FuturePAF
THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
The problem is also alienating those, particularly the high skilled (with well enough means) that would be willing to endure the decades it would take to participate and serve.
Without trust, many now consider it even more foolish to put their family’s future on a system that doesn’t seem to have any tangible sense of rule of law, contract law, investment protections, meritocracy.
Even if they bring back someone the highly skilled trust, it may take a decade of a solid track record to win back talent and investment.
As for regular people complaining, they want their standard of living to improve. Doing that in Egypt is harder, but Pakistan where most of the population lives in rural areas, investment into agricultural yields (and labor intensive, minimal pesticide and nutrient usage, high end crops for the GCC market) can create higher substance tax nets and better fund human development; healthcare, schools, more affordable access to food.
With a decent government that completes a rail link to Central Asia, and gets Pakistan integrated into the transit trade, the city sweepers can benefit from cheaper inputs into industrial processes, and make their cities more competitive for FDI to utilize their labor and raise their wages. SEZ work best if they are along a trade route the world or at least major players in it NEED to use. Russia want to come to Arabian Sea ports, Saudis want to industrialize and can use Central Asia raw materials, and China and Iran want a secure land route, possibly through a pariah state such as Afghanistan (which can take the blame for being a laundering state; the Switzerland of Asia).
With rural and urban residents both growing more stable/prosperous, it will make life safer for the middle class and well to do. Able to spend their wealth locally and have less to fear of others eyeing their wealthy; through somewhat narrowing of wealth inequality. (It is similar to the trend I witnessed in NYC, of wave lifting all boats, over the past 40 years).
This is where IK comes in. A single 5 year IK presidency and a reset of relations with Afghanistan to secure that rail route and secure that border can open up opportunities, now more than ever. Reset trade relations, reset domestic politics, build up the economy not on remittance but fundamentals, and build up global leverage. Secure the GLOCs and the SLOCs, become the Asian pivot state.
A domestic political reset will do wonders for winning back the right kind of talent in the long run. Domestic stable growth will win back the money from the “wrong kind” talent that goes abroad. It’s the pattern of the newer East Asian tiger economies.
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