In few policy areas does good economics seem to conflict so dramatically with good politics as in the practice of subsidies to food and energy. Economics textbooks explain that these subsidies are lose-lose policies. In the political world that can sound like an ivory tower abstraction. But the issue of unaffordable subsidies happens to be front and center politically now, in a number of places around the world. Three major new leaders in particular are facing this challenge: Sisi in Egypt, Jokowi in Indonesia, and Modi in India.