From time to time, whenever we face financial crises, our government write big fat stimulus packages to boost the country’s economy. What we generally conclude that our government is very generous. But, the bigger the stimulus package, the worse it is for the taxpayers. This blog is about how the big stimulus package is stealing our happiness in the long run. I want to start the blog with an incident that illustrates this point very well.
Why givers are not always generous
The person related to the stock market will not go anywhere from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM. Once the market closes at 3:30 PM, then a hunger comes. This hunger is not anything like the hunger caused before lunch, dinner, or breakfast. This is a light hunger that can be filled with light food. That’s why after 3:30 PM, I go for light food to the nearest snacks shop.
Today I thought let’s try for healthy food. Let’s make a habit of eating healthy. So, I went to a dry-fruits shop and planned to eat cashew nuts, almonds, and raisins. There is a grocery shop near the office. I reached there and asked for some dry fruits. Before I finished my query, The person brought a fistful of cashew nuts and handed over to me, and told me to taste. I felt a little bit shocking. Because it was not two-three pieces of cashew nuts, it was a fistful of cashew nuts. I thought that until I decided to buy, how could he gave me a fistful of cashew nuts. It might cost at least fifty to a hundred rupees. Anyway, never mind. While eating, again, I asked whether almonds are available. Then he told me to wait and brought a fistful of almonds and again handed over to me. He told me to taste it and check the quality. I hope you all know the cost of almonds. I thought whatever he gave to me, a minimum of rupees one hundred. It was a big fistful of almonds, which I was unable to hold in my fist.
I thought he offered me this much free of cost and expecting me to buy a lot in return. Then I didn’t deny and ordered to pack a parcel of both cashew nuts and almonds for me worth rupees two hundred only. But at that time I had already eaten half of it there only free of cost. Then he packed the parcel for me happily, and I gave the payment. He gave me a happy Bye-smile to me while I left the shop. It was hard to believe that if such generous people exist. I thought about how it could be possible for a shopkeeper to give me half of what I purchased free of cost. One more thing came to my mind that he is a nice person, an open-hearted man. He is reading more to the heart of people than the business.
Then I thought to buy a few more dry fruits as the shopkeeper was so kind to me. Inside me, lots of curiosity was there at that moment, because I met a great person today. When I couldn’t control my curiosity, I couldn’t help but ask, “How does he make a profit when he gave so many things for free before I bought anything from him?” Then, finally, the truth came out. He replied, “I am not the owner of this shop. I am just a simple worker here. The owner is staying out of the station. He comes here once in a year and goes through the account book.” At that time lot of thoughts were rushing through my mind. One of them is if something like this goes on for a long time, then this shop will not survive for long.
While I was about to leave the store, the shopkeeper gave me a shout from the back and offered me a few more dry fruits for free. I left the place in disbelief, thinking about his madness.
You see, the person in charge of the shop is not generous. The owner has given the shop into his custody, but here he is doing this type of charity. Who has to pay the loss for those free dry fruits? It is the owner. Isn’t it? If I didn’t know that the person was not the owner, I would have concluded that the person was generous.
Why taxpayers have to worry while the government provides big stimulus packages?
The government writing a big fat cheque to the poor people is similar to the incident in that store but on a large scale. When the government gives money to do something by taking loans, then we think that the government has the right financial condition; the government is so compassionate and offering money from his side. But here also the same type of story exists. The government is not the real owner of this country. It’s the taxpayer who is the owner of that money. The bigger the package, the bigger the nightmare for the taxpayer. The more money as the tax will be collected from us. If those massive loans are not regulated properly, it will cost us and our coming generation dearly. If these loans are announced repeatedly without considering much, then soon the nation’s economy will be handicapped.
The fact is the majority of us are ignorant about how these packages are collected from us. Most of that debt is collected as tax. But inflation and printing more money are also a few of the major contributing things to clear that debt.
Whenever the government invests the tax money helplessly in different sectors, then lots of demerits arises. For example:-
(1) Due to high liquidation, lots of money flow to people’s hands. As a result, people are getting ready to pay more costs for any product or service easily, and ultimately inflation starts.
(2) Whenever government invests the loan money and does not get a good return on that, the government has to return that loan amount and then recover that money; government introduces different kinds of taxes on these items that people consume or buy more. Therefore the regular usable item price rises, which is not value for money.
(3) To invest money by the government, it has to print more currency. As a result, the liquidation increases for the people, whereas the value of currency decreases due to the massive amount of currencies flow into the market. Therefore the cost of imported items also increases.
So these are the three major outputs of huge stimulus packages provided by the government. This is the money that belongs to the taxpayers only, does not cost anything to the politicians. Hence, when the government announces a big stimulus package, don’t be so excited about it!