Booking a taxi to the airport, I was surprised when they asked asked me to where I was going. I answered to Cyprus, wondering why this question. They cheerfully informed me that their company has a taxi service in Cyprus and when they quoted the price, I noticed it was 15 euros less that the company I booked online, and it was the cheapest by far!
Lebanese business ingenuity will never stop amazing me. They function well and efficiently in a dysfunctional environment where the Government is just there to set bureaucratic corrupt regulation.
Some say it is due to our Phoenician heritage, some say to our individualistic mercantile Mediterranean culture, some... whatever it is, it is working. Lebanese businesses are surviving unbelievable circumstances, Lebanese young entrepreneurs are drilling their way through a stone age situation, and born and bread Lebanese emigrants are drawing success stories all over the world.
On the other side of the equation, Lebanese fail dramatically to function as citizen and their Government and political classe is driving the country to ruins. The Lebanese economic miracle as it used to be called until a few years ago is at the edge of the abyss today.
Though ideologically I am a person of the Left, I cannot, with all honesty except say that privatization is the only solution.
The private sector can take over failing governmental instituions and quickly make a success of it.
What needs to be done is just set checks and balances on monopolies and cartels.
Free market forces and competition will reduce corruption and put a limit to nepotism.
Just take a look at the banking sector, as well as Zahle's private solution for electricity and the Post office though these two are private monopolies.
Reduce taxes and reduce government intervention is the only workable solution for Lebanon today.
Maybe in a generation or two we will be able to aim for a more human system.
Today
Government = nepotism, inefficiency and + epotism,corruption that is never reinvested in the country.
Lebanese business ingenuity will never stop amazing me. They function well and efficiently in a dysfunctional environment where the Government is just there to set bureaucratic corrupt regulation.
Some say it is due to our Phoenician heritage, some say to our individualistic mercantile Mediterranean culture, some... whatever it is, it is working. Lebanese businesses are surviving unbelievable circumstances, Lebanese young entrepreneurs are drilling their way through a stone age situation, and born and bread Lebanese emigrants are drawing success stories all over the world.
On the other side of the equation, Lebanese fail dramatically to function as citizen and their Government and political classe is driving the country to ruins. The Lebanese economic miracle as it used to be called until a few years ago is at the edge of the abyss today.
Though ideologically I am a person of the Left, I cannot, with all honesty except say that privatization is the only solution.
The private sector can take over failing governmental instituions and quickly make a success of it.
What needs to be done is just set checks and balances on monopolies and cartels.
Free market forces and competition will reduce corruption and put a limit to nepotism.
Just take a look at the banking sector, as well as Zahle's private solution for electricity and the Post office though these two are private monopolies.
Reduce taxes and reduce government intervention is the only workable solution for Lebanon today.
Maybe in a generation or two we will be able to aim for a more human system.
Today
Government = nepotism, inefficiency and + epotism,corruption that is never reinvested in the country.