Our economy feels like a slow-motion plane crash

 I ask God to forgive me for all my sins whenever there is turbulence on a flight and pray that if the plane lands safely, I will become a better person. I promise to express my love to those I care about. Additionally, I hope that the pilot will successfully land the aircraft. It's like being a part of a slow-motion plane crash when you watch the Pakistani economy fall these days. Everyone is meditating. can sense a sense of impending doom and gravity.

Every morning, I scroll through the news to find some good economic news. The pilot is in my prayers. But then I notice that the pilot is also busy praying for himself and blaming the previous pilot, rather than actually taking charge and directing us toward our destination. I am hopeless because of that. Our pilot, Ishaq Dar, has taken control of the Pakistani economy and held it hostage to his fetish for manipulating the rupee's exchange rate with the dollar.

Due to arbitrary quotas, importers are unable to open their LCs, factories are closing, and Toyota is suspending production. But the rupee isn't falling in value, so everything is fine in the pure land. Pakistan is rapidly running out of raw materials for the pharmaceutical and export industries, and inflation is skyrocketing. The IMF is not cooperating with Dar, and no foreign friends are bringing in money. What can be done about this? Other than keeping the dollar artificially pegged, we have nothing.

It is remarkable that we were informed that this pilot possesses the most experience in the country and has a talent for reviving a struggling economy. It is remarkable that Maryam Nawaz and Nawaz Sharif invested their personal political capital to install Ishaq Dar and remove Miftah Ismail. Dar Sahab abhi bhi apni masti mein hein, aag lagi hai basti mein Dar's obsession with maintaining the rupee's artificial overvaluation against the dollar is not new. 2018 saw a $20 billion shortfall in the current account as a result.

Because the rupee was artificially elevated, it was less expensive to import goods than to produce them in Pakistan or export them. As a result, our industry became hollow, exports actually decreased under PML-N, and imports that we couldn't afford flourished, putting us on the verge of going bankrupt when PTI took over. We are about to watch this terrible Lollywood movie over and over again while trying not to fall asleep. This is more than just bad governance; it's also illegal. The nose-diving plane's pilot is busy blaming the pilot who flew this plane last. You are the one in the cockpit now, and you need to get over yourself to help land us home, even if it was the last guy's fault.

We can all feel the slow-moving plane crash because there are 220 million people on board. Not to mention the fact that you explicitly claimed that you are a better pilot when you stole the plane from the previous pilot. The passengers should have mobilized when the first signs of bad governance were visible, so it's possible that they are really to blame. Consider the floods to be a microcosm of this flight and pilot conflict. Compare the PDM government's handling of the floods to the PTI government's handling of Covid-19. Asad Umar's NCOC used data and transparency to allocate limited health resources, provide emergency cash transfer via Ehsaas, and employ a smart lockdown strategy during Covid-19, a once-in-a-century health emergency.

In the meantime, the PDM government has not made any consistent or systematic efforts to provide flood victims and refugees with meaningful assistance. Instead, these refugees are used as pornographic material in natural disasters to raise additional funds from the international community to maintain the artificial peg for the rupee. Although Dar appears to believe that the strength of a currency is an input to how well an economy can be managed, this is not necessarily the case.

The rupee cannot be supported at the expense of an economy that is closing factories, firing workers, and experiencing skyrocketing inflation. That is not how an economy should be managed. However, the fact that this man currently serves as Finance Minister reveals everything we need to know about this government's competence. We are powerless to stop the pilot from actively crashing the aircraft.