The usual IANAE(I am not an economist) and random weekend ramblings.
Currently the Home Loan interest rates in US fixed interest for 15-30 years are between 6 to 6.5%. The Home Loan floating rate in India is between 10.5 to 11% and I am told only 5 year fixed interest rate at 12% is available%. USD is slowly sliding against currencies of the world including the INR. The incentives for moving money from US to India are far greater than from US to China (what with their overheated stock market and realty). The interest rate on personal loans and credit card debt are similarly plagued with un-productive and un-sustainable interest rates. On the other hand the interest earned by small investors on debt instruments remains relatively low, reflecting an in-efficient or non-competing oligopolistic market.
Capital flows, discounting for relatively un-safe business environment and weak property rights would be naturally in the direction of high interest rate bearing economies with an appreciating currency. Currency appreciation is further accentuated due capital flows themselves. Indian corporates and Indian peoples are subject to a high interest rate regime thanks to the capital controls not allowing them access to cheap capital wherever in the world it is available from. All this while the borrowings from World Bank continue un-abated. Sovereign debt India needs to repay stood at 114B USD as of 2005 (source: from deep inside worldbank.org).
economy
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This paper describes what went wrong with the sub-prime mortgage market. This whitepaper describes how the current structured financial products for mortgage financing work with as many as six different types of players including large investors, home owners, credit originators( the thrifts), investment bankers, credit rating agencies and brokers. Book Liar's poker also explains the world of investment banking and origins of application of securitization and structured financial instruments to create marketplace for mortgage bonds. Under-regulation of norms however is not our problem in India. The housing loan market in India is a mostly un-healthy nexus of builders,bankers, municipal/state actors with in-accessible land-records, property title deed information, urban zone information and traditionally weak property rights laws. |
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Typically a new upcoming leases aircraft and runs operations (hopefully profitably) |
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Q. Is the bubble going to burst ? Q. What about infrastructure ? Q. But software companies don't pay taxes ? And look at what our much derided beer guzzling, club hopping, flashy car owners working in a software companies and call centers are able to do to our economy by buying housing, cars and consuming. For money spent on a house doesn't merely go into a property developer's pockets alone(discounting a few percentage points of profit) it trickles down all the way to factory workers in cement, steel companies and directly to construction workers. The ETC television's funky advertisement about the "nakli note" that did so much for so many people before being detected is a case in point. Manufacturing drives our big industrial base which is smaller than China but still employs millions of people. The rising purchasing power of the middle class creates a huge market for garments/clothes and much of the garment industry that was sick for a long time and has now found its feet by modernizing and becoming IT enabled. (Investment advice: watch out for penny stocks of garment manufacturers ). The modern capitalist economy works on sentiment, and the sentiment that drives the spending from software engineers and call center workers has cascading effect on the whole economy. I firmly believe that companies in US that are able to successfully partner in India creating development centers here(virtual or otherwise) have come out stronger and used Indian talent here to create more jobs for the American economy too. What about real innovation? |
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