That was at a LP rally about a week ago. That's kind of funny when we look at his track record. The household budget survey (HBS) of 95/96 -- he was the finance minister for most of the 5-year period covered -- tells us that the poorest 10% families saw their share of GDP decrease by 13%. In fact all households saw a fall in their share of GDP except the 10% richest. The latter group bagged a 10% increase.
Fast forward 16 years and what does the 2012 HBS say? That the weakest 10% of our fellow citizens experienced a 14.7% fall in their share of the national cake. The next-to-weakest 10% also witnessed a double digit decrease. In fact not only did the bottom 70% of households not see their share increase or stay constant but these fell to 20-year lows. For example for the first time the share of the 10% poorest fell below 2%. The 2012 HBS captured the first five years of the Sithanen flat tax which is the worst form of trickle-down economics. Although he was denied a ticket in 2010 because he had badly mauled Mauritius he was still the one who had been the FM for the greatest part of the five-and-half year period.
The 2012 survey also highlights the fact that an extra 22,000 people were thrown into poverty by the policies of Rama Sithanen. That's more than one in every six poor people at the end of 2012. We can also compute changes in real disposable income to get some more perspective. As the chart below shows the 10% poorest saw an increase of only 6.7% over the five and half years ending in 2012 while the top 10% saw an jump of 30.2%. Compare that to the numbers of the 2001-2 HBS.
So Sithanen is the last person to be worried about inequality given how much of it he has created. And his return to the Labour Party will make it really easy to keep Ramgoolam, Boolell and himself out of parliament for another five years starting in 2019. For more in-depth analysis have a look at Who's the Better Cake-Cutter? and Why Poverty is Winning?
Fast forward 16 years and what does the 2012 HBS say? That the weakest 10% of our fellow citizens experienced a 14.7% fall in their share of the national cake. The next-to-weakest 10% also witnessed a double digit decrease. In fact not only did the bottom 70% of households not see their share increase or stay constant but these fell to 20-year lows. For example for the first time the share of the 10% poorest fell below 2%. The 2012 HBS captured the first five years of the Sithanen flat tax which is the worst form of trickle-down economics. Although he was denied a ticket in 2010 because he had badly mauled Mauritius he was still the one who had been the FM for the greatest part of the five-and-half year period.
The 2012 survey also highlights the fact that an extra 22,000 people were thrown into poverty by the policies of Rama Sithanen. That's more than one in every six poor people at the end of 2012. We can also compute changes in real disposable income to get some more perspective. As the chart below shows the 10% poorest saw an increase of only 6.7% over the five and half years ending in 2012 while the top 10% saw an jump of 30.2%. Compare that to the numbers of the 2001-2 HBS.
1 comment:
A real-life preview of what tax cuts can do.
And rejoice at the sheer number of non-taxed (therefore State-subsidised) projects being undertaken at the expense of Dodoland's citizens.
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