Partly Facetious : The travails of top leadership

"Halleluiah!"

"I told you it isn't a Muslim expression."

"And as I told you it simply means praise be to Allah even if it's used by the Jews and the Christians."

"You are one stubborn individual and that doesn't bode well for mid level politicians..."

"By my definition, barring the party leader the rest of us are mid level..."

"So if we look at the national parties you reckon the top leadership is only Zardari sahib, Nawaz Sharif, and..."

"Oye, get your list straight - it's The Khan first, then Nawaz Sharif and last and the least Zardari sahib..."

"Really! I was going from the bottom up."

"Don't be facetious."

"Anyway I was not going to talk about any of these three gentlemen. I was actually amused at the statement by the State Bank of Pakistan Governor Baqir to the Standing Committee that as inflation is coming down the rate of interest may..."

"Why is that funny?"

"Because my dear friend, inflation has come down for those products/items that are not susceptible to the discount rate - isn't that what we all have been trying to tell Baqir since his surprise appointment..."

"Hey inflation is inflation in this country just like a degree is a degree - fake or not!"

"Don't be facetious, this is serious. See the Consumer Price Index on which the State Bank pegged the discount rate reflects prices of those items that move independent of the discount rate. Petroleum prices for example have come down not because of our high discount rate but due to international price decline - all of which has not been passed on by the government. Food prices have come down because of a change in supply and demand and increased subsidies to Utility Stores for certain items so again not dependent on the discount rate..."

"If only the governor would look at previous SBP's research papers - a 2006 research paper found that the extreme price changes in the tails of the distributions are considered to be unrepresentative of the underlying inflation trend."

"Lessons learned is not part of our national psyche/character, even if we have spent our entire working life outside the country..."

"True."