Figure out the budget

The trick is to pretend you know what it’s about

The morning after the budget is presented, I usually walk across the street to the newspaper vendor to buy not one but three financial newspapers. As I walk back, newspapers firmly in my hand, I can see the admiring look in the eyes of my neighbours, who are led to believe that I know more about the budget than the finance minister himself. The reason I buy three papers is only because I am driven by the hope that I will be able to understand at least one of them. But I don’t let on, and my neighbours continue to believe that I am a whiz kid on budgets.

I have somehow managed to survive without ever being able to understand any of the budgets presented. People have always commented on budgets as being anti-poor, anti-rich, anti-farmer, pro-rich, pro-poor, disappointing, dream budget, plain okay, and so on and so forth.

Newspapers and television channels interview prominent personalities to elicit their views on the budget. I have failed to understand how two people whose opinions are often carried on the same page of a newspaper can have such opposite views on the same document. After trying hard to understand both views, I am forced to conclude that either both of them are wrong, or both don’t have a clue to what’s in the budget.

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Then again, there are some people who are genuine masters of budget analysis. They appear on TV shows within a few hours after the budget is presented, ripping it thread-bare. I have always admired their skills. Are they really this intelligent, or did someone leak the budget papers to them before it was presented? How could they have read the budget, understood it, and been able to analyse it so quickly? I do not know.

All those who had booked their cars feel that they should have waited for the budget, while those who had not booked their cars feel they should have booked it before the budget.

If you do not understand the budget, it is better to praise it. That way, no one will question you. If you were to criticise it, then you better know what you are talking about. This is the reason why more people end up praising the budget. In any case who wants to be on the wrong side of the finance minister?