COMMENTS UPON A SUGGESTED "23 YEARS EPURATION PROGRAM"

In addition to the above humble request addressed to our Prime Minister, I have permitted myself to humbly address another suggestion to the President of Lebanon's Central Bank, H.E. Riadh Salameh, with regard to our prospects of restructuration of our Public Debt, from 7% down to 1.5%, with retro-active effect from the 1/1/2015. I think that if the readers consider the savings per minute, that we could register, if we decided, together after getting the agreement of the Public Debt bondholders, to restructurate our Public Debt from 7% interest, down to 1.5%. You would undoubtedly be surprised at learning, that should we get the approval of the bond holders, we could save a huge amount of money EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY.

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The comments that I wish to make upon the publication above are as follows:

1.- As the readers will notice, the object of the above publication is, basaically, to demonstrate to the readers two important principles:

• Principle One: Lebanon's problems and Lebanon's future ultimately remain in the hands of its six million citizens. No one else, neither their leaders alone, nor any other country in the world that tries to interfere in our country's affairs, can influence the fate of our Nation, bar the full unreserved support and participation of its six million citizens.
• Principle Two: The efficiency and the quality of the performance of the six million citizens is factor of the efficiency and the quality of its leaders, and the program that both leaders and citizens would have jointly set up for the Nation.
• Principle Three: Therefore, this Nation will never succeed, and overcome the obstacles that pile up in its face, unless the six million citizens, their leadership and the 200,000 members of Lebanon's Civil Administration WORK hand in hand TOGETHER to reach the OBJECTIVES upon which they would have COMMONLY AGREED upon, in the first place.
• In view of these basic assumptions, let us examine together the situation of Lebanon today and its prospective future, should it keep behaving the way it has done in the past twenty-five years, following the end, in 1993 of fifteen years, of continuous and ruinous CIVIL WAR.
• My contention is that the six million citizens and its Civil Administration (its leaders and its 200,000 civil servants) are not working in synchronization, and have not been doing so, from the beginning, and more specifically since the end of the Civil war.
• Of course, another important factor has contributed to worsen the situation that I shall revert to in the following paragraphs.
• The consequences of this dysfunction were there for all of us to see, most particularly on our television sets that have vividly related the demonstrations of the past ten days.
• Even a ten years old child could not overlook or fail to understand the evident fact that the system is not working.
• But why is it not working? If you wish to know my personal opinion, I would say that the system is not working for two reasons: reason one: the objectives have not been clearly set up and agreed upon. reason two: the means to reach these objectives were not made available.
• At this stage, somebody is bound to ask me: But what objectives are you talking about, and which means are you referring to?
• If you bring your attention to the picture above you will not fail to notice that the objectives are clearly indicated there: They are, by order of importance (1) The repayment of our Public Debt (2) the boosting of our oil and gas exploration to generate enough income to repay the debt (3) protecting the environment to avoid dying from cancer (4) boosting our economy to enable us do all this, and, finally (5) participating (all 6 million citizens) in achieving the desired results.
• Now, as far as the means are concerned and, in addition, to our future oil and gas prospects, what we need to do, is to make sure that this money that we shall earn from boosting our economy, and the development of our oil and gas reserves gets properly, effectively, and honestly spent.
• But, long before we reach that stage, another essential duty looms ahead. We have to make sure that the money that we earn, whether from our current prospects or our future gas and oil anticipations is properly and honestly handled, and, furthermore, that it is not wasted upon an unfairly heavy interest burden. This last condition is the most important and urgent of them all. Unless it is fulfilled, nothing can succeed.
• This factor brings us back to goal one above, i.e. the restructuration of our PUBLIC DEBT from 7% down to 1.5% interest, with retro-active effect from the 1/1/2015. To fulfill this achievement we want the agreement of the bond holders, but, first, of course, it would be necessary to identify them. We trust that our leaders, who, no doubt at all, are perfectly aware of their identity, are perfectly capable of identifying them, introducing them to us, facilitating meeting them, and concluding the restructuration agreement promptly and irrevocably.
• This way, we would have achieved, hopefully by 2042, our five goals and we would have made everyone happy and satisfied: (1) our creditors: the bondholders, would get back their money (2) our citizens will get blessed with a strong economy (3) our environment will be protected for all (4)finally the citizens will, hopefully, be totally free from debt by the year 2042.
• No doubt that the path to reach this ideal situation will be hard and long, but not harder or longer than the past twenty-five years. We hope, though, that in 2042 the Lebanese citizens will feel like men, women and children, free at last from debt, and living together harmoniously from the benefits of their country's natural wealth.
• The above presentation is necessarily brief though it aims at covering a twenty-five years old problem that is menacing to destroy a country of six million citizens. Should the readers require more information they could get it from a large part of the 590 articles that I have published on LinkedIn, most of which are related to the subject of the LEBANESE PUBLIC DEBT. Nevertheless if the readers have some specific questions on this subject, let them message me on Linked In and I shall gladly answer their queries.
• In short, may I say that the issue of the LEBANESE PUBLIC DEBT CAN BE RESOLVED by the end of the year 2042 for some $92 billion US dollars, at the rate of five billion US dollars a year, starting 2025 and ending 2042, provided, of course, that the restructuration process to 1.5% interest with retro-active process to 1/1/2019 is implemented, as soon as possible. May I add that, in my humble opinion, an agreement can be reached, provided our leaders are prepared to earnestly negotiate, and the bondholders are in the same state of mind. But as long as each party stands on its position, no hope of agreement can be envisaged. If this should happen, the only other recourse for Lebanon, would be to ask the International Monetary Fund to intervene to guarantee the "restructuration approach", which they appear to favor as well. together with some US institutions, that appear to agree with them.
• I am re-reading for the hundredth time the presentation above, and I find no fault whatsoever in its content. It relates the facts, and nothing bar the facts. It offers the solutions to reach some clearly identified goals. The only weakness that worries me is that "WE" are no longer credible worldwide. "Lebanese" has become synonymous with "deceit" and this is very dangerous. Business is100% relying on "trust". Once one loses that trust, how can one keep conducting business? And by business I mean both individual business and State business. If Lebanon happens to need international support, which country will want to support a "failed" State, with such a bad reputation? There would always be the fear of being tricked. I don't believe in the current existence of the 800 billion dollars foreign deposits in foreign banks to which some have alluded to in the press, because I am not able to trace their origin (where did they come from?), but, on the other hand, I firmly know and believe that, should we keep maintaining the 7% interest on the Public Debt, we are bound to reach the trillion dollars Debt in 2056.
• Conclusion: "WHAT OUGHT WE DO?"? I leave that for the next presentation, though I have clearly indicated my own preferences in this one: let us restructure the interest rate down to 1.5% and everything should get back to normal very soon.
• My final question to the opponents of restructuration is simple. DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER ALTERNATIVE? Show it to us, and we bet you, one hundred to one, that we can prove it worthless in ten minutes, simply because there are none.