Union Strike One

And btw, where on God`s earth Mr BTS you’ve learnt that the Indian success story was purely led by the govt? Are the software companies in Banglore nationalised? Are those hugely successful conglomerates credited with paying huge taxes that the research thrives on owned by the govt? Have you even been following the privatisation efforts (albeit being resisted by the people of your school) that is taking place in India today? If making conditions favourable for the private companies to flourish is a govt-led miracle, let’s have some of that in Pakistan.

Why do we in Pakistan have to be the last ones to catch up???? Oh hang on, I may know the answer: coz we have many a change-sceptic among ourselves who would only do something if it says so in a book published in the 1960s!!! Not all questions have to be ideological; some may be allowed to find their answers in the good old common sense....

If you have read as much as your first posting portrays, you should know that there is no silver bullet, no universal solution to a nation’s turn of fortunes. Nations have to find their own new ways. I don’t see policy makers in the West looking to working examples elsewhere when they encounter new problems! And I think forums such as this should encourage and foster that healthy debate above all.

Nationalisation of a company amounts to feeding fish to a subset of society that is employed by that company, whereas by forcing a company to streamline (in the face of shareholders’ accountability) may be the only way to teach those it employs how to fish. With all your disagreements, hope you’ll find a way to agree with me on one thing, that in Pakistan both public sector companies and their workforce need to be more efficient – unless, of course, you can reach for a thick enough book and look up an example from history that has proven that large nationalised companies somewhere in an ideal part of this world, managed to cut costs for any reasonable length of time while being overstaffed and plagued with corruption and nepotism. A lean, efficient public-sector organisation is indeed a rare animal!

I agree that perhaps privatisation will breed a crop of ultra-rich industrialists, new or old-timers, but hey, that’s still happening and you and I can do nothing about it! Apparently the Army has got a real taste for the good stuff now! At least privatisation has a chance to bring in good working practices, and changes to work ethics. Currently, it’s just waste all around: of resources due to lack of suitable technology and local market-driven research to properly utilise them, and of people due to public sector companies. The Nation is the one that loses in the end!

The fact of the matter is that I do not want a fascist regime of foreign puppets to sell national assets without impunity or accountability. My Salute to Kudos to the PTCL union and its employees who took a stand against this criminals who controls this population by anti-terrorism laws for minor infractions like jay walking.

In a country where government has no accountability towards its people, considers its law and its constitution worth nothing more than toilet paper; where population thinks that the phrases like ``social security net`` and ``consumers rights`` are the names of some animals that live in Africa, what is the purpose of free market economy. Free market economy is a trap for third world countries to capture and occupy its institutions and means of production by International Consortium of thugs in the name of globalization and free economy.

I must caution all Pakistanis not to be beguiled by these charming phraseolgy. They are just a trap. Unless there is representation there is no taxation and definitely not privatization.

Capitalist kanjar murdabad

Capitalist`s agents, fauji roddents thaa

Chughtay, pughtay, lam dheeng ke pughtay thaa.

Re: # 37
re: cayenne:

just read interact #42 again.

Oh, and I`m still waiting for the call from the Home Ministry or ``Indian Intelligence``. Maybe you should call them again. And if they hang up on you, don`t give up. Keep trying until they ask for your name and address. That`s how they distinguish the serious, patriotic Indians from the pinko JNU types.

cheers,

A_S

The primary job of every govt., specifically in poor countries, is to reduce poverty. Everything else comes a very distant second. This includes things like establishing religion or establishing secularism. Running marathons or stopping marathons etc……In case of poor countries, even elections are secondary, if they cannot reduce poverty….…In the end, countries only come out of the third-world by getting poverty to very low figures.

Pakistan did a very good job of economic growth till the early 70s. It went from nowhere in South Asia, in 1947, to being the country with the most potential within 20 years of its formation. That momentum even carried it through two more decades. By 1990, Pakistan had a historically low poverty rate of 18% or so. One more good decade at 6% and we would have been in single digits.

However, things went haywire in the lost decade of the 90s. And by 2000, the poverty rate was at 30% and getting higher at phenomenal rates. For the past 15 years, every year more people have been added below the poverty line. Finally, for the first time in 15 years, this year, Pakistan has again started lowering its poverty figures, i.e. it has finally turned the corner. Last year, there were 45 million people in Pakistan below the poverty line. This year, due to consistently high economic growth rates, there has been a ten percent reduction, i.e. 5 million people have been taken out of poverty!!

Another ten years of this, and we will be in single digit poverty figures…………What can be more important than that?

How is poverty reduced? It is reduced by bringing tens of millions of people above the poverty line. That can only be done by growing the economy, as a whole, which creates genuine jobs. It is not reduced by creating fake jobs in gigantic publicly owned monopolies, and employing people there. In such a scenario, just to give 10,000 people a free ride, the country ends up adding a far larger group below the poverty line………..

Re: # 44
re: JawadJee:

I believe institutions have a social function. The function of Indian Railways, inefficient, corrupt and creaking though it might be, is to provide affordable transportation for 5 billion people a year. Even if it loses money on them. The function of a water service is to provide potable water to every Indian, regardless of his or her capacity to pay market price for it. The function of a healthcare system is to not weigh a patient`s wallet before deciding whether to provide long term care. Or profit from the incident.

And besides all these patent functions, the latent function, of providing support and employment for millions is, in my opinion, critical.

And even apart from these critical functions of transportation, water and health, if a publicly owned corporation is profitable or even breaking even, I strongly oppose Government disinvestment in it, even if it will fetch millions. Every effort must be made to revive and restructure public corporations before selling them off.

Look at Bolivia [1] for an example of breakneck capitalism. Or Argentina [2].

And as for customer service / efficiency, I opened a bank account just a week ago at a leading Indian private bank and in the good old State Bank of India. SBI told me clearly, up front, what documents I would need while the ``account executive`` at the private bank left me with the impression that were I to show up with a used bus ticket, I would have a full fledged bank account.

They were extra courteous indeed and very very anxious that I open the bank account then and there. Once opened, however, my ``account executive`` lost interest and it took ages for the bank to put in place rudimentary standing instructions.

Oh, and as for efficiency,

The completely unglamorous Mr. Ghai at the SBI was neutral, with none of the lickspittle cravenness (unsupported by real world competence) that masquerades for customer service in so many private sector dealings in India. He told me what I needed. Attested copy of passport. Introduction form. two photographs. He scrutinised them carefully (unlike the private sector dude). In 90 minutes, I had opened a savings bank AND a PPF acount, nominated next of kin for both of them, gotten my passbook, applied for my debit card and Internet Banking facility, Issued standing instructions to directly debit my account periodically and was out of there.

In my experience, the state will be much more khadoos but they get the job done. It`s possible that what`s galvanised them from their lackadaisical attitude earlier is the entry of the private sector into hitherto unprotected areas such as telecommunications and transportation. So have a mixed economy. There`s no reason to treat liberalisation as an economic imperative or an inevitability.

Cuba? As in the Human Development Index ? It`s Gini Coefficient ?

I`d rather have a country such as the scandinavian ones with their ``inefficent`` safety nets rather than a robber baron game preserve.

To recense the Aerosmith song,

``Tax the rich / There`s only one thing that they`re good for``
``Tax the rich / Take one slab now and come back for more``

(that`s a joke. but only just)

Cheers,

A_S

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1504058,00.html
[2] http://americas.irc-online.org/articles/2004/0410argentdebt.html