One thing which you can never fault Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on is facts. That also applies to his speech at the CII inaugural this week. Every single point on which he expressed concern in an uncharacteristically tough speech, is fact. An unprecedented, long and robust virtuous cycle of investment, profit and growth has not only fuelled greed in the corporate sector, it has also punched it out of the charmed CII-FICCI circle among wannabe entrepreneurs, professionals, small-town stock-market punters. Yes, CEO-promoter salaries are touching astronomical levels although whether or not they justify front-page headlines is a different matter. Similarly, there are cartels in the industry. And morally criminal or not, cartels go against the very grain of free-market principles that this newspaper so strongly supports.

There is also ostentation. Glamour is sometimes synonymous with success and widely, breathlessly televised weddings on late-night shows apart, stories of individual Bentley, Maybach, and business-jet purchases hit front pages and become brand signatures of certain businessman. Then, come graduation time, and once again the same stories of 100K-plus dollar offers to fresh IIM graduates.

So, on the fact of this trinity of sins, the Prime Minister is spot on. Greed, ostentation and cartelisation, which is a kind of corporate gangsterism, do not merely exist, they have been growing, as they had always been expected to, in a long growth phase. But while you cannot argue with the Prime Minister on his facts, you can certainly do so with the way he interprets them.

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