For the second half of 2022-23, I earned all of Rs 22,000 as royalty for my books. For people who think there is a lot of money to be made in writing, that's really not true. Most writers are poor.
As Gabriel Garcia Marquez put it: "If you can live without writing, don't write." Only influencers who turn their tweets into books, which people buy by the dozen, are rich. As usual mediocrity prevails. So, if you can write such a book, go ahead, else, don't bother.

Morgan Stanley’s report on India is an exercise in cherry-picking.
Data has been cherry-picked to build a narrative and hence, leaves out any nuance.
My weekly On the Other Hand column in @livemint.
livemint.com/opinion/column… A case is made for how India’s corporate income tax rate is now in-line with peers. In fact, the corporate income tax collections peaked at 3.9% of GDP in 2007-08 and fell to 3.5% in 2018-19, the year before the pandemic struck. It was at 3% and 3.1% in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

The value of outstanding Rs 2,000 notes in the economy has been falling over the years.
Nonetheless, Rs 3,62 lakh crore of notes were still out there in the financial system as of March 2023.
Who are these BRAVEHEARTS? Hats off to them. At one time notes worth Rs 20,000 can be exchanged. In order to exchange all the Rs 2,000 notes out there, 18.1 crore visits to the banks will have to be carried out... This is going to be one big exercise... best of luck to all the bank tellers.... Their workload just went up...

A lot of people who lead high-flying lives in cities will have trouble understanding the latest GDP growth of 4.4%, with private consumption growth having fallen to 2.1%.
How? The airports are full, hotels are full, restaurants are full, malls are full...And Pathaan did so well. First, we are all limited by our experiences, which are always very very limited. A small part can never explain the whole. Which is why it is important to look at aggregate data and different kinds of data. And if you do that, you will know why the figures aren't a surprise.

For quite a while, many of you have asked me to share a list of books on economics which I like, and I have been lazy about it. So, today is as good a day as any. Here we go. This is in no particular order. Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, is the best book to read if you want to get a good idea of the subject. Other than being very insightful, you will also realise how economics can be written in a fairly accessible language.