At what looks like one of the many globalist “change agent” sites that offer controlled opposition to the corporate-globalist wing, a young writer deconstructs DeMo correctly as blind to corporate-govt corruption at the highest levels, but then concludes that the enormous inequality that RESULTS from this nexus is really its CAUSE.
That of course is an infamous globalist meme in its own right that inevitably leads to further government intervention, in the form of subsidies and grants to the victims of the earlier round of pro-corporate subsidies….and so it goes.
And how do I know the site is controlled opposition?
The slickness of the design, the crowd-funding, the themes (opposition to the menstruation taboo and reiteration of the “99 percent and 1 percent” thesis).
In separate CBI raids in 2013 and 2014, on the two companies mentioned above, large quantities of hard cash and accounting documents were seized from the respective offices. The documents which were seized contained a detailed account of payments allegedly made to high-ranking political figures. Amongst these figures are politicians from both BJP and Congress – Shivraj Singh Chauhan (CM-Madhya Pradesh); Raman Singh (CM–Chhattisgarh); Shaina NC (treasurer of BJP in Maharashtra); Sheila Dikshit (former CM of Delhi).
The documents related to the Birla matter also contain the signature of the deputy director of the Income Tax (Investigation). Despite this seemingly incriminating information, the Income Tax Department did not push for a further enquiry with the CBI. According to Mr Prashant Bhushan’s allegations, KV Chowdary did not look into the matter when he was the head of the income tax department.
According to Mr Prashant Bhushan, in an interview with The Wire, Mr Chowdary has been associated with controversial issues in the past – Ponty Chaddha’s income tax assessment and the stock guru scam. Despite this, he was appointed as the chief of the Central Vigilance Commission, against which the citizen collective Common Cause filed a writ petition in 2015.
Supreme Court has asked for more evidence on the matter. Meanwhile, many representatives from the BJP have rubbished the allegations, while representatives from the Congress and other parties seek an investigation into the issue. Little can be said as to what these documents will amount to in the court of law, as the next hearing is set to happen in January.
However, these allegations form another link in a series of alleged big-business scams involving the government. It makes the writer wonder, that if big corporate scams are indeed the biggest culprits of money laundering and corruption, shouldn’t we be targeting them instead of ?500 and ?1000 notes? Do meagre bribes by the majority of the people in the country even compare to the amounts cited in big corporate scams? Let’s find out.
Black Money In Corporate Scams, Political Campaigns And Demonetisation
Scams, as big as the Coalgate scam, raise many important questions about how best to identify, as well as, deal with the central issues surrounding black money.
Recently, other alleged major scams by corporates as revealed in the Essar tapes – wherein investigation is under way concerning the alleged systematic bribing of senior political officials, and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence’s (DRI) probe into over 40 of India’s biggest energy companies (including Adani and Reliance) for artificially inflating prices of imported coal.
The amounts in these scams are believed to be massive. Thousands of crores of rupees. It is no secret that large amounts are laundered offshore to tax haven countries like Switzerland, Mauritius, etc.
There are many estimates of India’s foreign black money. According to economists Pellegrini, Sanelli and Tosti in an interview with Times of India, the amount invested in shares, debt securities and bank deposits in tax havens alone may add up to $181 Billion or ?10.5 Lakh Crore. One of the higher figures was perhaps given by Prof. R Vaidyanathan of IIM, who estimated that there was more than ?70 Lakh Crore in 2007-08, stashed away in more than 70 tax havens in the world!
Whether it is ?10 lakh crore or ?70 lakh crore, the amount of money laundered offshore is a significant proportion of the GDP.
To add to this, let us consider probable circulation of black money through political parties, which get special exemptions and are not even subject to RTI. It is alleged in India that illegal funds are used by political parties for campaigns, which often come as unaccounted cash from unknown donors.
The 2014 elections were the second most expensive elections in world history, estimated to be $4.9 Billion (More than ?3 lakh Crore) having been spent on campaigning for seats. Fourteen of India’s biggest industrial houses set up electoral trusts to give money to their favoured parties.
The amount of money involved in the slew of corporate scams and party politics goes into thousands and lakhs of crores. To put it in perspective, India’s GDP for FY16 was ?135.7 lakh crores. In 2007, the World Bank had estimated the size of the black economy to be 23.2% of the GDP in 2007. According to India Ratings, the withdrawal of high denomination notes is likely to destroy ?4 lakh crore – about 12% of the total black economy. To do this, about 86% of all the cash in circulation was withdrawn in the form of ?500 and ?1000 denomination notes.
These figures should make everyone ask one question. Has demonetisation of high-value notes really struck at the heart of the black money economy? The writer is no economist. However, it doesn’t take an economist to see that the amounts of money involved in corporate scams and party politics constitute of a major chunk of the black economy. Moreover, the mechanisms of money laundering in these two cases rarely rely on the liquid cash economy and are even safeguarded by colloquial electoral and political practices.”