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Apr, 2020

THIS IS OUR CHANCE TO FIX OUR ECONOMY
I was reading an article about the global economy, as I was reading I thought I was reading about our economic problems, the main difference is in the triggers. Our problems were triggered by political corruption; the world problems are triggered by the pandemic, but regardless of the triggers the world is facing similar economic problems that all countries must deal with. The article shared IMF opinion on how to proceed in dealing with economic issues. They stated that even if global economies begin to recover gradually, rich and superior economies will face an average deficit of 11% of GDP; Their public debt may reach $66trn, which might be 122% of GDP by year end. Solutions presented in this article focus on 3 things, first countries may borrow funds through taxation, second, they can default and negotiate with their creditors, and third they can do nothing and let future economic growth offset the debt. Sounds familiar? So, we are faced with an amazing opportunity to fix our economic issues but it requires us to get our act together and move away from political hostility and clear our minds from the distraction of politicians and their efforts to distract us by fueling our emotions against each other. For the first time we are at the same level of economic collapse as the rest of the world, so no one has a head start, let’s do a plan. Thoughts on how we can do this: · We identify items that we currently import to support our existing production, for example if we import the packaging material for our local dairy production, we will start producing them here and reduce the price of our production · We do a feasibility study for these new production businesses; our feasibility study will focus on exact needed supply so we ensure that the units produced locally will be sold to fill the demand. · When we have a solid feasibility study that has needed production and also a plan that guarantees sales of the production we can easily get funding whether from banks or investors etc. By doing small projects like this, we will provide our youth with entrepreneurship opportunities, provide our local factories with support materials locally, provide the Lebanese with cheaper local products, produce jobs, and the cycle towards economic health begins. Slowly we focus on different industries with the aim of replacing certain imports with local production. I feel good sharing my thoughts on this, I hope some of my fellow Lebanese see the opportunity and get excited to be part of the economic solutions!