1. Of the major countries at war in the WW II, the US and the UK lost the least number of soldiers, only 20% of what Japan lost to 10% of what Germany lost to only 4% of what USSR lost. How did that come about? The US and the UK were the big industrial powers. Their industries re-tweaked their equipment and started producing weapon, from tanks to airplanes within weeks. It was possible only because they had industries. Those familiar with factories will know what it takes to set up a factory. The Capital goods, that is, the machinery in the factory that produces products we use, doesn’t and can’t appear out of thin air.
2. The thugs ruling India for the last 70 years have made sure that we do not industrialise. Without industries, we cannot produce ventilators and oxygen. We may cry, media may run the stories in loop, but industries won’t appear just like that, and without industries, we can not produce the medical equipment.
3. So what has happened to the rich west? Actually the rich west is no longer rich. The circus is running on debt. Their industries long ago shifted to China. So they could not react the way they reacted in WW II. Their casualties are more than most third world countries. You may say that they had lower immunity to begin with. But even then medical facilities could have saved them. But they can not create the medical facilities because they no longer have that hard industrial base. Their revenues comes from software, and financial services, and other service sector activities, and of course rest they borrow. Nothing of this can produce medical equipment.
4. Media is the biggest bastard dog. For example, it is not telling you that there is acute container shortage all over the world. How? Because China owns almost all the containers, and it has simply recalled them and is hoarding them. Countries like the US and Japan, and even India, are talking of manufacturing their own containers. But that will take at least six months to materialize.
5. There is lot of talk in India about having hospitals. No country can have hospitals for a pandemic. Countries with best medical facilities-Italy, Sweden, the US, etc.- do not have them. So there is no way we could have had them. But we do not have even what these countries have because we have not industrialised. Hospitals cost money, and our government can never have the money if we the citizens do not create money. Our per capita GDP remains among the lowest in the world. So, per capita availability of hospitals will remain among the lowest in the world. Arithmetic is cruel.
6. Why have we not industrialised? Because we vote हफ़्तावसूलीबाज thugs to power. These thugs try to kill whatever industrialists we have. They try to bomb them. So there are not going to be any industrialists in India, nor hospitals, till we change our voting habits.
7. So what was/is the solution? The only solution was and is to stay at home. For that we needed to have savings. But we do not have savings. Nor does our government. We are in debt, and so are our governments both in states and at the Centre. The media doesn’t tell you, but fact is that most state governments in India were not able to pay the salaries of their employees even before this pandemic. So, we have to choose between starvation and taking chances with the virus.
8. Going into future, I doubt we are going to learn not to move into debt, not to force government give us goodies for which it doesn’t have money, and stop voting the extortionists into power. Because media and intellectuals won’t tell you any of the above outlined in 7 paragraphs, and you will not figure this out yourself because long ago you stopped thinking.
