As Growth Returns To Pakistan, Hopes Rise on Terror Front

Tuesday, November 9th, 2004

As Growth Returns To Pakistan, Hopes Rise on Terror Front describes how a military coup brought Pakistan fiscal restraint and free trade:

Gen. Musharraf inherited a country on the verge of insolvency when he and a group of senior military officers removed Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office in a bloodless coup in October 1999. The government was then channeling more than 60% of its revenues into servicing debt, leaving little for public works or social programs. Foreign-exchange reserves had plunged below $400 million, barely enough to finance two weeks of imports. Pakistan found it near impossible to tap global financial markets after Washington slapped economic sanctions on it for its nuclear tests.

Gen. Musharraf moved quickly to recruit some of his country’s top economic minds back from abroad. In addition to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, a top Citicorp Inc. executive, Pakistan’s leader also wooed men who had reached senior positions at the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

His new economic team quickly resurrected a dormant IMF program by implementing a string of tough fiscal measures, which included slashing subsidies, devaluing the Pakistani currency, and allowing the market to set interest rates. They also sold off state-owned companies and removed a slew of tariff barriers.

‘No democratically elected government could have done this’ because it wouldn’t have been able to take the political heat, says Ishrat Husain, Pakistan’s central bank governor.

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Mike in Boston: “Bioslop” is more purely derogatory, but the earlier term “Bioleninism” ; offers some insight by analogy: As Lenin and the communists rallied the downtrodden to overthrow the bourgeoisie, so bioleninism rallies those with biological or identitarian disadvantages (perceived or inherent) to Leftist causes. In a system based on ability or traditional hierarchies such as a meritocracy or most Western civilizations, these groups would be at the bottom of the ladder...
Bob Sykes: “Bioslop,” coining a new racist insult. Loving it. Congrats to Kulak. Wasn’t “kulak” itself a derogatory term under Stalin?
Bob Sykes: While both Russia and China are authoritarian (but nowhere near Stalinist or Maoist), their Elites are both more representative of their people and work more in their people’s interests than do the US, UK, or EU regimes. The late Senator Graham is a good example of just how hostile to the American people our Epstein Rulers really are.
Jim: As far as I can tell, “robber-baron capitalism” was a rhetorical cudgel used by the power center that established the Federal Reserve System, an hereditary banking oligarchy, against ordinary self-made industrial magnates.
Gaikokumaniakku: The 19th century glorified robber-baron capitalism along with other myths of individual heroes. They forgot that Newton said he was standing on the shoulders of giants — and of course they also forgot that when Newton said that, he was referencing a long string of writers who had used the phrase for hundreds of years, back to Bernard of Chartres: “We are like dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by...
Harper’s Notes: RAND developed the Delphi Method during the early Cold War for estimating thermonuclear warfare casualties among other things. It works well under the right circumstances. Uses anonymity and sequential polling. But the right circumstances are generally difficult and rare. Most recently the Super-forecaster Project (Tetlock) has resulted in several the high-scorers participating in (betting) prediction markets, in which there are both advantages and disadvantages in non-anonymity.
Gaikokumaniakku: I greatly enjoyed both Runaway and Looker in the 1980s. Marginally relevant link: Starring the Computer: Computers in Movies and Television Starring the Computer: Computers in Runaway (1984)
Gaikokumaniakku: This is why crazy paradigm-breakers have so much potential for improvements to the collective system. Sadly, the rewards usually don’t work out. Crazy, dishonest charlatans are often rewarded, and crazy honest autistic crusaders for truth are usually burned at the stake. I think it was Colin Wilson who claimed the crucial distinction between real thinkers and followers was that real thinkers were capable of breaking away from socially acceptable paradigms.
Isegoria: It looks like Looker is on YouTube!
TRX: Crichton was also a novelist — a fairly good one – and wrote almost all of his own screenplays. He should have known the screenplay for Runaway stank. Watching Runaway a few months ago, I had a hard time believing it was a Crichton movie; it’s a mess. I didn’t like all of Crichton’s movies, but they were put together better than that. While on the Critchton subject, I’d like to make a plug for Looker, done about the same time as Runaway, but much better. Crichton had a...
Isegoria: Lower attendance is what we’re going for.
Bob Sykes: The problem facing all colleges and universities is that the number of white 18 year-olds, the primary consumers of college, is declining rapidly both relative to other races and absolutely. Many small liberal arts colleges are decidedly second rate academically, and so are the students they cater to. So, neither the loss of the schools nor the loss of the students is really a big deal. The health of the college system and the meaningfulness of the degrees awarded is actually better off...
Isegoria: Rising Sun came a decade later. I remember reading the novel right around when I read Jurassic Park. The Terminator, on the other hand, came out the same year as Runaways and was a much bigger deal.
Kentucky Headhunter: Huh, I remember Runaway being a fairly frequent Saturday afternoon movie option on cable. Not to the level of Rising Sun, but it was on at least once every three or four months. Now, unlike Rising Sun, I never actually left it on…
TRX: Crichton usually got his computer stuff correct, though. He picked up a degree in “computer graphics” while he was getting his M.D. at Harvard. When he decided he didn’t care for doctoring, he went to Hollywood and made more computer-ish movies than doctor-ish ones. I only discovered “Runaway” earlier this year; I thought I was familiar with all of Crichton’s movies, but apparently not. I don’t remember ever seeing any mention of it anywhere.
Isegoria: Crichton clearly had little interest in the details of weapons. In the movie, a household robot goes rogue and acquires a revolver — which makes a pump-action shotgun racking sound before each shot and leaves a ragged two-inch hole in the drywall. Sigh. So I’m not surprised he gets his warships mixed up.
Lucklucky: “battleship Sheffield” It was a mere destroyer not a battleship…
Jim: Equanimous Independence Day!
Buckethead: Adjacent to Atomic Rockets is ToughSF. Well researched and fascinating speculation on space. He posts only every so often, but he did do an interesting series on stealth – and piracy — in space.
Isegoria: Thanks for putting in the work, George. Grok also kept pointing to this blog. Apparently AI struggles with comments repeated across multiple pages.

Isegoria

As Growth Returns To Pakistan, Hopes Rise on Terror Front

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