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The Quint

The Quint’s editor-in-chief Raghav Bahl speaks on business, politics and policies.

Raghav's Take

In the 1970s, Richard Nixon paved the way for China’s economic rise by making a strategic alliance with the country. Fast forward to 2025, and now Donald Trump is unknowingly helping China reclaim its global dominance once more.
In this episode of Raghav's take, we explore how Trump’s isolationist policies, high tariffs, and withdrawal from global alliances are inadvertently enabling China to fill the geopolitical vacuum left by the U.S. under his leadership. Watch as we dive deep into China’s extraordinary rise — from a strategic partnership with the U.S. to now becoming America's chief competitor.
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Just Like Nixon, Trump is Making China Great Again! | The Quint

Raghav's Take: Donald Trump loves to talk about taking a tough stance on China. From tariffs to trade wars, the US has tried to mirror Beijing’s economic playbook. But here’s the catch: America might copy China’s policies, but it can’t copy its people. Why? Because China’s system relies on a massive, low-paid, and compliant workforce that the US simply doesn’t have.
In this video, we break down why Trump (or any American leader) can’t win by playing China’s game, no matter how hard they try.
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America Can Copy China’s Policies, But Americans Can Never Clone Chinese Workers

The American dollar is at a fatal crossroad. Will it die or will it have an angelic revival? Raghav Bahl answers.
For decades, the US dollar ruled global trade like an untouchable monarch—everyone needed it, but only America could print it. But has this so-called privilege become America’s biggest liability? From Alan Greenspan to Donald Trump, from globalisation highs to inflation woes. In this video, Raghav Bahl decodes how the mighty dollar shaped the world economy, and what Trump’s tariffs might mean for its future.
From exposing misinformation to delivering impactful human rights reporting, our newsroom has relentlessly pursued stories that drive change. We remain committed to asking the tough questions — and we'd love for you to be a part of our journey.
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Donald Trump and the 'Exorbitant' Fairy Tale of the American Dollar | The Quint

After a brief but intense escalation near Pahalgam, India and Pakistan have pulled back with a ceasefire now in effect. But the Indian stock markets remain volatile.
In this video, Raghav Bahl analyses how markets often respond after military conflict subsides. Drawing parallels from the Kargil War and WWII, could the return to calm trigger a delayed 'war boom' rally? Or are we heading for a new correction?
📖 Read more: https://www.thequint.com/opinion/indian-stock-markets-will-pahalgam-war-trigger-the-rally
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War Scare, Market Flare: What Pahalgam Taught Investors Before Peace Returned | The Quint

In this video, we delve into President Trump's Executive Order 14178, which halts the development of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). We explore the implications of this decision on America's financial future, the rise of private Stablecoins, and how this move might cede ground to digital currencies like the Digital Yuan and Euro. Is this a safeguarding of privacy or a strategic blunder? Raghav Bahl unpacks the nuances of this critical policy shift.

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Trump's Digital Dollar Ban: A Strategic Misstep? | EO 14178 Explained | The Quint

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) nominated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the November elections in a uniquely spectacular manner. The fact that it was a COVID-induced ‘virtual event’ was perhaps the least of it.

But the parade of Republican heavyweights at a Democratic convention was unprecedented, from Colin Powell, John Kasich to Cindy McCain. I shudder to think what legal convolutions would have gotten triggered if India’s moth-ridden anti-defection law was applied to these worthies!

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Music: Big Bang Fuzz
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Will India Do Better Or Worse Under ‘Centrists’ Biden & Harris?

India taxes ESOPs, ie employees stock options, harshly, very harshly. Let me give you a quick history lesson.

When I founded TV18 in the early 90s, we had given generous stock options to our critical team members. In that sense, we belonged to a clutch of ESOP pioneers in India. And since we were leaders in business news, we also drilled hard into issues around entrepreneurship, taxation and union budgets.

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Budget 2020: Despite ‘Fixing’, ESOP Remains A Much-Abused Acronym

It’s a familiar cacophony. Cut taxes. Invert the inverted duty structure. Control the fiscal deficit. Be honest about your arithmetic. Abolish equity taxes. Step up government expenditure, the fisc be damned. Bring back investment allowance. Slap inheritance taxes... And on it goes, a laundry list of standard policy tactics which could revive India’s economy.

Frankly, the time for budget quick-fixes is over. If PM Modi genuinely wants to rejuvenate, he’s got to create ‘TRUST’ for India’s private enterprise which accounts for 90% of the economy.

India’s bureaucracy has always been deeply suspicious of well-regulated markets. Which is why they love to micro-manage outcomes. But this time, their quest has become maniacal. If you create truly competitive markets, ‘super profits’ will vanish on their own — when will our policy-makers understand that?

We should have learned from Ben Bernanke, who authored TARP (Troubled Assets Reconstruction Program) and saved America’s economy in 2008.

The ‘criminalisation’ of business has now become quite outrageous. 
Therefore, it has also had the most harmful impact on India’s economy.

Host: Raghav Bahl
Editor: Mohammad Ibrahim
Producer: Sonal Gupta

Read the story on The Quint 
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Budget 2020: Don’t Give Tax & Fiscal Cuts — Just Give Us ‘TRUST’

For over five years, I’ve criticised ‘state creep’ on Prime Minister Modi’s watch. This tendency hit a crescendo on 5 July 2019, when the second Modi regime’s first budget was read out in parliament. While that document was riddled with state over-reach, I will remind you only of the most egregious measure: a voluntary contribution under CSR (corporate social responsibility) was converted into a criminal liability! Mercifully, it was quickly aborted, but not before it had betrayed the underlying instinct.

Inevitably, the sentiment, markets and financial indicators tanked after the Fifth July Budget. A concerned Modi tried to ‘talk up’ the economy by feting ‘wealth creators’ in his Independence Day speech, but it fell on deaf years. The markets continued to plummet.

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Terrific Reforms, But Beware of ‘BABU-JAAL’ — Bureaucratic Cobwebs

The Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress coalition in Maharashtra is perhaps the second most ‘unthinkable’ political alliance in India, next only to the most incompatible BJP-PDP coalition in Jammu & Kashmir, that ended with devastating consequences.

So, what are the lessons from this most unusual, 80-hour-long Maharashtra political fiasco?

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Let’s Not Waste a Good Maharashtra Political Crisis

By not going for a TARP-like bailout, Prime Minister Modi has given an extra gain of Rs 30,000 cr to crony capitalists who allowed IL&FS to crash, while levying an extra tax of Rs 2,00,000 cr on ordinary/innocent investors, like you and me. 

The above is very simple arithmetic, but a team of IAS babus (bureaucrats) will never understand it, because it is deeply suspicious of market forces. And Prime Minister Modi has surrendered his economic policies to them, keeping entrepreneurs, tailors and firemen out.
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Did PM Modi Unwittingly Help Cronies, Punish Investors Over IL&FS?

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