Indians are suspicious of good news.

Just 928 households out of a total of 263 million households hold 20% of the total wealth of the nation, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group. These 928 possess wealth over $100 million each and are known as ultra-high net worth households. Households with wealth over $1 million, Rs 64 million at today's exchange rate, hold 36% of total wealth. Their number has risen from 33% in 2009 to 36% in 2014 and is projected to rise to 38% by 2019. This when the average household income was Rs 157,683, which is $2895, in 2012-13, while per capita income was Rs 33,107, only $608. How could the number of millionaires be rising from 2009-2014 when the Congress was in power, with its socialist policies of redistribution, financed by very high taxes? Probably because a succession of scams generated trillions of rupees in black money which, with very low interest rates, led to rocketing property prices. At 928 India has more ultra-high net worth households than Germany with 679. Is that a bad thing? Not if the money was earned through productive investment, creating jobs, and not through corruption, asset price bubbles and illicit control of national resources, as in the 2G scam and the coal mines scam. Ultra rich individuals in India invest more than 50% of their wealth in real estate, which is the highest ratio in the world, and a whopping 87% are thinking of buying more properties this year. But danger is lurking for the real estate market.  The BJP government in Mumbai increased Ready Reckoner rates by 15 to 40% and the AAP government in Delhi is in the process of increasing Circle Rates by 100 to 150% in Delhi. If the circle rates were higher than market rates in certain parts of the country last year what these moves are going to do maybe imagined. The real estate sector is in for a crash as demand freezes completely. That will really hurt as black money, earned through risky corruption, disappears to a large extent. Hence the anguished howl for a lower interest rate. Studies show that high interest rates encourage household savings and low interest rates encourage greater spending and purchase of physical assets, such as real estate and gold. Savings in physical assets comprises more than 60% of total household savings and the higher it is the lower the growth in GDP. In Financial Year 2010 financial savings constituted 15.3% of GDP, falling to 10.3% by FY 2014, when retail inflation was over 10% due to the profligate policies of the Congress. Investment in risky assets, such as shares, has fallen from a high of 10.7% in FY 1996 to just 3.8% in FY 2014. Gold imports have jumped by 10.47% to $2.42 billion in May. Why are people buying gold with falling inflation and high real interest rates? Perhaps they do not believe in the good news.