Can anybody living on ground in Pakistan throw light on Pakistan's current economic crises? The media reports seem exaggerated. What raised my suspicion is the article of '7 million people laid off in textile industry'. 7 million??????!!!!!!!! Pakistani members who say various shortages, electricity breakdowns, the laying off, the synchronized simultaneous border problems with Afghanistan, etc are all real may be affiliated to political parties with their own agenda.
So what's the truth?
Let me put it like this.
The people of Pakistani are not a as poor as statistics and media and other indicators would say. Not at all. Hence the other examples given by members of malls and restaurants being filled.
I’ve lived in Bangladesh for a while myself and tend to stay up to date on the occurrings in India as well (In regards to things like technology and the automobile sector), and what I’ve learned from all of this is that despite numbers saying that Pakistani has a lower per-capita income than both india and bangladesh, this is simply not true, I’d be willing to bet that Pakistan has a significantly higher per-capita income than both india and Bangladesh, at least if it’s adjusted for inflation and cost of living, but that is not a good thing at all, if anything it’s the opposite. The people of Pakistan don’t declare their wealth and don’t pay their taxes, so on paper, Pakistans per capita income looks very low, but the reality is that when you drive on Pakistani roads or walk into Pakistani malls you see expensive cars, expensive phones, tons of people buying houses and shopping, if there’s an economic crisis, trust me you’ll never see it walking through a Pakistani city, again, having lived in bangladesh and watching people travel to India, they come up with similar conclusions, Pakistan never
feels as poor as the other two, you don’t see as many homeless people, or as many beggars, because that’s simply true, the people of Pakistan are (comparatively) richer than their Indian or Bangladeshi counterparts (at least in my experience), but again, that’s a
bad thing.
The economic crisis in Pakistan is not on a people level, or even an inflation related issue, the actual inflation rates in Pakistan are quite comparable to the rest of the world over the last 3 years, if anything barring this year in particular, they were some of the lowest, especially in regards to food and oil/petrol prices.
The economic crisis in Pakistan is on a government level, the people of Pakistan are not poor, but the country is absolutely broke, that’s where the difference is, in India and bangladesh the people might seem poorer but the countries are absolutely not in dire straits in regards to forex, foreign reserves, debts and so on, there isn’t a crisis, not the same in Pakistan, and it’s specifically because Pakistani people are richer, which is because they’re not paying their taxes, not declaring their wealth and actual net worths, continue to import and buy expensive cars, technology and so on, continue to trade money in the black market at higher rates and so on. Sure they’ll keep complaining about how things are getting more expensive, and they definitely are, this isn’t a blanket statement, millions of Pakistanis are most definitely effected by increasing prices, particularly the poorest bunch, but there’s just not as many of them as the numbers say, there’s hidden wealth, to the point where a recent study concluded that an average beggar in Pakistan earns more than an average small shopowner, add to that high rates of charity, and there’s just not as many
people that are in an economic crisis in Pakistan, just the country itself is in absolutely dire straits, but Pakistanis will absolutely refuse to pay their taxes despite all these issues, partially because they understandably don’t trust the government to handle their money, given his dumb and corrupt they are, and partially because the people of Pakistans themselves are too corrupt and unaware of how badly it affects the country and how the rising prices and failing economy is directly linked to them not paying taxes. It’s a double sided destructive cycle with a million factors at play.
What has been effected are living standards and layoffs. Many large companies have been reducing or shutting down production and laying off employees in the last year, and the effects of that are not coming yet, because it’s too recent, eventually when all those laid off people start to reach the ends of their savings or can’t find new jobs, we will see a crisis (won’t be long now if things stay the way they are).
Generally, while the people aren’t at their breaking point yet, they are capable of affording less stuff overall than before, the breaking point comes when the country itself (economy) finally reaches its breaking point, when there’s no more money to pay the debts or for imports, when the medicine and oil and money reserves run out (happening as we speak) etc etc, that’s when we’ll actually know just how much the people of Pakistan will be affected, so far they’ve been affected rather minimally all things considered, so in Pakistan, despite all the paranoia, for now, life seems relatively normal, just a bit more expensive. This recent outtage is entirely unrelated to Pakistans current economic state, it’s just being hyped up by emotionally charged Pakistanis who are (understandably) fed up with the current government. So don’t relate that to anything.
For how long it’ll stay like that I can’t say, but I know for sure that on the current trajectory there will be a tipping point when everything goes to shit.
This is only one side of the story however, Pakistan has been here a million times before and has managed to make it out, it’ll improve again, and then it’ll come back to this stage again too, there are always options to find a way out. For more on that, I’d recommend reading some of the replies and sources in this thread, you’ll understand which ones I mean in regards to a way out for Pakistan:
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/pakistan-is-not-collapsing.759309/unread
