ARTICLE: "I was wondering..."

"It doesn't do to wonder in this country."

"I don't get it, we can't even dream....."

"As Shakespeare said to sleep perchance to dream - it's perchance my friend and perchance means maybe, not definite, so while you can sleep at your leisure dreaming is not a guarantee and then you go into the realm of a nightmare or a good....."

"Science says that we all dream though we may not recall..."

"One question: science said that Eid would be Friday and when did we celebrate Eid?"

"First Fawad Chaudhary is as far from science as....as....as Nadeem Babar and Razzak Dawood are from being qualified..."

"Qualified as opposed to on the job training and need I add they have a lot of on the job training..."

"The training was different - they were working for themselves and their families as opposed to working for the people of the country and..."

"The definition of a technocrat in this country my dear is not academic qualifications but on the job training so you have Dar appointed as your finance minister again and again..."

"That's true but sometimes the appointee has no relevant experience."

"Sometimes? Shaukat Aziz's on the job training was as a banker not an economist...."

"Banking has a lot to do with economics."

"Yes but one bank's gain could be the banking sector's loss and the finance minister must consider the impact of any policy on the entire banking sector."

"I don't think that lesson has been learned yet."

"That's what we are good at, not learning lessons anyway when I said I was wondering I meant who amongst all the finance ministers we have had should we offer a job to again to sort out the problems..."

"Does it include the incumbent?"

"Indeed it does, wasn't he the finance minister for three long years during the Zardari years and when he left we had to go back on a Fund programme and..."

"Who do you reckon?"

"Well Mehbubul Haq is not with us...."

"He is known more for his work with the UN than for what he did in Pakistan..."

"The fault was with the mafias - 22 families at the time and need I add some of those belonging to those families sit in our cabinet today."

"So who?"

"Well things weren't as bad during the 1960s and 1970s and if there is one thing I have learnt from the IMF it is that deterioration is not immediate but in a phased..."

"Don't be facetious."

"See that is why the ongoing programme has upfront conditions which have broken our backbone and..."

"That's all due to Covid-19."

"Covid 29 or 19?"

"Does it matter?"

"I reckon by early next year our economy and our people would be suffering from Covid 39..."

"Don't be facetious."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020