Economists know, but dare not tell.

India's economic policies are based on poor advice by our economists, wrote Prof D Gupta. Some advise that the rupee should be weakened to stimulate exports. But what about imports? "About 25% of our imports are petroleum related, but 20% is on account of buying machinery, from abroad, usually China." "These machines are new age ones and they don't commit mistakes." "We talk at length about our oil burden, about our gold fixation, but rarely do we discuss our machinery deficit." Devaluing the rupee may increase exports but will kill local manufacturing. The Chinese currency has weakened by 2% against the rupee so that our trade deficit with China has ballooned to $51 billion. What about imparting skills to young people? Only "about 58% of those with formal vocational training found jobs". This when "India has only 11,000 training institutes while China has 5,00,000." Yet, it is also true that in certain services staff shortages range from 20-50%. New job creation has been falling in recent months, so training people will not increase employment. There is no income tax on the agriculture sector. True, but "the overwhelming bulk of farmers, almost 95%, have earnings too low to be taxed." Survival of farmers depends on state subsidies. "From the US to Europe  to Japan, farmers would perish without these handouts." And, "the highest rate of suicides is among farmers across the world". So what about cheap labor to boost cheap manufacturing? But this will not work because "the West is moving to driverless cars and intelligent automation". The International Monetary Fund has warned that emerging economies will find it tough to grow as consumption falls in developed economies. India needs urgent reforms to reduce regulations to improve the ease of doing business, wrote Prof V Dahejia. Our position on the index of the World Bank's ease of doing business improved from 131 last year to 130 in 2017. A survey by NITI Aayog found that 38% of enterprises found that the regulatory environment has improved, the same number said that nothing had changed, and 21% said that things are worse. Companies are struggling to repay huge loans incurred during the high growth years and banks are unable to lend unless they clear their books. In desperation the government is thinking of spending Rs 10 trillion in infrastructure projects by selling bonds to raise funds. Ruchir Sharma found that there is no direct correlation between good economic policies and getting re-elected. The Prime Minister's popularity ratings remain sky high despite patchy economic performance. Economic growth was dependent on low oil prices and an inflow of foreign capital into our markets but future growth depends on reforms, wrote Mihir Sharma. Since economists are employed no one wants to tell the truth. You will be sacked, as Raghuram Rajan was. This emperor is fond of new clothes, after all.