In this discussion, I examine the repercussions of India’s demonetization and the challenges facing Donald Trump’s infrastructure spending plans.

India’s cash ban is damaging the informal economy, disrupting ordinary life, and expanding the state’s power over private savings and transactions. At the same time, Trump’s proposed infrastructure spending faces its own constraints, particularly the limits imposed by debt, bureaucracy, political incentives, and the practical difficulty of translating grand promises into productive investment.

Watch the full discussion below:

Key Takeaways

• India’s demonetization is creating severe disruptions in the cash-based informal economy.
• The poor, small businesses, and ordinary savers are bearing the burden of the government’s war on cash.
• Financial repression is expanding under the language of reform, modernization, and anti-corruption.
• Trump’s infrastructure spending plans face major practical, financial, and political constraints.
• Grand government spending programs often fail because capital is redirected through bureaucracy and political favoritism rather than market discipline.