KARACHI: Squandering US$10 billion from precious reserves in less than 10 months, the country goes begging for $10 billion more. The President Mr Asif Ali Zardari, in his enthusiasm, a month ago asked for as much as $100 billion, which most people shrugged off as a typographical error of an extra zero, in newspapers. But it then dawned that it was really that sum of money he was asking for!

The economy will keep going as long as the country is not drained completely of dollars. And with clenched hands, down on the knees turning on all sides, begging from friend to foe, someone (IMF as the last resort or plan ‘C’) will dole out the dollars. And since there is no such thing as a free lunch, the ‘package’ will come tied with tight strings.

If the economy of Kenya and Zimbabwe can keep ticking with inflation rate of 11 million per cent, why must Pakistan lose hope with just about 25 per cent rise in prices of essential goods? The public, in sublime silence, lines the ‘tandoors’ willing to pay Rs10 for a ‘roti’ for what it cost Rs4 a little while ago.

With no corresponding increase in household income, subsidies are being passed on to the users, and not just in piecemeal, but all in one go. And that is the crunch. It is unmistakable in middle income groups.

Reliable figures quoted the danger of 5 million more people in Pakistan falling below the line of poverty and 1.5 million rendered jobless. Financial sector employed a vast number of graduating youth, who are now in the grip of fear of fate resembling that of the employees at Lehman Brothers. Banks this season posted 14pc increase in provisioning.

Cement sector, that had witnessed phenomenal growth in the past many years, reports a 15 per cent decline in sales and profit, which inevitably extends to a near halt in construction of new homes and infrastructure. Car sales have plunged to half of what they used to be a year ago. About the capital market, the least said the better.

What has been lost since April (Rs 2 trillion in market capitalisation) is just the tip of an iceberg. Let the artificial ‘floor’ support the stock index and let the doors of open-end mutual funds be kept tightly shut as long as possible, but what fate awaits the equities in terms of a plunge in values and the funds in regard to a run on redemption, is scary to contemplate.

For the short term, the economy is not going anywhere but the donors. Economic managers are pointing to the sun rising on the horizon with fields able to feed the farmers; industries employing armies of unemployed and underemployed labour and trade busting into activity. If that happens it is going to be dimly in the future. And Keynes, perhaps knew what would happen in the long run. “In the long run”, said the celebrated economist, “We are all dead”!