Rahul Mehta Gandhinagar LsCandidate
There is post doing rounds that USA pegged dollars with crude oil while India pegs dollars with gold, and that why rupee is weak. And value of rupee will rise if we reduce import of petrol. The post doesnt say who and how we should reduce consumption of petrol --- should a person using motorcycle ride on donkey or should a person using BMW use Maruti?
Anyway, post has following factual incorrectness
1. US dollar is NOT tied with crude oil
2. Indian rupee's tie with gold unofficially ended in 1940s and officially ended in 1950. To be exact, RBI has manufactured Rs 9000 per citizens from 1951-today, and banks with permission of RBI has manufactured some Rs 50,000 per Indian citizen (M3) , while gold RBI has is only Rs 1200 per citizen. So rupee-printing has nothing to do with gold
3. Sure, it is trivial that if we reduce import, then value of rupee will rise. and petrol is biggest import. But say you are using Motorcycle and I have BMW. Then who should change his life and reduce less oil? Should you start riding on donkey or should I switch to Maruti?
4. I would suggest you start using donkey and make sacrifice for nation. And yes, if say reduce your motorcycle use by say 35 km, and save one liter of petrol, but I increase use by 5 kilometers, then my petrol consumption will increase by 1 liter. And the BMW I bought consumed forex of about Rs 30,00,000 which is equal some 45,000 liters of petrol, which is equal to annual consumption about 120 motorcycle users !!!
5. OR, say 100 motercycle-owners decide to ride on donkeys and save 1 liter of petrol a day. In one month, they say saved forex of (100 *persons * Rs 60 per day * 30 days) = Rs 180,000 . And I go on a foreign vacation, and burn same amount of forex on 5 days. Net forex savings will be zero.
6. All in all, the author didnt say who should make how much of sacrifice --- and I will ask all readers to ask the author to make sacrifice chart i.e. who should sacrifice how much of petrol use.
====
And yes, the author completely misses the main point --- the dollar is high due to strength of USA Military. And USA's Military is stringer than Indian Military because USA has better courts, which makes US factory owners LESS IN-EFFICIENT , and so they are able to make more and better goods, and more and better weapons.
So focus ON real issues, and not some "you all should not use petrol for 7 days so that I can have one more foreign vacation or I can drive my SUVs more often " type advices.