Remember Norbert Haering's bullshit/click bait post about demonetization in India? Turned out​ a little different.

I do like to read Norbert Haering's blog posts. Particularly entertaining is his insistence/endeavor to pay for the Mandatory German Goebbels-TV-Propaganda-Fee in, get this, CASH. He has no problem with the propaganda fee as such. A true German.

A couple months ago he claimed that India would be on a huge demonetization move. He managed to get those two posts published on various other blogs and my impression about those blogs changed a little after that because it made no sense whatsoever.

When I first read his article, I thought being in a reality distortion field. I have no idea how anybody in his right mind could even think about such a move in India. The Indian economy would grind to a crushing halt without cash. 80% of UBER transactions in India are cash based, and that concerns the middle class. Cash is an absolute must in the villages. India going ex cash would be like Pornhub without porn.

Here are excerpts of his two blog posts. They read like a James Bond script:

A well-kept open secret: Washington is behind India’s brutal experiment of abolishing most cash

The article starts off like a thriller. Suspense is in the air. Deep state ...

In early November, without warning, the Indian government declared the two largest denomination bills invalid, abolishing over 80 percent of circulating cash by value. Amidst all the commotion and outrage this caused, nobody seems to have taken note of the decisive role that Washington played in this. That is surprising, as Washington's role has been disguised only very superficially.

US-President Barack Obama has declared the strategic partnership with India a priority of his foreign policy. China needs to be reigned in. In the context of this partnership, the US government’s development agency USAID has negotiated cooperation agreements with the Indian Ministry of Finance. One of these has the declared goal to push back the use of cash in favor of digital payments in India and globally.

Not satisfied, a followup article put the heat back on.

More evidence of early US involvement in Indian demonetisation

To fully understand the following, it is important to be aware of the Better Than Cash Alliance (BTCA), formed in 2012 to push back the use of cash globally. Founding members are US-institutions who stand to gain most. Those are notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Microsoft), Visa, MasterCard, Citigroup and Omidyar Network (eBay). Funding members are also the notorious Ford Foundation and the US government’s development agency USAID. Do keep in mind the acronym BTCA, as it will show up a lot in brackets to flag its members, as their role in Indian demonetisation is described.

You are probably dying to hear about the show-down. Goes like this and it is directly from India.

So how did that demonetisation thing work out in India?

What we do know

But how do we know (ii) that the money has got back into the system without much gain for the government? That is easy. Remember that initially, the government was counting on black money not returning to the banks at all, so that the RBI could then invalidate the unreturned money and find a way to transfer that sum as a bonanza to the government. But once it was clear that most of the money was indeed coming back, the government panicked and brought in a new voluntary disclosure of income scheme that allowed black money holders to declare their ill-gotten money by paying a 50 % tax on it, and keeping another 25% in the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana at no interest as a fixed depo¡ñksit for four years. This scheme for voluntary disclosure closed on March 31, 2017. 

So if we know how much tax was paid under this scheme, we know exactly how big a price was paid by the fat cats to get their illegal money converted into legal white. Thankfully, we do know the figure. Take a guess what that number could be? Bear in mind that someone like Jagdish Bhagwati, the numero uno economist who had put his weight behind the demonetisation move, had quoted a figure of Rs 5 lakh crore as the extent of currency held in black, in a co-signed article in a business newspaper. Assuming that all of that Rs 5 lakh crore had returned to the system, contrite and now willing to pay a 50 % tax, government’s coffers should have puffed up by Rs 2.5 lakh crore. Compared to that, how much did the government actually collect as penalty and tax? Rs 2 lakh crore? Rs 1 lakh crore? May be Rs 50,000 crore? Nope. The government collected a grand royal sum of about Rs 2,300 crore under the scheme.

Here is the full article on Scroll. And yes, that's how India works.
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For those not familiar with India, one lakh = 100,000 and one crore = 100 lakh or 10 million.