Pakistan ‘is bankrupt’ and ‘sinking deeper every year’: Atif Mian

[Developereo]

Why give free advice to the people who kicked you out.

So which is it?

Is he an angry, bitter loser who is just taunting and rubbing it in? schadenfreude?

Or is he a patriotic Pakistani who is pained to see the country suffering? He does mention the half million dead children? Is that a taunt or a lament?

I believe it's the latter -- he is genuinely pained -- but he is doing nothing more than what anonymous posters on internet forums do.

P.S. He probably has a policy paper or two or dozen, and they would be publicly available to the Pakistani authorities and other economists to evaluate. Economists are worse than physicists: you ask four economists, you'll get six different answers.

 

[kambhakt]

So which is it?

Is he an angry, bitter loser who is just taunting and rubbing it in? schadenfreude?

Or is he a patriotic Pakistani who is pained to see the country suffering? He does mention the half million dead children? Is that a taunt or a lament?

I believe it's the latter -- he is genuinely pained -- but he is doing nothing more than what anonymous posters on internet forums do.

What are your expectation from him?

 

[Developereo]

What are your expectation from him?

None, actually. None whatsoever.

 

[GatlingGun]

Pakistani economy has always done well when they get debt relief. They got in 2002 due to 9/11 and in 2020 due to covid

Then Pakistan got hit by flood 2022..

Imran Khan was really lucky to dodge the bullet of post flood economy, got sympathy for being kicked out, wasn't held accountable by PTI fans for energy-fuel subsidy.

Even now he is denied to steer the inevitably sinking ship. One lucky #$#..

 

[PakFactor]

What's stopping him from offering meaningful advice now?

He is just ranting and his 'meaningful insights' are no more insightful that the comments in this thread. Economy is like a Rorschach test: everybody has their opinion on the causes and solutions.

So which is it?

Is he an angry, bitter loser who is just taunting and rubbing it in? schadenfreude?

Or is he a patriotic Pakistani who is pained to see the country suffering? He does mention the half million dead children? Is that a taunt or a lament?

I believe it's the latter -- he is genuinely pained -- but he is doing nothing more than what anonymous posters on internet forums do.

P.S. He probably has a policy paper or two or dozen, and they would be publicly available to the Pakistani authorities and other economists to evaluate. Economists are worse than physicists: you ask four economists, you'll get six different answers.

He doesn't need to be bitter or pained about anything. He's not the one suffering due to a lack of intelligent decision-making. He can taunt all he wants regardless if it hurts a Pakistani's feeble heart, yet it's a fact.

You see he's offered advice and solutions in various interviews, yet it's up to the government to implement advice. We all know how well the Pakistani bureaucrats are in that, don't fault the messenger.

No, he was not involved in an advisory role, his name came up as a potential advisor but was quickly pulled back for obvious reasons. Plus he didn't offer any meaningful and practical advice...

He was part of the committee and was removed.

 

[Developereo]

He doesn't need to be bitter or pained about anything. He's not the one suffering due to a lack of intelligent decision-making. He can taunt all he wants regardless if it hurts a Pakistani's feeble heart, yet it's a fact.

You see he's offered advice and solutions in various interviews, yet it's up to the government to implement advice. We all know how well the Pakistani bureaucrats are in that, don't fault the messenger.

Pakistan's economic problems are based in this fundamental fact:

Unless one has a natural-resource-based economy, any modern economy requires an educated workforce and a thriving middle class. Both these conditions are anathema to an oligarchy: educated people think too much and a thriving middle class has time and resources to act on those thoughts.

Imran Khan came in starry-eyed with visions of bringing Pakistan into the modern world, but he failed due to a combination of ego (nobody's perfect), a support team that redefined the word 'incompetent' to a whole new level, and a fatal underestimation of the systemic rot. The oligarchy is fully supported by the military elite and both, in turn, are solidly backed by their foreign masters.

I am not one of those overseas Pakistanis (not talking about the Professor) who exhort local Pakistanis to rise up in rebellion, taunting them that they deserve the government if they don't act. Such taunts, especially from people sitting comfortably in the West, require a degree of callous cynicism that I do not possess, thankfully.

 

[SaadH]

Pakistan's economic problems are based in this fundamental fact:

Unless one has a natural-resource-based economy, any modern economy requires an educated workforce and a thriving middle class. Both these conditions are anathema to an oligarchy: educated people think too much and a thriving middle class has time and resources to act on those thoughts.

Imran Khan came in starry-eyed with visions of bringing Pakistan into the modern world, but he failed due to a combination of ego (nobody's perfect), a support team that redefined the word 'incompetent' to a whole new level, and a fatal underestimation of the systemic rot. The oligarchy is fully supported by the military elite and both, in turn, are solidly backed by their foreign masters.

I am not one of those overseas Pakistanis (not talking about the Professor) who exhort local Pakistanis to rise up in rebellion, taunting them that they deserve the government if they don't act. Such taunts, especially from people sitting comfortably in the West, require a degree of callous cynicism that I do not possess, thankfully.

There's a huge impediment in any potential reforms, elite capture led by an outfit that has a monopoly on violence, i.e. the sepoys. No amount of sage advice by an army of Nobel prize winner economists is going is dislodge the elite capture.

Atif Mian and his ilk will fail since they have no remedies to resolve the moral, political and economic malaise, which is an imperative in any attempt to bring about genuine change.

 

[koolio]

Without a stable government things will continue to go downhill, no matter what the establishment does from here on, once there is stable environment proper laws are implemented, create favourable terms for investors then you will see much better economic growth.