INFLATION is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.

Ronald Reagan
From the past few years the greatest form of living beings on the face of earth, the humans, have been suffering from a self created dreadful disease called inflation. It is as frightening as an armed robber or could be as deadly as a hit man. This disease seems to have no cure at all. Once a person comes under its attack, its adverse effects can be felt like that of a victim left behind after a violent mugging. Though inflation can harm any individual, the most severely affected is the common man, a category which includes people below the poverty line and the middle-class society. While, to a middle class man it can come like an armed robber, it surely proves to be a hit man to the poor as it puts his survival on stake. How does this happen ? 1) Purchasing power of the rupee falls -- a Rs. 20 note, which could buy a kilogram of rice, now fetches only half a kilogram of rice. The armed robber takes away half the rice you like to eat. Otherwise, you need to give up quality for quantity for survival. 2) Hoarding creates an artificial scarcity skyrocketing prices..--Commodity wholesaler dealers, such as rice dealers may try and hoard essential commodities like food grains on hopes of reaping profits when prices increase further on dwindling supplies. He becomes a hit man of the masses. 3) Salaries dwindle in value.--- Fixed income groups are hit the hardest because their salaries are not be revised upwards to cover the cost of living even as prices of items soar. Inflation becomes the robber. 4) Savings Drop--Household as well as national savings drop because there is less money to save now as people use a greater part of their disposable income to pay for daily-use commodities. 5) Retail investors lose money ---owning stocks of inflation-sensitive companies such as automobiles are likely to see the stock prices fall on low sales as people prefer not to spend money on luxury items, sticking instead to the necessities. 6) Borrowing for consumption increases, leading to debt and increased spending.---The ever increasing inflation forces the common man to borrow

money from banks and other financial institutions. The consequence, of course is that he has to stand with indefinite debts. He has to either suffer a cut down on his lifestyle or beg for a salary hike in compliance with inflation to tide over his difficult times. If he doesnt get it he is mugged. 7) Lack of planning creates severe financial crunch.--The middle class requires a lot of financial planning as well as retirement planning that usually people forget and inflation cannot be absorbed or contained. Hence they suffer. If this is the condition of a middle class person imagine the trauma of a poor man. He cannot eat a square meal in days of little or no inflation itself. Many people can starve due to this inflation. 8) Children miss school and have to work for survival.--Most of the time the children, who are old enough, are sent to work and earn a living for their familys survival. Such children are often seen working in hazardous conditions with low wages .They lose their childhood in doing odd jobs instead of going to schools and gaining knowledge and skills. 9) Middle-class families are devastated by their monthly expenditures, limited wages and soaring prices of goods, which are their daily needs. Thus, they end up having to compromise with their quality of life by going for cheaper alternative products. 10) The rising prices of petroleum products lead to increased cost of transportation of people and goods. This has both a direct and indirect effect on expenditure. At macro level, increased expenditure on basic consumption leaves less money for investment on growth and development and the real GDP slides down. The plight of common people will not come to an end and this disease called inflation, symptoms of which are poverty, suffering and death, will keep on plaguing them, unless and until strong measures are taken by the Government to curb it. Thus inflation comes stealthily and takes away our precious possessions in the form of a mugger and makes us defenceless against an armed robber and it is hired to kill the common man ultimately.