Posts

Showing posts from September, 2014

Would you invest here?

Whether there is a Dharna, a flood, or a leaky Fawcett, ‘analysts’ are quick to point out economic consequences. When the flood of 2010 happened, the FM would sing this story of how Pakistan has suffered and the donors loved it. Their doleful expressions and our FMs heartbreaking story (meant to cover our policy failures) outdid Hollywood pathos in real time. Some donors actually pushed  us toward the hyperbolic as their business  thrive s  on  country  misery. Of course all the government wanted was more money to alleviate the pressure of hard policy decisions. Now again we are counting the economic impact of Dharna ranging from 300 to 600 billion. Again all manner of hyperbole is being used to estimate this cost.  With Nominal GDP at about RS.25 trillion, output per day is about RS 68 billion. Recent political shenanigans have lasted about 20 days. If the wole country stopped working for 20 days the total cost would be about Rs 1.3 trillion. Now think about it a few thousand pe