Atif Mian, Why Pakistan Isn't Getting Better.

Communism · Jul 21, 2022

VCheng · Jul 21, 2022

Communism said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1549782314829357056

Hopefully the world lets Pakistan fail this time so that Pakistan is forced to actually fix its issues instead of papering over them like they do every single time.

Pakistan's political system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

Pakistan's economic system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

Pakistan's elite system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

I would argue that Pakistan is run just about perfectly for those who control the spoils for themselves.

Jango · Jul 21, 2022

I was about to post this thread but just got busy in things.

While I do read his writings often, and agree with them too, what he says is most of the times not anything new. Even I know our money goes to unproductive sectors of the economy, our money is in cash (I have seen private jets bought with actual duffel bags full of USD), our tax base is miserably small, and so on.

But he often times lacks in giving a clear cut remedy. A sweeping statement like "We should divert money from sugar and real estate to productive sectors" is one which even I have been making.

What I want to see from him is if he becomes the finance minister tomorrow, then what steps will he undertake in the first 6 months or whatever...what will he do to bring about the change.

This is not to criticize his credentials or diss on his intellect, but I do believe a person of his knowledge and calibre should be presenting remedies rather than repeating what has been said a million times over.

VCheng · Jul 21, 2022

Jango said:
What I want to see from him is if he becomes the finance minister tomorrow, then what steps will he undertake in the first 6 months or whatever...what will he do to bring about the change.

This.

Everyone is full of solid prescriptions for the ailing economy out of office, but then repeats the same old steps when given the office. Isn't that revealing by itself?

Communism · Jul 21, 2022

Jango said:
I was about to post this thread but just got busy in things.

While I do read his writings often, and agree with them too, what he says is most of the times not anything new. Even I know our money goes to unproductive sectors of the economy, our money is in cash (I have seen private jets bought with actual duffel bags full of USD), our tax base is miserably small, and so on.

But he often times lacks in giving a clear cut remedy. A sweeping statement like "We should divert money from sugar and real estate to productive sectors" is one which even I have been making.

What I want to see from him is if he becomes the finance minister tomorrow, then what steps will he undertake in the first 6 months or whatever...what will he do to bring about the change.

This is not to criticize his credentials or diss on his intellect, but I do believe a person of his knowledge and calibre should be presenting remedies rather than repeating what has been said a million times over.

I think the reason why someone like him doesn't present the solutions is because the solutions are 100% not going to be popular, so one cannot both be a popular figure as well as present those realistic solutions.

Pakistan's main problem is that it is a democracy that isn't controlled by competent technocratic oligarchs that set the real economic and state policy, instead of countries like the U.S., E.U. etc, where the democracy is simply a method to stifle dissent.

Democracy has no real purpose other than to either destroy countries with populism or to exert oligarchic control to technocratically plan the economy.

Jango · Jul 21, 2022

Communism said:
I think the reason why someone like him doesn't present the solutions is because the solutions are 100% not going to be popular, so one cannot both be a popular figure and well as present those realistic solutions.

Atif Mian is the last person who should be indulging in a popularity contest. He has nothing to lose by ending last in the contest either.

Communism · Jul 21, 2022

This is main reason why populist democratic countries like Venezuela and Argentina are always among the worst run countries in the world.

This is also why countries like the Soviet Union with a vanguard party of elite technocrats lasted ~70 years while the democratic populist like yeltsin lasted only a few.

Russia never recovered until it reverted to technocratic rule with putin.

-blitzkrieg- · Jul 21, 2022

The guy lost his job because of anti cpec tweets. We criticize cepc projects from negotiating aspext and governance we have done for it mostly to make it better.His criticism as I remember were pretty one sided especially With what background he comes from gave an agenda driven vibe.

Jango · Jul 21, 2022

VCheng said:
This.

Everyone is full of solid prescriptions for the ailing economy out of office, but then repeats the same old steps when given the office. Isn't that revealing by itself?

It very much is, as much of our political system as of anything else.

This is where proponents of a dictatorship present their pros, but that has it's own set of problems.

This is the reason you need to have an educated public, which can appreciate actual structural measures and remedies vs superficial steps. Idhr everyone wants to see results faster than they can blink.

If the electorate wasn't as stupid as it is, and the political players not as self serving as they are, we would see emphasis on more structural changes.

Just an example, N league pandered to it's trader base and put up a fix tax. This undid the work of the previous 2 years that FBR had done. I know an officer within FBR, and he was like main sar kdhr maroon. 2 saal ham nay yeh kaam kia sara and brought people into the net, and this is what this govt does.

There's many other examples too.

-blitzkrieg- said:
The guy lost his job because of anti cpec tweets. Which I remember were pretty ine sided especially. With what background he comes from gave an agenda driven vibe.

Talking about that is a crime in this country, as Asad Umar and PTI quickly found out.

Communism · Jul 21, 2022

That's because Atif Mian's remedies to CPEC were pretty obviously just claptrap instead of actual solutions.

And while his entire reason for existing was probably to trojan horse in to ruin Pakistan's relations with China, many of his other points are valid.

Imran Khan was literally the Army's candidate to try to curry favor with the U.S. to get more free monies anyways.

Maula Jatt · Jul 21, 2022

Communism said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1549782314829357056

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549783359764791297

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549784670568677376

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549787110974054401

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549787113046085638

https://twitter.com/x/status/1549788367214215171

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549788369282031621

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549788370787831814

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549788913182580736

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549789971158122502

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549790394992525312

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549791983132151808

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549791985157947395

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549791986856742913

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549793284876374018

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549793286826729472

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549793677563908096

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549794660759080965

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549794662873014274

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549795985102094342

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549795986972737547

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549795988646281217

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549795990328180737

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549797484687417344

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549797487208275969

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549797489070465024

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549797774123843584

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549798293558927361

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549799037074808839

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549799495264780290

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549800770199031808

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549800772166197255

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549801423776391168

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549803191293956096

https://twitter.com/AtifRMian/status/1549803193634283525

Hopefully the world lets Pakistan fail this time so that Pakistan is forced to actually fix its issues instead of papering over them like they do every single time.

Pakistan's political system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

Pakistan's economic system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

Pakistan's elite system is totally not fit for purpose and will never reform itself to become adequate without such a thing happening.

we need to fix our political system first and foremost

system of governance is the man, economy is the dog

VCheng · Jul 21, 2022

Jango said:
It very much is, as much of our political system as of anything else.

Even when PMIK in office was the rising hope of the new age for Pakistan with Riasat-e-Medina around the corner, even he could not keep Mian Sahib in his office to get the economy on the right track. Exhibit 2,374, as if more example to support my contention above re needed.

Jango said:
Talking about that is a crime in this country, as Asad Umar and PTI quickly found out.

LOL. I tried talking sense about the CPEC here on PDF back then. Big mistake!

Communism · Jul 21, 2022

Sainthood 101 said:
we need to fix our political system first and foremost

system of governance is the man, economy is the dog

That is true only in systems of government where economics are subservient to the government.

In systems where government is subservient to economics, which is most democracies, the government part is easily fixed by the economic part.

Pakistan is most certainly the second of these two examples.

Fix the elite misalignment of incentives to realign them to the economics, and the government part will be fixed by the oligarchs themselves.

The most realistic solution to Pakistan's problems is the institution of a Putin-like oligarchic technocracy.

Norwegian · Jul 21, 2022

-blitzkrieg- said:
The guy lost his job because of anti cpec tweets. We criticize cepc projects from negotiating aspext and governance we have done for it mostly to make it better.His criticism as I remember were pretty one sided especially With what background he comes from gave an agenda driven vibe.

Funny, as a world famous macro economist he cannot speak against CPEC but you are free to ridicule his religion

Jango said:
Talking about that is a crime in this country, as Asad Umar and PTI quickly found out.

He didn't lose job because of anti CPEC tweets. That's hilarious accusation from Bughaz e Qadiani trolls. He lost his job because immense pressure was built up within the PTI govt (Sheikh Rashid and that moron religious minister) to get rid of this evil Qadiani macro economist

SaadH · Jul 21, 2022

Jango said:
I was about to post this thread but just got busy in things.

While I do read his writings often, and agree with them too, what he says is most of the times not anything new. Even I know our money goes to unproductive sectors of the economy, our money is in cash (I have seen private jets bought with actual duffel bags full of USD), our tax base is miserably small, and so on.

But he often times lacks in giving a clear cut remedy. A sweeping statement like "We should divert money from sugar and real estate to productive sectors" is one which even I have been making.

What I want to see from him is if he becomes the finance minister tomorrow, then what steps will he undertake in the first 6 months or whatever...what will he do to bring about the change.

This is not to criticize his credentials or diss on his intellect, but I do believe a person of his knowledge and calibre should be presenting remedies rather than repeating what has been said a million times over.

This guy if given the economic helm in Pakistan will make Miftah look like a genius. No amount of economic theory can account for neutrals and their henchmen like Zardari and Sharifs.

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