"GDP" & Other Gods We Worship
Pam Bondi, the United States Attorney General, while appearing before a Congressional hearing on the Jeffrey Epstein case, invoked the Dow Jones, the S&P, and the Nasdaq, claiming they were touching new highs. She admonished the hearing committee that rising stock indices should be the prime focus of Congress instead of discussing the dead financier’s immoral life and its consequences. In Pakistan, television journalist Nusrat Javed reported another small but telling story with admirable calm. Electricity consumers were to pay a new levy—between Rs 200 and Rs 650 per household—so that industry could be subsidised in the name of competitiveness. Ordinary citizens would underwrite industrial growth. The burden would travel downward; the benefits upward. This, too, was justified as economic necessity. Back home, we are told almost daily that India is on its way to becoming the world’s third-largest economy. The declaration is repeated with such fervour that it has begun to sound l...