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I am preparing a presentation about the socio-economic landscape of India for the FDR YouTube channel. It's going to be an overview of the positives, the negatives and a future forecast based on current trends. I would like to cover relevant and interesting topics. What are your thoughts on India? I am interested in your first spontaneous thoughts: · What’s interesting? · Impressions · Stereotypes · Weaknesses · Strengths The video is going to be part of a series which includes already the USA, Australia, the UK and Canada

This guy!! http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978 I feel your pain, dude.

I came across this video on money.com regarding India's gold influx. I wanted some freedom-oriented analysis so I come to you guys. http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/07/24/n-india-gold-imports.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=V_Taboola I can't work through the steps of what she's saying. This leads me to think through them and verify them mentally myself. But I cannot do it. It also feels very wrong. This is one of those things where I know it's wrong, but cannot pinpoint or show it exactly. So I ask you for help., 0:20 "The rupee is hovering at an all time low vs the dollar." 0:25 "Since India pays for gold in dollars, it puts a massive strain on its account deficit." 0:41 "To reduce gold imports, the finance minister doubled the tax on gold imports." 1:04 "If the people stop buying gold for ~1 year, the account deficit will improve and the stock markets would improve. 1) Milton Friedman explains the negative feedback on the value of currencies when you send them abroad. I'm not quite sure I understand Milton Friedman's scenario and dynamics fully, but maybe you guys can explain. Also note, Friedman's scenario is with both native currencis... whereas this Indian scenario is India buying gold (let's assume from America) with dollars... so we have to adjust our knowledge and approach a little bit, relative to Friendman's scenario with domestic currencies. So here is an inconsistency I'm wondering about: Mainstream economists normally talk about currency wars, where each country prints more and depreciates the value of their nation's currency as if it were a good thing. So if the Rupee is low, aren't they winning the currency war naturally.... all the while getting ACTUAL PHYSICAL GOLD? sounds like a double win. So what is the reasoning behind this contradictory perspective? is it simply that the rupee is TOO low? if so, what is the criteria to to determine that? 2) So Friedman, as well as Bastiat, in his books, explains the fallacy of export-import = net foreign trade balance. I get this. The imported goods have an inherent value, so important doesn't necessarily mean a loss. so that equation is misleading. k. 3) So ofc raising import duties will reduce import volume. But is this good for the economy? The goal, supposedly is to raise the rupeand stock markets, assuming that importing gold with dollars is not good. 4) ok, if ppl stop buying gold... we hvae to work through all the mess of #1-3... but why would the stock markets improve???? and after we work through that one, why is that necessarily good, or better than getting gold?