Credit ratings agency, Standard and Poor's have assigned a BBB rating to India's foreign currency borrowings indicating a stable outlook. However, they warn of a downgrade in rating should deficit increase. They applaud the government's efforts at reducing reducing subsidies on food, fertilisers and fuels and predict that a uniform Goods and Services Tax will stabilise and even increase government tax revenue. It is not known whether these international agencies base their predictions based solely on what the government says and are constrained by political correctness from digging deeper into economic reality. Subsidies are a minor part of government expenditure, a major part which is taken up in paying an army of totally useless, parasitic, thieving civil servants. To bribe these hordes of parasites the government increased their salaries by about 80% before the last elections without any reciprocal increase productivity, honesty or accountability. Desperate to keep the deficit in check they are increasing taxes which, in turn, are increasing inflation. Another act of bribery was the waiver of farm loans to the tune of Rs 700 billion. Naturally farmers are defaulting on repaying new loans they have taken from public sector banks expecting to be forgiven once again. The total Non Performing Assets, a euphemism for bad loans, till December 2010 was a mammoth Rs 2.94 trillion ( Times of India, March 8, 2011 ). Bad loans at State Bank of India have risen from Rs 23.22 billion in 2009 to Rs 37.17 billion, a rise of 80% . Other banks report rises ranging from 100 to 2000%. With oil at over $ 100 dollars what hope is there of reducing our deficit?