rates they're paying on everything - the post office deposit interest has been cut from 8.6% to 7%. This means that, in sum, earnings on savings are being cut at the same rate at which expenses are being penalised.

You can’t stop spending, because you need food and transport, clothes and water and hopefully a roof over your head. But you can’t save either, because if you do, you might as well be putting the money in a box under the floorboards for all the good it’ll do you.

I’m expecting income tax exemption to be removed from these savings schemes any day, if they haven't been already. So called "eminent economists" have been demanding that for two decades now anyway.

The obvious idea is to compel people to invest in the stock market, which will make the capitalists very happy, because currently only a fraction of 1% of Indians trust the share bazaar. And then when that crashes, as it inevitably will, from market manipulation or other reasons, it will take all those savings with it.

And then whose fault will it be?

You'll bet the Modi worshippers won't take any responsibility. They've cheered all the tax increases, and apparently the more the taxes go up the happier they are. It’s like they don’t live in the same universe as the rest of us.

Actually, they don’t. That's because they're either brain-dead idiots parroting a line, or paid trolls, or both.

Rant over. For now.