The cover of noise.

"India's Nifty 50 index (NSEI) struck a record high in December and is up 5% this year," "In contrast, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (MIAPJOOOPUS) shed 19%." Reuters. "Next year's optimism for India is driven by strong corporate earnings, a post-pandemic retail boom and an economy set to grow 6% in the next fiscal year - which will make it the world's fastest-growing major economy in 2013." "Importantly, conditions are better than not just the crippling slump during India's devastating Covid surge last year but also the anemic growth of the debt-saddled last decade." ET. "Overall, September quarter private consumption rose 7.8% from pre-Covid levels in 2019," "fixed capital formation, an indication of investment activity, 13.5% from 2019," "While unemployment remains elevated at an average of 7.4% over the last 12 months till November." Borrowing by Indian companies has risen sharply wrote Niti Kiran. "The aggregate debt of the sample of companies covered in the analysis jumped nearly 10% between 31 March and 30 September to Rs 25.2 trillion." Why are companies borrowing if not to invest in new projects? "Analysts say it's to fund their working capital needs, which increased sharply in the first half of 2022-23 due to the spike in commodity prices." Companies are also spending their cash balance. "The combined cash and bank balance of the sample of companies declined 2.4% in the first six months of 2022-23 to Rs 3.5 trillion." "Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan...in a chat with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claimed that India would be lucky if it achieves 5 percent growth next year." ET. "If you look at 2022 vis-a-vis 2019, it's about 2 percent per year. It's too low for us," he said. India's wholesale price index (WPI) inflation for November "was 5.85% year-on-year, government data showed", which was lowest since February 2021, when WPI rate touched 4.83%." Reuters. "India's consumer price (CPI) based inflation eased to an 11-month low of 5.88 percent in November on an annual basis from 6.77 percent in October, 2022." ET. If we leave out vegetables, oils and fats, CPI inflation in November would be 7.3%, wrote Vivek Kaul. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy sectors, Investopedia, "was at 6.5% in November and has been higher than 6% in eight of the last nine months." Professional forecasters for the RBI predict CPI inflation to ease to 5.2% in 2023-24. "Given that most of these forecasters are corporate economists, they have a tendency to underestimate inflation." "Take the case of 2022-23. Initially, the median forecast was for inflation of 4.7%. This has since been revised to 6.7%." No professional integrity it seems. There could be other potential problems. The US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) targets an inflation rate of 2% "for maximum employment and price stability". Some economists advocate that the Fed should target a higher rate of 3-4%, as in developing countries, which will increase its nominal interest rate and give the Fed more room to lower rates if needed, wrote Prof Vidya Mahambare. "This would mean that nominal and real interest rates in the US and these developing countries would be similar should respective central banks achieve their inflation targets." Investment funds would flow into the US pushing down other currencies and increasing their inflation. Since economic predictions are most likely to be wrong why do they go on making them? To fool credit rating agencies, to fool international investors or to fool us? Create enough noise .Drown the truth.