People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)


Vol. XXVIII

No. 13

March 28, 2004

           ‘Markets Are Non-Existent’

 

This is Arun Shourie at his irresponsible best in an interview with Outlook magazine (Issue dated March 22, 2004):

 

Arun Shourie, the disinvestment minister, ridicules market analysts and tells Suveen K Sinha that a few manipulators control the market.

 

Who was part of the bear cartel?

How can I reveal? I have told them not to reveal. They realised what they were doing was not right. We should just look at the result.

 

Why don’t you take them to task?

What purpose will that serve? Take them to court? The court takes 15 years. One criticism has been: why intervene when I have faith in the market. But there is no market. Say I, as a middle-class man, save Rs 1 lakh. I depend on advice from my broker, who is in turn guided by big financial advisors. If everybody follows a few persons, a few persons don’t have to manipulate the markets (and they can still prosper).

 

Was a law violated?

You enter into a fiduciary relationship and do the opposite. That is not violation of law, but of an agreement.

 

You mean some of the advisors to the issues were part of the bear cartel?

I am not saying anything more. (sighs) A very big thing has been prevented.

 

Now that the general investors know that fishy things happen, how to restore their confidence?

In this case confidence has been restored. All analysts said it (the market crash) was correction and profit taking. Now, it (the market) has gone up. That shows the bogusness of analysts. Just like art and music critics, they are just stringing words together. The market is non-existent. Analysts are fooling people with big words.

 

You intervened when PSU stocks were being hammered. Who would protect non-government companies?

Everyone should help. Journalists can help. You should publish their (the bear cartel members’) names.

 

Tells us the names, we will publish it.

You can find it on you own. A determined effort will succeed.

 

Why not punish them?

Punishing will lead to collapse of the market.