Inflation hits everyone with its swords at each gate of their life. Everyone is injured financially due to inflation. After independence the picture is changed. Before independence the cost of 100kg rice is now the cost of the bread. It is believed that before Independence 1947 AD; 1/- Indian Rupee was equal to 16 US $ and today the price of 1 US $ is approximately equal to 85 Indian Rupees. This fall in value of Indian Rupee is majorly due to Inflation. Inflation is also compared with the demon or monster. It is also said that inflation is taxation without legislation(Law). It is also believed that inflation is like Sin; Every Government denounces it and every Government practices it. It is believed and widely accepted that inflation is just like alcoholism. The worst follows the good. I have seen and found that those investment advisors and financial analysts who watch and track inflation closely and invest their client money into financial products and instruments are often found successful and outperforming then those ignoring inflation and investing omitting the larger picture.
In the earlier post we have seen savings in much detail. Saving Philosophy is much more similarly to Ant Philosophy. We all have been taught about Ant Philosophy in our secondary schools. Recalling it back, we have been taught that “Ants think winter all summers”. It is assumed that they believe that the summer will not last forever. So they gather winter food in the middle of the summer. It is important to be realistic and think ahead. To improve our financial worth we should closely monitor inflation and our saving habits.
Let us look inflation into more details with our real life example. I am recalling my teenage memories. I was around 14 years in 1993-1994’s. During early 90’s petrol in India use to cost 16-17/Lt Rupees and today in 2023 it costs us 105-110. During early 90’s rice was 5-6/Kg and today it costs 40-45/Kg. During those days edible oil was 20/Lt and now it costs 150-180/Lt.; during those days US $ was 31-32 against Indian Rupees and now the US $ is 83-84 against Indian Rupees. Why has this happened? Why this heavy inflation is witnessed in our country? This has happened so because our country is a developing country. The country which comes under the category of the developing nations suffers inflation due to developments in process. They need to depend on other country resources. In India we import more and export less. That is we import more value goods and export less value goods. This causes trade deficit in our country’s trading account. All our import and export trades are carried through our country’s trading account. All the international trades of countries are carried out in foreign currency and majorly in US $. This trade deficit causes more US $ outflow from our country’s trading account as compared to less inflow of US $ into our country’s trading account.
Elaborating it further, some goods and services which are used or consumed by us are only obtained through imports like Crude Oil, Natural Gas and Gold, etc. Energy and Bullion together contribute to major percentage of import goods. Due to this they damage our current account largely resulting into trade deficit causing more US $ shortage in our current account for which we have to buy more US $ to make the payment to the counter parties. We can’t control the consumption of crude oil as it is required in our day to day activities. From this crude oil we get petrol, diesel, kerosene, cooking gas, lubricating oils, wax, plastic etc., and these are all used as fuels and other necessities of common man. Of course we are now shifting to unconventional energy like Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Tidal Energy, Bio Gas, Bio Mass etc., but they are still not that effective and portable as Conventional Hydro Carbons are. Also Gold damages our current account deficit very crucially. In our country though we are culturally and religiously diversified still we all practice some common ritual practices. In every family we have the habit of giving gold as token of prosperity during various ceremonies like birth, marriage and death. When a child is born maternal and paternal Grand Parents gift gold to the new born babies in the form of finger ring, chains, pennants, ear-rings etc. During marriage in India Brides and Groom are gifted gold ornaments by their parents, families and friends. Whenever a girl child is born in Indian family; the parents of the girl child starts accumulating gold as she grows up. They know that they have to gift gold ornaments at her marriage. The gold costs major portion in the expense of the wedding budget. These cultural rituals are followed widely in our country in almost all religions. Yes of course gold ornaments are often made from the old gold ornaments but the reuse of gold is less as compared to consumption and its daily increasing demand.
To balance this inflation we invest to get higher returns to beat inflation. We have seen in our earlier post that there are two actions which can be taken for any cause. One is Control and the other is Manage. We can’t control consumption of Bullions and Hydro Carbons in our country. So we try to manage these damages causing inflation; by investing into avenues of higher returns. We manage these financial erosions through investment and investing into higher return instruments and stock market is one of the avenue through which we can generate higher returns. So we need to understand each and every column of our high rise building to build strong and long lasting financial tower. If you like the posts then please share the post to the needed one to help them prosper with knowledge and wisdom.