Can we hang on or is a fall inevitable?

Even today the World Famous Economist has assured us that the Indian economy will grow at 8% again. But why does he keep on talking in platitudes, why does he not give us a lecture with detailed figures showing expected revenue growth, inflation, deficits, the effect of the global economy, expected commodity price pressures and how our trade will shape up in the medium to long term? Because he cannot. Either he has no knowledge or because he just bends over and obeys orders to waste vast sums of money on suicidal social schemes just to cling on to his chair. So we must decide best as we can. In 2012 Foreign Direct Investment, which is stable long term investment, fell 7% to just $29.3 billion. In China FDI fell by 10% but was 5 times as much at $111.6 billion. Capital investment rose just 2.5% in the last financial year, it rose 14% 2 years earlier. msn.com, 17 May. Car sales fell 7% last fiscal and General Motors expects it to fall 2-3% this year. The economy grew by 5% last year and is expected to grow by 5.7% this year but already there are doubts about this. Some experts reckon that growth maybe just 4.8% . That is in spite of the huge stimulus of black money spending that will be unleashed by elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh this year and Chattisgarh in January 2014. General elections must be held by May of next year and the chattering classes are busy speculating whether the Congress will hang on till the last moment praying for some miracle rescue of the economy or they will cut and run expecting to be trounced in the states. There are some dribbles of good news. M&A has brought in $9.8 billion this year, with Unilever spending $5.4 billion to raise its stake in its subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever. The Wholesale Price Index fell to 4.89% in April and the Consumer Price Index to 9.39%. That is about it. People showed their complete mistrust of our Great Leader and his band of bandits by buying 256.5 tonnes of gold between January and March this year and the expectation is that we will import 1,450 tonnes of gold this year compared to 950 tonnes last year. Livemint, 13 May. We hear that petrol prices will go up by Rs 4 per liter although oil is at $94 dollars a barrel with Brent at $102 today. This is because the rupee has fallen to 55.93 against the dollar, increasing prices of imports, and is expected to fall even more. The rupee is hanging on because Foreign Institutional Investors have poured $14.5 billion or Rs 790 billion into India this year. Remittances from NRIs was $69 billion last year, the highest in the world. We are just clinging on. But for how long?