NBC: 'There is no future here': Lebanese struggle through economic collapse
"I was shocked. I'm Lebanese, I have a job, I have health insurance," one person with breast cancer said about struggling to afford a $5 chemotherapy co-pay.
BEIRUT — Ahmed Hamour had been waiting to fill up with gas for 90 minutes.
He anticipated he'd have to wait at least another hour and a half to get his turn at the pump. "Every morning I ask, 'What’s new today?'" said Hamour, 58, as he lined up to buy gas in the middle-class Lebanese capital's Baabda neighborhood.
He bemoaned the skyrocketing costs of daily living for everything from gas to electricity, meat and sugar — if they were even on store shelves. "Every day, the Lebanese lifestyle is deteriorating," the bespectacled grandfather said. "There is no future here."
Hamour is not alone in his sense of despair. Lebanon is suffering from what the World Bank has labeled one of the most severe global financial crises since the mid-19th century.
The Lebanese currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value since late 2019, when the country’s economic and financial crisis erupted.
The dire economic depression has driven more than half of the country's 6.8 million people into poverty and is now pushing wealthy and middle-class Lebanese people to flee the country.
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Update #1: The Economic Crisis In Lebanon May Be One Of The Worst In The World Since The 1800s (NPR)
Update #2: Government raises price of staple bread once more in Lebanon (AP)
WNU Editor: The Lebanon of today reminds me of Russia in the early 1990s when it experienced its economic collapse. The only difference is that Russia's massive resource base helped pull it out of its economic disaster, and it took over a decade to accomplish it. I do not see (or expect) Lebanon to be that lucky.
3 comments:
Just like in South Africa it is human caused. I blame Nasrallah.
In South Africa the rioting was started by Zuma, because he was kicked out of power for corruption and tawdry crime. So he started the riots. Zuma has a lot in common with Mao. Mao was retired by the party, so he started the Cultural Revolution, which was one big factional backed riot, until he was back in power.
But Nasrallah is a good guy. He is not corrupt, you say. His faction provides social services. Pablo Escobar provided social services too. Providing social services to a few does not make you good.
Where are Nasrallah's social services now?
"The only difference is that Russia's massive resource base helped ..."
Is that the stat you want or resources per person and an energetic population?
Hypothetically, if Russia had had 1/2 the resources, but also 1/2 the population that it had in 1990, would it have been doomed?
Lebanon is a failed state as many other one's. With all the same reason: Islam and/or socialism.
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