We don't need knowledge. It is magic.

"The prices that consumers pay for food have been falling for three moths in a row. Wholesale food prices have fallen for six months in a row," wrote N Rajadhyaksha. The previous Congress-led UPA government engineered high food prices by paying higher Minimum Support prices and starting the MGNREGA scheme for unemployed rural workers. High food prices fed into general consumer price inflation and hurt the poor and the middle-class, resulting in a trouncing of the Congress in the general elections in 2014. "It is one thing to raise minimum support prices (MSP) for foodgrains, but you need to release the food stock into the market to control price rise, which was unfortunately not done," said Pronab Sen, Chairman of National Statistical Commission. The problem with low prices of food is that, "Low nominal growth in rural India -- if not an actual decline -- also hurts demand for various industrial goods." Profits of companies that make up Nifty 500 index have fallen to 2.8% of GDP in 2018 from 5.5% in 2008. "Profits of companies on the Nifty-500 have remained stagnant at Rs 4-4.8 trillion over the last five years, even as nominal GDP has continued to grow steadily, according to Motilal Oswal study." While food prices have fallen core inflation remains high. "What is important is the fact that India could be facing its own variant of the scissors crisis -- core inflation and food inflation are moving in different directions," named after a similar crisis in the Soviet Union 100 years ago. The solution is simple. A study by Gulati and Cahill over two years found that "the producer support estimate (PSE) for India was minus (-) 14 percent of gross farm receipts, on an average for the years 2000-01 to 2016-17". This amounted to an 'implicit taxation' to the tune of Rs 2.65 trillion per year for a total of Rs 45 trillion over 17 years. The solution is to create jobs in other sectors of the economy which will allow rural people to exit agriculture for more secure income. Unfortunately, India lost 11 million jobs in 2018, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). "An estimated 9.1 million jobs were lost in rural India while the loss in urban India was 1.8 million jobs." Keen to create jobs before the elections the government recently amended the GST rules so that enterprises with income up to Rs 4 million do not have to register, which will be detrimental to the economy, wrote R Jagannathan. Why so much confusion? Because you can be appointed finance minister even if completely ignorant of economics. "If you can accept your ignorance your life will have the quality of magic," said Osho. India has been running on magic. If only we knew.