The crisis #Lebanon is going through has seen nothing like it in its history since independence, and the many comments from political commentators and economic experts add frightening dimensions to the climate of indecision.
In this article, we want to present common fallacies that have come to represent the beliefs of ordinary Lebanese people unfamiliar with economic affairs.
The first and worst of these rumors is that national income has reached the $22 billion level, which is equivalent to 40% of the 2018 estimated national income level at $55 billion.
The reason for the estimation error is that the study of vital statistics is not conducted by political commentators, just as economists do not calculate the size of the informal economy and its impact on income levels and sufficiency levels. the informal economy is actually realized, and we estimate it at 30% of national income because this economy includes The economy of drug production and trade includes the import and export of petroleum derivatives for a period of two or three years and the support of these imports and then export to Syria. Lebanese imports of derivatives totaled about $4.8 billion in 2013 and $8.8 billion in 2014. One major derivatives trader is the reason for the discrepancy, and when World Bank experts asked why, they were informed that the price difference is due to continuing to import the same quantities and then exporting 35-40% of them to Syria.
In addition to the escape of subsidized derivatives at the time to Syria, the pressure on the Lebanese balance of payments was great to import the same quantities, but the return from the sale of 30-40% was not available to Lebanon, although a part of it was available because one of the largest oil traffickers in Syria owned 20% of the shares of a bank in Lebanon, boasted every year that it was the bank that opened the largest credits for oil imports.
Today we see manifestations of manipulation of numbers through programs dedicated to the discussion of economic affairs. It is known that the MTV station has become, with the diversity of its programs, the first in terms of audiovisual media, and the owners of the station are taking the initiative to support public affairs with donation campaigns for those suffering from diseases who require care abroad, and are helping with the Ministry of Works to bury the potholes that damage cars and hinder traffic.
MTV has introduced an economic program which is presented for a period of 5 minutes every day by a modest, elegantly dressed woman who with hand gestures tries to explain the reasons for the deterioration of the economy. For example, some time ago, I mentioned the import data and the export data, and the discrepancy between them, and from this I concluded that national income has fallen sharply, as if imports and exports are the elements of determining income national, and they exceeded the incidence of public sector expenditure, equal to 70% of the expected figure for national income. At the same time, you did not mention or neglected to mention the impact of financial transfers and investment, which have always been the mainstay of the Lebanese economy.
I recently dealt with the numbers of the Social Security Fund, and I took the initiative to say that the Fund’s resources are derived from the contributions paid by employers for their workers, and the part that is available from workers, and not indicate that the state is obliged to cover a significant percentage of the costs of the sickness and maternity branch, which is the largest branch Those affiliated to it, only said that the state owed LL 5,000 billion without mentioning that these are fundamental contributions of the social security system and not to mention that the sickness and maternity insurance covers about 1.5 million Lebanese men and women, while the severance pay does not cover more than 150,000 Lebanese men and women.
Comments of the aforementioned type are badly needed because they do not show the reality of the financial obligations and the percentage of beneficiaries from them. The surprising thing is that the program was introduced as if it was developed to cover a lack of economic means, taking into account keep in mind that MTV has the best introduction to economic affairs in Lebanon and has had a lot of experience working in television #The Persian Gulf.
And let us not forget that Marcel Ghanem’s program sometimes raises fundamental economic questions and has numerous commentators, some of whom deserve to be heard and others deserve to be punished by being sent to colleges to teach economics and business… And the Lebanese the listener carries the fragments of the errors of non-economists.
