Sunday, October 29, 2017

3 Reasons We Are Not a High-income Country

The first one is land use. If we removed all the sugar and replaced it with what we have elsewhere our GDP per capita at the end of 2015 would have increased by 48.5% to $13,575. And given us access to the high-income club.

The next reason is currency policy. If we had kept our currency fixed at its 1985 level of 15.58 rupees to the USD -- not a lot to ask from a Tiger as the majestic cats have been known to increase their exports while their currencies appreciate -- our GDP per capita would have been 2.25X larger. That is it would have climbed to $20,608.

The final reason is the devastating effect of the 15% flat tax. If we had clocked the average 8% growth rates promised since 2005 our output per capita would have shot up to $13,136 in 2015. Or about 44% higher. Which is by the way roughly how much the crazy land use has cost us. And gives us precious information to assess relatively recent policies.

Finally if we had no sugar cane, had been very reasonable with our currency and had clipped the robust 8% growth our GDP per capita would have been $43,971 or 4.81X bigger than where it was at Christmas time in 2015. This of course would have been 83% of the corresponding number for a famous South-East Asian Tiger.

Miow.

2 comments:

akagugo said...

3 clear points which could serve as a powerful trident against BS in the next general elections...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Bizlall can use them for the forthcoming by-election. Assess Sithanen, Ramgoolam and Boolell with them. Kind of interesting.