Pakistan Close To Collapse

I saw the headline, but didn't realize the severity of the power outage. Pakistan also suffered terrible floods last year.

This would be terrible if it decays into a completely failed state. For a long time, you could give Pakistan some faint praise that 'At least it's not Afghanistan', but that could change.

essentialsaltes said:

I saw the headline, but didn't realize the severity of the power outage. Pakistan also suffered terrible floods last year.

This would be terrible if it decays into a completely failed state. For a long time, you could give Pakistan some faint praise that 'At least it's not Afghanistan', but that could change.

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The brain-drain as the Taliban moves from Pakistan to Afghanistan could be a factor as well?

essentialsaltes said:

I saw the headline, but didn't realize the severity of the power outage. Pakistan also suffered terrible floods last year.

This would be terrible if it decays into a completely failed state. For a long time, you could give Pakistan some faint praise that 'At least it's not Afghanistan', but that could change.

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Pakistan played a major part in harboring the Taliban until they retook Afghanistan.

Blast rips through police mosque in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 32​

Muhammad Asim, a spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, said there were at least 32 dead and 147 wounded, mostly policemen, and the toll is expected to rise as rescuers work through the mosque debris.

Police officials have not yet determined whether it was a suicide attack or the explosives were planted.

The attackers behind the incident “have nothing to do with Islam,” said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement strongly condemning the blast. “Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan.”

Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility for mosque blast​

Sarbakaf Mohmand and Omar Mukaram Khurasani – two officials from the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) – put out statements saying the blast was “revenge” for the death of TTP militant Khalid Khorasani last year.

The TTP is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pommer said:

The brain-drain as the Taliban moves from Pakistan to Afghanistan could be a factor as well?

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It's not as thought the Taliban was doing any good for Pakistan.

RDKirk said:

It's not as thought the Taliban was doing any good for Pakistan.

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Well if the Taliban is leaving for Afghanistan and there’s a power-vacuum in Pakistan, what might that tell us?

Pommer said:

Well if the Taliban is leaving for Afghanistan and there’s a power-vacuum in Pakistan, what might that tell us?

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The Taliban were never part of the Pakistan leadership.

RDKirk said:

The Taliban were never part of the Pakistan leadership.

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I will defer to your expertise, then.
Have a great night.

RDKirk said:

The Taliban were never part of the Pakistan leadership.

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Countries can often have multiple levers of power and stability apart officially elected leadership.

Obviously that stability isn't always in the name of something good (the Taliban would fit that definition of "stability for bad"), but power vacuums tend to always foster unstable environments.

An example I would point to would be Pablo Escobar and his organization. While the cartel certainly wasn't the official leadership of the country. His organization being dismantled certainly had negative effects on the region both in terms of stability, and economically.


It doesn't even have to be a criminal or unethical organization for that to occur either. I'm sure we're all familiar with the stories of cities (and sometimes entire states) that have been decimated by a big organization that decided to pick up and move to another location.


Now, that's not to say that the Taliban residing there had the same level economic impact as Pablo in Columbia, or the Big Auto Makers in Detroit, but it certainly could be a factor. Their choice to leave (and take roughly $5 million dollars a day with them) certainly can't be a good thing for Pakistan.

ThatRobGuy said:

Countries can often have multiple levers of power and stability apart officially elected leadership.

Obviously that stability isn't always in the name of something good (the Taliban would fit that definition of "stability for bad"), but power vacuums tend to always foster unstable environments.

An example I would point to would be Pablo Escobar and his organization. While the cartel certainly wasn't the official leadership of the country. His organization being dismantled certainly had negative effects on the region both in terms of stability, and economically.


It doesn't even have to be a criminal or unethical organization for that to occur either. I'm sure we're all familiar with the stories of cities (and sometimes entire states) that have been decimated by a big organization that decided to pick up and move to another location.


Now, that's not to say that the Taliban residing there had the same level economic impact as Pablo in Columbia, or the Big Auto Makers in Detroit, but it certainly could be a factor. Their choice to leave (and take roughly $5 million dollars a day with them) certainly can't be a good thing for Pakistan.

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If Pablo Escobar's organization were to disappear, would the government of Columbia fall?

You're only looking at the money, not weighing it against the level of instability they caused.

Islamic fundamentalism always drags life downward. It's only a matter of time before hitting rock bottom.

RDKirk said:

If Pablo Escobar's organization were to disappear, would the government of Columbia fall?

You're only looking at the money, not weighing it against the level of instability they caused.

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The Columbian government obviously didn't fall, but it did have ripple effects that, when weighing out the externalities and countervailing interests, it's not as clear cut of a situation.

The country's overall GDP took a hit (going from a range of +4% to +6% during the time he was operating after a serious stagnation), and tanked to -5% in the 8 years following his organization being dismantled.

The unemployment rate (which had been on a downward trajectory during his operations), skyrocketed to nearly 20% in that same 8 year "post-Escobar" era.

Median household income for those who were employed also dropped by about 15%.

About the only economic metric that did look better was that the inflation rate went down, but that's to be expected when fewer people are employed, and the ones that are, make (and have) less money to spend. (much like we saw the inverse of that when the government was printing free money to give people during covid and people went on a shopping spree)

There's also the aspect of "the bad guy who keeps the other bad guys in check". Part of the reason why it was such a delicate situation was because there were fears that if you take out the contained "big guy", a bunch of medium guys with aspirations (that you know nothing about) will try to step in and compete to replace him, and that did end up happening to an extent. It many ways it's easier to tail one big fish than it is trying to tail 10 medium sized fish.

Those are the types of "moral grey areas" that policy makers have to consider.




We even saw some of the residuals of that domestically in the South Florida region in the 80's. When the rest of the country was in a recession, you couldn't buy a nice car down there without getting on a waiting list, every restaurant was booming, every mall and retail store was doing well (which means their employees were doing well). While that's obviously a very myopic view of the situation, if you were a waitress, bartender, or small business owner or (even just a regular employee) in that region in the 80's, you were probably very bummed to see that Medellin Money leave the region.