But raising the petrol prices by 15 rupees is a step too far for me. In these dire times I might have to switch from hi-octane to regular petrol. I am ready to sacrifice everything for the country as long as I am sacrificing other people’s lives and belongings.
If I knew removing economic advisors who actually know what they are doing meant my imported Oreos would get more expensive, I might not have burned effigies at Liberty Chowk. I would even have personally ensured Atif Mian was allowed inside Hafeez Center.
This whole Naya Pakistan thing was supposed to be like the 1992 World Cup, where we have our backs against the wall but we take over the world and not like the 2007 World Cup where our team of legends gets knocked out in the first round and the dream ends with our coach. Imran Khan needs to whip his team into shape. I refuse to believe that running a country is that much harder than captaining a cricket team – or running a private company in Asad Umar’s case. I still think Asad Umar was our last hope.
If the government planned to get all overseas Pakistanis to send dollars back to Pakistan and then create wealth by making each of those dollars worth Rs. 160, they should have let us in on the secret
Moreover, hanging out with groups frowned upon by the UN should have been enough to bring divine blessings to our economy.
Instead Asad Umar left the economy in such a bad state that even he couldn’t go on an international vacation and had to settle on taking lonely pictures by the Swat river singing Sanu Nehr walay Pull tay bula kay for Imran Khan.
Imran needs to unleash the tiger within his cabinet members. Murad Saeed alone can bring us the 100 billion dollars that he promised will come back to Pakistan the day Imran Khan is elected. Apparently Murad Saeed’s plan included robbing Mr. Bajaj for the money. Fawad Chaudhry will personally drag Nawaz Sharif through the streets of Lahore and collect all the stolen money that falls out of his pockets. Maybe if he starts tiring from all the dragging around, the austere PTI minister Faisal Vawda can give him a lift in his Lamborghini – a true patriot who continues to add to the economy by paying copious amounts of import duties on his luxury sports cars.
If only Zardari and family also contributed to the economy instead of hosting iftars. We would have built a few dams by now.
Also, if the government planned to get all overseas Pakistanis to send dollars back to Pakistan and then create wealth by making each of those dollars worth Rs. 160, they should have let us in on the secret. Instead my annual vacation for my family to the US costs me 20 lakhs instead of the usual 12 lakhs. How is a middle class person in this country with a salary of just 10 lakhs a month supposed to take his children to Disney World? With the dollar rate going up faster than an old man’s house tied to10,297 balloons, soon I will have to take my children to *pukes* Sindbad - we will lose our social status faster than the PTI government lost all credibility.
What is next? Is my Golf Club membership to be revoked? Who will marry my daughter if I tell them the wedding will be at Sadabahar garden lawn?.
Dr Hafeez Shaikh may not be Asad Umar, but at least he’s reassuring in a way. Lower income people will not be taxed because the food inflation will ensure they won’t be around to be taxed. The middle class will be then pushed into being the lower income group. Then they will have the option of becoming extinct or moving to the Middle East to become slave labour. The free market economy gives us all options. Death or Dubai.
I also don’t understand all this ruckus over raising utility bills. They will not affect the homeless people at all. They do not have homes so how can they use electricity or gas anyway? We are one political statement short of Imran Khan coming out and telling poor people to have cake instead. As he should!
In any case, if things don’t work out, it is about time we remove this inept government and “elect” Khadim Hussain Rizvi as our new Prime Minister. His is the only economic policy that will work. We have managed to borrow the 6 billion dollars - we can devalue the rupee even further. So we make each dollar worth 500 rupees. That way we will have 1,500 billion rupees. We can use it to build all our infrastructure and when the IMF comes to get their money back we can tell them “Lo jee Ghauri aya fir!”
Or better yet, after he is impeached from the USA, we can “elect” Donald Trump and he can do the one thing he is good at: evade repaying money by declaring bankruptcy. We can never pay off our debts if we do not have any money to begin with. We are Pakistanis, not Lannisters – at least when it comes to debt.
Worst case scenario: we can always use the money to have 5 years of jalsa parties at D Chowk and sell the country to China in 2023. If we are going down faster than the Karachi Stock Exchange we might as well have one last party. No?