Officially, the central bank holds $8.14 billion (£4.65 billion) of foreign currency, but if forward liabilities are included, the real reserves may be only $3 billion - enough to buy about 30 days of imports like oil and food.
Nine months ago, Pakistan had $16 bn in the coffers.
The government is engulfed by crises left behind by Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler who resigned the presidency in August. High oil prices have combined with endemic corruption and mismanagement to inflict huge damage on the economy.
Given the country’s standing as a frontline state in the US-led “war on terrorism”, the economic crisis has profound consequences. Pakistan already faces worsening security as the army clashes with militants in the lawless Tribal Areas on the north-west frontier with Afghanistan.
[…]
The Pakistan rupee has lost more than 21 per cent of its value so far this year and inflation now runs at 25 per cent. The rise in world prices has driven up Pakistan’s food and oil bill by a third since 2007.
Efforts to defer payment for 100,000 barrels of oil supplied every day by Saudi Arabia have not yet yielded results, while the government has also failed to raise loans on favourable terms from “friendly countries”.
Mr Zardari told the Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needed a bail out worth $100 billion from the international community.
If there’s one thing that would be worse than a Pakistan speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the subject of the terrorists it’s playing host to, on the one hand proclaiming that it’s our ally in the War on Terror while on the other shielding Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the FATA who are crossing the border into Afghanistan to attack NATO forces, it would be a Pakistani government that has collapsed. It isn’t unheard of for governments in such a position to foment a war just to bolster domestic support and have somebody else to blame.
arles Murray, he of Bell Curve fame/infamy, argues that a system where everyone is expected to get a four year college degree to get a decent job is silly. I agree. I find this description amusing:
First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that often has nothing to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn’t meet the goal. We will call the goal a “BA.”
He argues that a baccalaureate program makes sense for liberal arts majors seeking a classical education but that it’s otherwise a waste of time. This particular passage, however, is bizarre:
Assuming a semester system with four courses per semester, four years of class work means thirty-two semester-long courses. The occupations that require thirty-two courses are exceedingly rare. In fact, I can’t think of a single example. Even medical school and Ph.D.s don’t require four years of course work. For the student who wants to become a good hotel manager, software designer, accountant, hospital administrator, farmer, high-school teacher, social worker, journalist, optometrist, interior designer, or football coach, the classes needed for the academic basis for competence take a year or two. Actually becoming good at one’s job usually takes longer than that, but competence in any profession is mostly acquired on the job. The two-year community college and online courses offer more flexible options than the four-year college for tailoring academic course work to the real needs of students.
It’s actually 42 semester-long courses (128 semester hours) in most institutions. And, geez, medical school and PhDs require a hell of a lot more than four years of course work! The only way you get less than that is to discount the four years getting the BA/BS.
Now, I’d agree, that four years of higher education, most of which is devoted to general studies courses, makes little sense for an accountant, hotel manager, interior designer or farmer. Those people need training, not education. (The broadening of a liberal education might make those people better at their jobs in the long run, but it has nothing to do with the entry level job.) I’m pretty sure, though, that optometrists and, especially, high school teachers would benefit from an education.
This argument is more persuasive — but only in hindsight.
Finally, consider the hundreds of thousands of students who go to college just because they have had it pounded into their heads since childhood that the good jobs require a BA The wage premium that shows up in regression equations may or may not apply to them. In Real Education, I offer an extended example involving a hypothetical young man graduating from high school who is at the 70th percentile in intellectual ability–smart enough to get a BA in today’s world–but just average in intrapersonal and interpersonal ability. He is at the 95th percentile in the visual-spatial and small motor skills useful in becoming a top electrician. He is trying to decide whether to go to college, major in business, and try to become a business executive, or instead become an electrician.
The bottom line of the example is that he cannot compare the mean income of business managers to the mean income of electricians. If his configuration of abilities means that he could get a BA in today’s colleges, but his cognitive and interpersonal skills are minimal for success in business, he has to recognize that he will be at a huge disadvantage in the competition for promotions after he gets his entry-level white-collar job. The relevant income figures are those for people in the bottom few deciles of the distribution of income for
business managers. If his configuration of abilities means that he could become an excellent electrician, he needs to focus on the income of electricians in the top few deciles of that distribution.
I concur, wholeheartedly, that many people who now go to college would be far, far better off going instead to trade school or otherwise just getting jobs. If you’re not academically talented and/or motivated to learn, you’re wasting your time in college.
It’s almost certainly true, too, that someone whose aim is to be, say, a brain surgeon or physics professor but who has only mediocre math and science skills should be discouraged from spending years of their lives pursuing unachievable goals. It’s quite another thing, though, to argue that someone with only somewhat above average intelligence should be dissuaded from going into business if they’re genuinely interested in doing so. While IQ is no doubt helpful in that field, it’s far from deterministic.
Murray’s a fan of testing regimes, like the CPA and bar exams, as an alternative means of certifying people for employment. He’s likely right that these do a better job of demonstrating competency in a field than possession of a diploma.
Here’s the reality: Everyone in every occupation starts as an apprentice. Those who are good enough become journeymen. The best become master craftsmen. This is as true of history professors and business executives as of chefs and welders. Getting rid of the BA and replacing it with evidence of competence–treating post-secondary education as apprenticeships for everyone–is one way to help us to recognize that common bond.
Of course, one could argue the same for the high school diploma. We could let anyone take the GED at any time and get on with their life once they’ve achieved a passing score. Similarly, people could go to college and test out once they’ve achieved the competency needed for their chosen line of work — and return when they need to add additional competencies.
The main problem with this approach is that, in the more prestige professional jobs, attainment of the required degree from one the “right” schools is a powerful signaling mechanism. It would be quite difficult, in the short term at least, to come up with an alternative sorting mechanism. I’m not sure whether, say, a high score on the bar exam or whatever equivalent was set up for, say, would-be physics professors would do the trick.
Over at my own blog, The Glittering Eye, I’ve begun a week-long discussion of critical policy issues—you know, the pressing issues at hand that are being submerged in the horserace aspect of the election, the scandal du jour, the sound bites, and the sloganeering. I’m hoping to start a discussion of issues that are at least a little free of the campaign boilerplate—for people to talk about what they want to see rather than what they’re being promised and what they’ll probably be stuck with.
The introductory/kick-off post is here. My proposed schedule is:
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Foreign policy
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Fiscal policy
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Economic policy
Friday, October 10, 2008
Health care
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Energy policy
Monday, October 13, 2008
Conclusion
I’d welcome the participation of my fellow OTB associate bloggers either here or on their own blogs. If you’ve got a blog of your own, please join in.
We’ve reached the seemingly inevitable part of the campaign where the trailing candidates start hurling charges out of desperation and the leader responds in kind. In the closing days of 1992, President George H.W. Bush, ordinarily among the most decent, genteel fellows you’d ever meet, was running around calling Bill Clinton and Al Gore “bozos.” He simply couldn’t believe that he, a war hero, seasoned public servant, and recent winner of the Gulf War, was losing to a draft dodging, dope smoking hick from Arkansas.
It appears that John McCain has reached that point. During the primaries, he merely shook his head and noted that “Life’s not fair” when guys like Mitt Romney and even Mike Huckabee were outpolling him. But he kept plugging away and ultimately won the nomination easily. It looked like he was going to do the same thing in the general election, even taking a small lead after connecting on the Sarah Palin Hail Mary. But, alas, life’s not fair and the financial crisis seems to have stopped his campaign in its tracks. (It’s been noted before that this campaign has eerie similarities to the Santos-Vinick race during the last season of “West Wing.” The financial crisis is apparently the real world’s answer to the nuclear plant disaster on the show.)
Howard Wolfson is almost surely right that “Bill Ayers Won’t Save John McCain.” Unless there’s far, far more to the association than we’ve seen, it’s a non-story that’s already been absorbed into the current polls. And this is right, too:
This dynamic is very unlikely to change. John McCain’s goal in the first debate was to discredit Senator Obama as a credible Commander in Chief and elevate the issue of foreign policy and national security. He didn’t come close. Absent a domestic terror attack the economy will remain the number one issue in the race, and there is little Senator McCain can do to make up his gap with Senator Obama on it. Oh, Senator McCain will try to make issues of Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright, and that might hurt Senator Obama around the margins — but it will not prevent him from winning. The economy is simply bigger than the rogues gallery that John McCain is conjuring up.
Palin kicked it up a notch yesterday with this nonsense: “Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who target their own country.” To put it in a vernacular Palin might understand, that dog won’t hunt. (One presumes dogs are involved in moose hunting, although my expertise is limited.) It just comes across as a pathetic, desperate charge.
The foreign campaign contributions charge that’s been floated over the weekend is much more reasonable. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to work. I seem to recall proof positive that Clinton was taking money from Red Chinese nationals in 1996 not having much, if any, impact on the race.
Ironically, Obama’s planned countercharges involving the twenty-year-old Keating Five scandal are more likely to have an impact because they go against McCain’s cultivated anti-corruption “maverick” image and most people have forgotten about that scandal.
Barring a catastrophic event like a terrorist attack, I’m not sure what happens over the next four weeks to turn this thing around for McCain. It strikes me that his best course is to run an honorable, dignified campaign and simply sell himself. Who knows, if he doesn’t win maybe Obama will offer to make him Secretary of State.
Yesterday the New York Times published three op-eds presenting opinions on Afghanistan, one by Robert D. Kaplan, one by Nathaniel C. Fick and Vikram J. Singh, fellows at the Center for a New American Security, and Nader Nadery and Haseeb Humayoon, two Afghans involved with NGO’s.
In his op-ed Mr. Kaplan emphasizes the geo-political importance of the struggle in Afghanistan:
So, here’s my answer: In fact, Afghanistan is more than a manhunt, and it does matter, for reasons that have not been fully fleshed out by policy makers or the military.
Just because you can’t pacify all the ungovernable Islamic spaces on the map doesn’t mean you can’t fix the one or two that are the most important, that have strategic weight over wide regions. For Afghanistan looms larger than it appears.
Strategically, culturally and historically speaking, Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable. In the 16th and 17th centuries, both countries, along with northern India, were united under the Mughal Empire. Today Pakistan, with 165 million people, is a nuclearized Yugoslavia in the making, and threatens to be torn apart by the Taliban rebellion in its North-West Frontier Province (and, possibly, by the growing Baluchi and Sindhi separatist movements in its southern half).
He goes on to note the perils that a destabilized Pakistan would pose for India.
Messrs. Fick and Singh advise that, in order to prosecute a counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan successfully, we must bolster the Afghan government:
First, the Afghan government must confront corruption in its own ranks. Tribal elders in Ghazni told us that they are “slapped on one cheek by the Taliban, and on the other cheek by the government.” They talked of extortion by the police, dysfunctional courts and rampant bribery in government offices. The average Afghan spends one-fifth of his income on bribes. It’s no surprise so many actively or passively support the Taliban.
To fight corruption, President Hamid Karzai should immediately do three things: fire those seen as the most corrupt cabinet ministers, provincial governors and district governors; arrest and prosecute the most notorious warlords from the civil war in the 1990s, who committed unspeakable atrocities but are living openly in Kabul or the provinces; and break the relationship between the government and the country’s largest industry, the poppy trade.
The coalition can assist in these reforms by “embedding” Western civilian experts in law, government and business management at every level of the Afghan government. This can improve performance and transparency.
I don’t think that Messrs. Fick and Singh ever quite make the case that placing Western civilian experts at every level of the Afghan government will increase its perceived legitimacy or popular support. Indeed, IMO this would be far more likely to undermine its support. Compare Pat Lang’s recent comments:
Afghanistan is a country dominated by tribal loyalties and structures. No matter what the State Department or his political scientist advisers may tell him, those loyalties and lifeways are not going to change much any time soon. The US government is rotten with the political science inspired notion that societies evolve and “progress” in the direction of the creation of geographically logical centralized states. This is merely a theory. It was created to provide a satisfactory (to some)explanation of European history.
The Afghan government of today is merely one of the many “players” in the complex socio-political situation in Afghanistan. If the United States backs the Karzai government with the idea of creating a highly centralized state in Afghanistan, then it is going down the road to re-creating the same social chaos that led to several years of ferocious tribal and factional revolt in Iraq.
The growing disillusionment caused by civilian casualties is also driving old friends away from NATO and American forces. In an interview some months ago, a man who worked alongside American forces in 2001 in Urozgan Province to protect Hamid Karzai, now the Afghan president, posed a staggering question: “You speak English, and interact with foreigners, so can you swear by the Almighty and tell me if the foreigners are on the side of the Taliban, or of the Afghan people?”
He was hardly the exception: many average Afghans find it hard to believe that America, with its tremendous military power, is having so much trouble defeating tattered bands of Taliban warriors and don’t understand why it can’t avoid continuous civilian casualties.
To Afghans, suspicion about the intentions of foreign forces comes easy: we have suffered through two occupations in the last three decades, first by the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and then by Pakistan — indirectly through the Taliban — in the 1990s. Every military operation that kills civilians leads to more conspiracy theories that the Americans and their Western allies want to maintain chaos so they can maintain a military presence in the region.
Some pundits and analysts may have you believe that we Afghans are inherently allergic to the West and its values. That is not true. We craved American and United Nations involvement in Afghanistan long before 9/11. When United States troops finally came to our liberation in late 2001, in city after city they faced cheering people dancing in the streets out of joy. That seems a very long time ago now.
Of course, the rising mistrust of NATO and American forces is not just about civilian casualties. Afghans are frustrated by the failure of our government and its foreign allies to improve security, clamp down on corruption and provide food and jobs.
This morning in the Times of London Britain’s most senior military commander in Afghanistan is trying to lower expectations:
Britain’s most senior military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the war against the Taliban cannot be won. Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the British public should not expect a “decisive military victory” but should be prepared for a possible deal with the Taliban.
His assessment followed the leaking of a memo from a French diplomat who claimed that Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British ambassador in Kabul, had told him the current strategy was “doomed to fail”.
Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, said it was necessary to “lower our expectations”. He said: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.”
The brigadier added: “We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency . . . I don’t think we should expect that when we go there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world. That would be unrealistic and probably incredible.”
He continues by stating that NATO forces have “taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008”.
Unfortunately, they’ll still be in the wild, rugged, mostly ungoverned areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009 and 2010 whereas NATO forces may or may not be.
In this satirical video, British humorists John Bird and John Fortune, a/k/a “the Long Johns,” explain the financial crisis. It’s actually nearly a year old but it still works.
Humor across the Pond is a tad different, not least of which is less fear of risking alienating racial sensibilities. The bit about the “poor black man in Alabama” in his “string vest” likely wouldn’t make it here, even though the butt of the joke is the white banker.
“Saturday Night Live” parodied the debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, getting in good zingers against both.
It’s starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice president. Fey again returned to “Saturday Night Live” to play Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the sketch comedy show continued to pull out all the stops in its election year season. Queen Latifah dropped by to portray Thursday’s debate moderator, PBS’s Gwen Ifill, and cast member Jason Sudeikis stepped into the role of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The “SNL” take on the week’s political events has become a dependable part of the news cycle this fall, offering near-immediate parodies of the presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and their running mates. The show — particularly the opening sketches — have resonated with higher ratings for the NBC program and increased traffic on its Web site where early-to-bed viewers catch the talked-about sketches in the days after.
Saturday night’s opening sketch of the VP debate appeared likely to garner similar buzz thanks to Fey’s popular Palin impression. Winking and giving answers not always directly related to Queen Latifah’s questions, Fey’s Palin said that if she was elected, her decisions would be guided by considering “what would a maverick do?” At the end of the segment, she asked with flute in hand, “Are we not doing the talent portion?” Palin was runnerup in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.
Sudeikis, with hair slicked back and a tight-fitting suit, portrayed Biden as conflicted in his feelings for McCain, whom he called “a raging maniac and a dear, dear friend.”
Saturday’s “SNL” concluded the opening run of four straight shows — including three with guest appearances from Fey, a former cast member and head writer for “SNL” whose day job is starring in, producing and writing for NBC’s “30 Rock.” The network has said her appearances on “SNL” are being decided on a week-to-week basis.
The show has shown its willingness this fall to cast from beyond its current lineup. Last week, former cast member Chris Parnell returned to play Jim Lehrer, the moderator of the first presidential debate.
Clearly, Palin was the primary butt of the jokes here, but the “I love John McCain/he’s a raving maniac” and Scranton bits were terrific.
UPDATE: The video embed code works fine in IE but is breaking the site in Firefox. You can see it at NBC’s site here.
