Sree Iyer: It’s a really hot day in California, this October day. Somedays are extremely hot and today promises to be one such day. Do we have news or do we have news? We have a lot of breaking items today. The first one being the behaviour of social media. We first start out with the letter that Missouri Senator Josh Hawley has written to Facebook. We highlighted this in our preview yesterday. Sridharji, what can you tell us about this? What led to this letter being written to Facebook?
Sridhar Chityala: It’s been brewing for quite some time. The whole concept of the content editors and content adjudicators and the concept of what you call testing the premise of the stories by the so-called independent and objective third parties. At the heart of the issue, suddenly yesterday in New York Post article which shows emails between the Ukrainian, Zar and Hunter Biden being revealed. The article featured that there were introductions and there was some kind of personal favours that seem to have extended in the exchange of emails, the contents are still unclear, in the story that was published in New York post. One, the Republican from Senators to followers, the people attempted to post suddenly found Facebook and Twitter had blocked posting that. That sent furore right across the market and amongst people. I mean what kind of pedigree that these fellows have in randomly and arbitrarily targeting people and making, this has been going on in India, Indians will tell you the kind of ubiquitous power that these tech giants enjoy in the application of the power. Another new story that is making news today right now as we speak is that it looks like, based on some federal investigations in New York, some Twitter workers, temporary workers who pose themselves as permanent seems to have had access to various tools and that could have compromised, the usability of the platform remains uncertain and also is being investigated. Now, on top of that Jack Dorsey saying whether they were hasty and rash in blocking this without due investigation will add further fuel to the fire as the day progresses. So, in summary, are these tools, platforms today relevant? Or they have emerged as the extended judiciary or extended political czars who can preach and write and do anything to influence the minds of the people is a very big question. That prompted Hawley to say it’s time we summon these guys and do a complete investigation.
Sree Iyer: Now, it is a little close to the election, tempers are fraying. No tempers are running hot. How does this impact the election itself because messaging today because the president or the Challenger cannot travel much. They cannot meet the crowds and if the media outlets are going to even by mistake suppress vital new stories, how is it going to help? I also saw one very hard-hitting six-minute messaged by Donald Trump Jr. About Hunter Biden. What do you make out of that concern?
Sridhar Chityala: I think that we are in the political theatre right now. So let me first respond to on Donald Trump Jr. Donald Trump Jr is quite clear and explicit in making his case which is to say, the Democrats have engaged in this game of investigation, investigation, investigation. They had Russian Scandal, they had the influence of elections, they had tax issues on Trump if it’s not one issue they jump to another issue. There’s a point at which you got to say, Okay, let’s fight the elections, people are aware. It’s not the case. Right? It’s not the case. It’s about every opportunity to throw more pain to see how you can influence and persuade and then you will find that it is not only the message oh! you know he is leading by 12 points. You can always you know, you know the polls can be calibrated and the samples can be highly skewed in terms of objectively communicating what really the pulse of the people is. Therefore, to me, the Biden video by Donald Trump plus the events that are happening today is because there is no guarantee that the adjacent channels, not to make videos, the adjacent channels namely Facebook and Twitter which are very important as you point out in the context of people are being unable to travel you need a mechanism to get the message across. That’s about the Donald Trump Video.
Sree Iyer: I haven’t seen any response back from Hunter Biden about all these allegations yet because this video has been doing the rounds for a few days maybe. Why do you think they’ve preferred to just keep quiet because sometimes what happens is silence is accented, which means that they are saying yes, these things indeed did happen. What are your thoughts on the Democratic camps, sir, what is going on there?
Sridhar Chityala: That’s the reason the whole policy of, it’s almost like using the mask to hide behind the lack of kind of communication of Joe Biden. Right? What has he communicated? He has been very slow. This is one of the most kind of asymmetric campaigns, speechless. Okay, look at, fold your hands and engage in what you call as voice award by default. You speak less that means you haven’t uttered anything controversial. That seems to be the case. So that’s the Democratic party strategy which is to say, you either deny or quiet seems to be the approach. That’s all one can say. This was picked up in a debate by Trump and by then Trump pushed him on this but he basically denied.
Sree Iyer: In fact, some of the exchanges were downright like, you know, something that you would have on a street brawl at some point. I think Joseph Biden told the moderator, Will you ask this clown to stop and I was like, wow, we’re talking about the President of the United States. It seems like a real fish market brawl, but moving on Sir globally the covid virus seems to be making a strong comeback. We are seeing night curfews in Paris. And is this because of temperatures cooling down, the after-effect or is there anything that changed?
Sridhar Chityala: I think either the data is very sceptical or the data is absent, one of the two things that that you observe. Now, some people say there are different strains. This is not that strain of the virus, this is a different strain of the virus, so therefore that’s one facet. The second facet is that as is been predicted by at least in US doctors that, one could see a spurt in cases with the onset of the fall and the winter because that’s the virus season in many cold countries. So it is conceivable that this thing breeds very well if it was dormant, breeds in this type of environment are possible, that’s the case. Well, as you said in most of the situation is now happening in not only in the cold countries in the northern hemisphere that was happening in the southern hemisphere. So if you come along from London to Paris to Holland to Spain to Italy and now coming into the United States like you will find increasing the cases. And you go down to Asia, Indonesia is reporting higher cases, Singapore has reported cases, Quanzhou Province in China is saying, please stop these clusters, because it’s exhilarating. So there is a lot of incomplete data, but one thing is certain that this is not gone away. That’s just the truth and the vaccines being stopped, it’s not helping the case either.
Sree Iyer: Yes indeed and it should be mentioned here that Johnson & Johnson and one other company. I don’t remember which one perhaps, you can tell me, Eli Lilly has stopped testing their vaccine because their results were not satisfactory. So we have to find out if it’s going to be a complete reset that they’ll have to go back to the drawing board to do the vaccine.
Sridhar Chityala: The Russian Sputnik as well, they have stopped their trails are postponed to next year.
Sree Iyer: Okay, so essentially now, the possibility that a vaccine will come this year is non-existent perhaps and we have to see how people will cope with it. I know that Ashwagandha, I am just making mention here, Ashwagandha an ayurvedic medicine has been found to be beneficial and we also would like to say that vitamin A and D builds good immunity within your body use it as advised. Beyond that, it’s still kind of three blind men in a room trying to you know feel an elephant and trying to describe what they see. But anyway moving on to the economy Steve Mnuchin has made a strong statement. And what do you make of it side? This is the first time I’m seeing Mnuchin who is been very very careful with his words, make such a statement.
Sridhar Chityala: Well, it’s very unusual for a Treasurer, who is kind of politically neutral. I have to use the word, to come out and make a very profound statement. You made two things. Well, he said he’s very satisfied with his boss and the work that he’s doing. He also said that he will be very satisfied to come back and continue the job when his boss is back in power. That white is explicit in terms of an endorsement on two fronts, one of the leadership, two on the policies that he’s putting into place that is being endorsed by his leader. I’m a firm believer in both the economic as well as the market-friendly policies of President Trump. I mean, I’m making it quite explicit but for the person to state that is a telling endorsement contrary to all the kind of nonsensical rhetoric that is going on in the United States.
Sree Iyer: Yes, indeed and let’s take a quick look at India and IMF projections for India. How do you see the numbers that IMF is putting out for India for the fiscal year 2021-2022 sir?
Sridhar Chityala: Yes, myself and Mohandas Pai, we had a hot exchange of issues with the Q2 projections, right? The Q2 projection stated that India had the worst GDP relative to the world. People were predicting doomsday for India. India is going to collapse; we asked the question is India going to go 3 or 2.9 trillion to 50 billion 60 billion, ninety per cent contraction. Nobody answered that question including the IMF chief Economist was kind of, asked the question to clarify, which is when you say the contraction. Now, they have come back and said come back and restate or something stated that in the contraction for 2020-21. I think Indian Financial year finishes on March 31st of the following year. For 2020-21, the contraction would be around 10% 11% or minus 10 per cent or growth will be negative 10 per cent and 2021-22 will rebound with a strong 8.8%, that’s a phenomenal kind of growth, consistent with those who have put close to 10% or between 8 to 10% Stimulus early into the economic system. India has also put something very close to that number, of course, United States top the list with 10% and gaining more when the next stimulus is coming in. Those who put stimulus early and in large numbers are beginning to feel the positive effects of that as the economy comes out. Therefore, it’s not a doom and it occurs very well for the future prospects of Indian Economy.
Sree Iyer: Lastly, we will take a look at the markets and Sridharji, we have one minute left in our show today. If you could quickly wrap up who’s doing? Who’s not doing well and why are some doing well?
Sridhar Chityala: I will quickly wrap up the markets. The markets reflect the sentiments of what the economic Outlook and stimulus is, they carried the same. So, in other words, the markets have been very tepid for the past two days. It has seen the sport and growth on the back of JP Morgan, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America a and Goldman Sachs income. But having said that there are others, like Wells Fargo for that matter or some of the other companies who have reported earnings, but not earnings consistent with what you would expect, so there are still kind of reserves and Provisions. So what this points to is notwithstanding the fact favourable economic conditions those who can manage the rigours of the business very well. Amazon is an example, 43 per cent increase in sales, those who can manage the business well have been able to leverage the tools that were offered to them put stimulus as well as the interest rate in Manning and then, of course, the customer Behaviour they have done well, and that will be the case. But Markets are going to be driven by stimulus and stimulus only because we are in pandemic and to just to give a concluding note to link the market and just one minute ahead. The FED chairwoman of San Francisco has stated, we are very well organized in terms of the fiscal tools and the monetary tools, to contain and manage the pandemic. Hence, we were upfront in making interest rates to be 0%. So, I think rest of the world should shy away from this notion borrowing is bad, when the interest rates are 0, that’s the time you borrow not when the interest rate is 2% or 3%.
Sree Iyer: And that about does it for us today folks and we’ll be back tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. IST 8:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Thanks for joining us. And as always please subscribe to PGurus Channel. Thank you very much and Namaskar.
Sridhar Chityala: Namaskar
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Great content as always.
Spree Iyer Ji, When you get a minute, look at our new favorite channel that is WionNews. All was well until I started seeing NY Times articles being syndicated on Wion. Is this a silent takeover of Wion?