“Hey there was a bowl around here – did you see it?”
“What kind of bowl? Soup bowl, salad bowl…”
“The begging bowl.”
“You being facetious?”
“Hey its big business – no input required, electricity or gas or raw material, so costs are zero….”
“You have to give credit to us Pakistanis.”
“There are beggars in other countries too – India and Bangladesh and even rich Western countries have beggars, homeless, courtesy their policies, why are you shaking your head?”
“Europe has systematically ended cheap input policy and now is floundering and by that I mean low growth if at all and deindustrialisation is going full steam ahead.”
“That’s right and their President Ursula von der Leyen has yet to realise that the world order has changed from unipolar to multipolar – so she is sycophantic to the US but is still either bad-mouthing Russia or lecturing China and…”
“That’s right. But coming back to Pakistan when I said we have to give credit to Pakistan we are unique because in our country the richest and the most influential have no qualms about taking up the begging bowl.”
“Well a street beggar seeks alms from the rich and poor alike while our rich and influential seek money from those dressed in suits and ties and….”
“That makes it OK?”
“Absolutely.”
“So I come back to my earlier question? Did you see a begging bowl…”
“The Finance Minister took it to Samarkand – that’s where the Asian Development Bank is having its annual meeting.”
“But doesn’t he realise that the annual meeting is not the forum to discuss more loans or request a scale up of support which incidentally is a decision taken by the relevant department who base it on fiscal sustainability, our risk profile, and absorption capacity – and we perform poorly on all three….”
“Back off please – he saw a lot of suits with toes and so naturally….”
“Don’t be facetious.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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