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Quoted By:
https://fx.substack.com/p/world-roundup-july-19-2022
LEBANON
World Politics Review’s Thanassis Cambanis offers a first-hand account of an unsurprisingly dismal political situation in Lebanon:
>The intersection of public malfeasance and private suffering is overwhelming. Every friend and colleague I met had a tale of woe: life savings now held in worthless Lebanese lira accounts; extended families struggling to survive on once-comfortable public sector salaries that now barely cover household expenses for a day or two; and wave after wave of emigration. My friends spend their days looking for deals on food staples and visiting banks that don’t let them freely withdraw whatever money they still have in them. Then they rush home so as to do household chores in the event the electricity comes on for an hour.
>Perhaps this obstacle course that consumes daily life is part of the plan; it certainly saps energy that could otherwise go into political opposition. As Saghieh put it, the system that caused all this suffering “wants to keep people distracted.”
>Remarkably, that system has not yielded in the least. Lebanon’s politicians are in the process of choosing a new government that so far looks exactly like the last one and more or less like every government since 1991. At the same time, Lebanese leaders are negotiating a bailout plan with international donors, but don’t want to include any reforms or accountability for the private banks that were most responsible for torpedoing the country’s economy. They’re playing a game of brinkmanship, betting that international donors will ultimately feel more pity for the Lebanese people than the country’s own rulers and blink first on a condition-free bailout.
LEBANON
World Politics Review’s Thanassis Cambanis offers a first-hand account of an unsurprisingly dismal political situation in Lebanon:
>The intersection of public malfeasance and private suffering is overwhelming. Every friend and colleague I met had a tale of woe: life savings now held in worthless Lebanese lira accounts; extended families struggling to survive on once-comfortable public sector salaries that now barely cover household expenses for a day or two; and wave after wave of emigration. My friends spend their days looking for deals on food staples and visiting banks that don’t let them freely withdraw whatever money they still have in them. Then they rush home so as to do household chores in the event the electricity comes on for an hour.
>Perhaps this obstacle course that consumes daily life is part of the plan; it certainly saps energy that could otherwise go into political opposition. As Saghieh put it, the system that caused all this suffering “wants to keep people distracted.”
>Remarkably, that system has not yielded in the least. Lebanon’s politicians are in the process of choosing a new government that so far looks exactly like the last one and more or less like every government since 1991. At the same time, Lebanese leaders are negotiating a bailout plan with international donors, but don’t want to include any reforms or accountability for the private banks that were most responsible for torpedoing the country’s economy. They’re playing a game of brinkmanship, betting that international donors will ultimately feel more pity for the Lebanese people than the country’s own rulers and blink first on a condition-free bailout.
