ET phone home

This should have been on the front pages of the world’s newspapers two weeks ago. It is the most important news ever printed since the term ‘news’ was invented, and since we had what we call media.

And that news, very simply, is that crafts of non-human origin (extra-terrestrial or unknown) have been seen, filmed, recorded and captured. A website called The Debrief released its report on the subject on 5 June.

The opening paragraph dives right in: “A former intelligence official turned whistleblower has given Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General extensive classified information about deeply covert programs that he says possess retrieved intact and partially intact craft of non-human origin.”

Two days ago, a video presented by Tucker Carlson – American television commentator until recently with Fox News – deals with the subject in depth. The video is 43 minutes long and lists out the evidence, which is quite iron-clad.

What has emerged from the video is that what are called UFOs have been tracked by American military intelligence services “for at least 70 years and it turns out that actually yes these things have been shot down and crashed in the US, government has the wreckage and it’s being held by defense contractors Raytheon, Lockheed which are big independent companies but they work for the US government they’re really part of the Department of Defense”.

How and why has “the news story of the millennium” been kept off newspaper front pages and prime time news?

Why are thousands of millionaires leaving India?

India is going to become a US$ 5 trillion economy in a few years. India is losing US$ millionaires at a rate of several thousand every year. Can these statements both be true? I think not.

But first, where did the US$ 5 trillion economic meme come from? That’s difficult to say nowadays, because of the ways in which government public relations (PR) amplifies what international finance capital says, and what it says is often based on what politicians utter, and what they utter is based on what advice (from international finance capital) they’re given.

The US$ 5 trillion meme has been circulating for certainly two years, if not a little longer, so far as I recall. Like many pronouncements by the Government of India, it probably has its origin in some report by one of the multilateral lending agencies, was picked up by a government propagandist, and was well spun. Whatever its origin, you can read more about this particular meme here, here, here and here.

As for the second statement, two days ago this is the headline that caught my eye: “6,500 Indian millionaires expected to move abroad in 2023″. The publication that posted this, New India Abroad, appears to be USA-based.

The accompanying text read: “The Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023 envisages that India is expected to witness an outflow of approximately 6,500 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) this year. The report, published on June 13, 2023, by Henley & Partners, an investment migration consultancy based in London, ranks India as the second-highest country in terms of HNWI outflow, with China leading the list.”

It turns out that Henley has made a business out of monitoring and assessing the lives and times of the world’s rich and very rich. Whatever its methods, they appear to be taken very seriously indeed by the legion of wealth and investment advisers whose clients are the global wealthy.

This is what the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023 (released on 13 June) has to say.

The UK is expected to see a net outflow of 3,200 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in 2023 — higher than the projected 3,000 net loss for Russia, according to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023, which tracks wealth and investment migration trends worldwide. This will make the UK the third-biggest loser of millionaires globally after China (net loss of 13,500) and India (net loss of 6,500). Perhaps most notably, the UK’s anticipated HNWI flight is double that of last year, when it saw a net exodus of 1,600 millionaires.

The report explains the latest net inflows and outflows of dollar millionaires (namely, the difference between the number of HNWIs with investable wealth of USD 1 million or more who relocate to and the number who emigrate from a country) as projected by global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth, which has been tracking wealth migration trends for over a decade. The HNWI migration figures focus only on HNWIs who have truly moved — namely, who stay in their new country more than six months a year.

Mumbai is the highest ranked Indian city on the list of global cities with the most wealth. According to the report there are 59,400 high net worth individuals (HNWIs, US$ 1 million+) in Mumbai, 238 centi-millionaires (US$ 100 million+) and 29 billionaires (US$ 1 billion+).

Here’s what the report says about India: “Although the second-biggest loser globally, India’s net exit numbers are predicted to drop to 6,500 in 2023 compared to last year (7,500).” A consultant to a private wealth management firm quoted in the report had this to say about why Indian high net worth individuals are leaving the country: “Prohibitive tax legislation coupled with convoluted, complex rules relating to outbound remittances that are open to misinterpretation and abuse, are but a few issues that have triggered the trend of investment migration from India”.

Based on the trend over the last decade as observed by Henley and various other firms which monitor the movement of considerable wealth, India’s dollar millionaires have been moving out of the country at a good clip for several years. Should the 2023 forecast be fulfilled, then during the 2022-24 period some 14,000 millionaires will have left India with their investible monies. Those monies are at least US$ 14 billion, which is about 1,100 billion Indian rupees (INR, or 110,000 crore rupees). At a very rough estimate, India’s HNWIs have sent some US$ 50 billion out of the country over 10 years, which coincides directly with the two terms of the BJP government.

So much then for what the current government (now in its second term which ends in 2024) has been claiming since 2014 about India’s “ease of doing business” being among the best in the world.

Where are wealthy Indians who have quit and are quitting India moving to? “Dubai and Singapore remain preferred destinations for wealthy Indian families. The former, also known as the ‘5th City of India’, is particularly attractive for its government-administered global investor ‘Golden Visa’ programme, favourable tax environment, robust business ecosystem, and safe, peaceful environment.” Portugal has also been a recipient of significant wealth from the Indian diaspora.

Firms such as Henley, which have made it their business to minutely observe the movements and habits of the world’s wealthy for well over a decade, say as plainly as can be that an increasing outflow of millionaires often points to a drop in confidence in a country as HNWIs are usually the first to exit and vote with their feet when circumstances deteriorate. “Affluent families are extremely mobile, and their transnational movements can provide an early warning signal in terms of a country’s economic outlook and future country trends,” observes Henley.