Comment by ankeshk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ankeshk | Hacker News Reader

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Here is the counterpoint: India is awesome if you're not struggling.

A lot of people complain about traffic. You know the salary of a driver on a monthly basis? About $100-250 (depending on the car you drive).

Bureaucracy is killing. Takes 3 months to incorporate. But do you know how much accountants charge in India to take care of all your business details? A startup probably won't have to pay more than $150 a month on an accountants fees.

Things are so cheap in India that you can live an extremely shiny life on the same budget at which an entrepreneur struggles to feed his family in USA.

But yes - a lot of the things are broken in India if you don't have the little bit of money required to throw at it to fix it. On the bright side: the pace of improvement is staggering (I mean - Indian literacy rate went from 65% to 75% in 10 years. Thats 650 million literates in 2001 to 900 literates in 2011! Still not awesome. And college education is still lacking in many places. But the speed of improvement is staggering.)

Disclosure: I'm a glass-half-full kind of an Indian who studied in USA but is now living in Bombay working on a startup.

> A lot of people complain about traffic. You know the salary of a driver on a monthly basis? About $100-250 (depending on the car you drive).

This is precisely what the author seems to be complaining about. We throw money at the problem and insulate/isolate ourselves. Too much pollution => AC car. Power shortage => generators. Corruption => "agencies" that help in getting stuff done. These practical choices are the reasons for crushing the soul.

Isn't this the exact moral qunadry that the author faces right now? India (and China) benefits from what I call as human subsidy. The living standard on average for general population are low which lead to reduction in cost for manpower, which makes stuff cheap. Sure if you are in top 10-20% of the earners, your life is amazing, you can have all the benefits of developed world at the price of developing world. I am not saying that people who live in other place are free of such guilt, consider Americans buying Apple products, made by Chinese workers who live in poverty. However for Indians the guilt is significantly higher. At least Americans can invoke Us vs Them argument, or point out the fact that actually buying the products might be the best thing that they can currently do considering their government.

Regarding India,there would be significant inflation in next decade, the main problem will start when our generation enters later thirties. There would be significant stress on India's healthcare system. (Indians might make fun of US healthcare, but Medicare/Medicaid is amazing and there is no equivalent in developing world). Worse India does not even has large army or pressure to grantee energy security. Unless there are groundbreaking inventions in energy/healthcare (which are quite possible) the next two decades are going to be challenging. India's best bet is that its demographic dividend and ageing population in US/Europe, pays out.

We're already in an necessity inflation period. Check how fast food prices went up in India.

As for the demographic dividends, I doubt it will last long. When a large, unemployed segment takes control over at US/Europe, the first thing they'll do? Make sure they have jobs. How do they compete against cheap labors in Asia? Simple. Tariffs.

Look at Greece, Ireland, Spain protesting...we're almost there.

And it takes absolutely no time and no legal backing system to get screwed up in India as well. Driver who will be late to work on 9 out of 10 times is worse than driving through the traffic.

FWIW - Literacy rate in India should not be confused with education. I have been to government operated schools many times and you wont find more than 10% students who can do simple math or write there own names even in 4th standard.

Cheap isn't everything. China is cheap. Thailand is cheap. Malaysia is cheap. They don't have the massive infrastructure problems that India has.

Personally I (or any sane person) wouldn't want to just live in a nice house, then sit in a chauffered car, stuck in traffic for hours, while avoiding looking out to see bum/garbage/slum/dirt/smog/chaos, then arrive in a nice office, then eat lunch and hope it doesn't make me sick, then go back home again.

fk, you just described my life. I live in a fantastic bubble and work in a fantastic bubble. I travel in a car driven by my driver and I pretend the in between doesn't exist.

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