Why the IMF?
AS a champion of market fundamentalism and regaining and maintaining macroeconomic balance, however high the costs, there are very few people and even fewer economists who have a good word…
River of fire
Care to cast your mind back to May of 2023? Consumer prices skyrocketed by a staggering 38 per cent in just one year, sending shockwaves through all Pakistani households and…
A fresh start
The unimaginable has happened. Ishaq Dar, the architect of clumsy choices at Pakistan’s finance ministry, has finally been replaced by a new finance minister. But the removal of Dar who…
Markets roll back fears of big ground invasion
A recent Bloomberg report notes: Asked on Friday whether Israel should delay the ground operation, President Joe Biden told reporters “Yes.” However, the White House later clarified that the president…
The evolving faces of fascism
The dawn of the age of enlightenment helped Western civilization separate politics from religion and shifted the process of wealth creation away from land owners towards industrialists. The social consequence…
The distant crest
IF beauty is skin deep, integrity in politics is equally superficial. Scratch the gilt surface of any Pakistani politician; exposed will be a lower layer of hypocrisy, smelted in guilt.…
A deliberate disaster
With nearly 12 million cases and a quarter million deaths in the US so far (over 55 million cases and 1.3 million deaths world-wide), the COVID 19 pandemic is ravaging…
CPEC is no ‘free lunch’
It is in the nature of sitting governments, especially political governments which depend on popular vote to remain in power and also for getting re-elected, to defend their policies including…
IMF report: light on substance
THE much-awaited IMF assessment of Pakistan’s governance and corruption landscape has triggered chatter on talk shows and social media. For a report that likely cost the country close to $10 million, it…
The tyranny of geography
FACING a two-front situation on the borders has long been Pakistan’s nightmare scenario. That is why its security and foreign policy has, over the decades, been predicated on avoiding having…
