It is easy to win a general election by bribery but how do you balance your books? The Congress won the last elections by forgiving loans to farmers, the MNREGA scheme which pays unemployed villagers for 100 days of useless work every year and paying thieving, parasitic civil servants 80% increase in salaries without any increase in efficiency or productivity. In the first 9 months of 2010-11 Non Performing assets or bad loans of public sector banks reached Rs 686 billion of which agricultural loans accounted for 70%. Why would farmers repay loans when they know that they will be forgiven again come the next elections? The result is that inflation was 8.98% in March. With oil prices destined to remain at over $ 100 fuel prices will be increased after the state elections going on at the moment. That will instantly add to inflation hitting the buying power of the people. Growth in industrial production, including capital goods, is already falling. Eighteen capital goods items declined by 18.6% in February including computer systems,machine tools and industrial machinery among others. The Reserve Bank has been raising interest rates by a measly 25 basis points every few months probably because the Bank is terrified of a crash in property prices which have risen by at least 500% in the last 10 years. Property prices are important because that is where criminal politicians have hidden their black money and also high prices mean that states earn huge amounts from stamp duty. It would be much better to have lower growth with low inflation but the government is desperate for tax revenues. So much for the world famous economist.