Thursday, May 28, 2009

Vishnu Was Quite Lucky

To be Finance Minister beginning 1983 because that coincided with the start of one of the longest uninterrupted economic expansions of the 20th century and most likely the best stretch of favourable international economic conditions our country witnessed since 1968.

1983 was also the 6th anniversary of the implementation of free education so a larger than usual number, for that period at least, of our youngsters with a higher human capital content were getting ready to hit the job market. Population growth was also well under check -- something Mr. Lutchmeenaraidoo had not a great deal to do with.

Still, that doesn't take away anything from the fact that Vishnu has probably been the best Minister of Finance our country has known. Do you think we should come up with a category for bean-counters?

2 comments:

ERIC BAHLOO said...

Hi Sanjay,
Don't you believe that the economic cloth can so easily make the Man or Minister of Finance ?
Had Vishnu been in office today and according to what he has recently proposed on political platforms/forums as measures (probably more electoral than economic in view of the next Communal and Casteist General Elections in 2010) would he be able to handle the unprecedented crisis properly ?
Cheers
Eric

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

I haven't been too impressed with what Vishnu has proposed recently but I believe that it's kind of difficult to do worse than Sithanen. In fact we would have been better off if Ramgoolam had replaced Sithanen with a Rs5 coin. Read more here. http://kozelidir.blogspot.com/2009/05/independent-study-concludes-5-rupees.html