The cause of today's crisis is political mismanagement&corruption.Period.The economic causes are an extension of & subordinate to that.That's why there shld be no bailout w/o political reforms. Otherwise it's a bailout of the political class & we'll be right back here in no time.
Political mismanagement led to policies that encouraged Leb to import a lot and export little, all financed (unsustainably) using people's bank deposits,w/no reform effort to make the situation sustainable, despite many opportunities to do so since '08.
We know long-term economic recovery REQUIRES we import less and/or export more. No way around that if we want to build a sustainable economy. We don't export much today but we import lots. Let's look at our imports over the last 10-yrs to see what we squandered depositor money on
Fuel is by FAR our largest import and it's increasing faster than all other imports combined. Electricity fiasco screws us twice: (i) Govt debt (~50% it frm EdL losses)& (ii) loss of Lebanese depositor $ (that's where $ to pay for import comes from) 
Actually it screws us more than twice. It impedes general economic growth for every industry, increases household and business electricity bill, and we're all gna get cancer from the diesel generators.
25-35% of our imports by $ value is fuel. We imported a cumulative $50 billion (!!) of fuel products since 2010.Its incredible really that the Govt took no serious steps to address this, by building more efficient power plants, having a renewables program, public transport, etc.
And how blessed are we that oil prices have been low since 2015. Can you imagine if oil was at 70-80+$ per barrel the entire time? Holy shit we'd be even more screwed if you can picture that.
Fixing the long-term structural/macroeconomic problem in this country starts with reforming the electricity sector and building a public transport infrastructure. We import more than $5 bn per year of fuel. That's more than all of our exports combined!
How do we reform the power sector? There are tons of templates to follow, we aren't the first country to reform its power sector. EdL and the whole power sector need to be structurally reformed. We also need more efficient power plants, public transport, etc. We know what to do.
This is why CEDRE is critical. Lebanon won't have access to any other financing source for years. No commercial bank & no export credit agency (who usually finance infra) will lend to a 'ccc'-rated country or a country in or near-default. We need CEDRE-type money. No other option
Fuel imports are priced in $. That means if LBP:USD XR increases to 3000, our fuel bill just doubled in LBP terms. It still blows my mind that Govt had no energy security plan. Imagine how that will affect businesses & households & the economy in general. It's 1/3 of our imports!
Vehicle imports are another $1.6 bn/year on avg. Slap import duties on every luxury car or car that isn't exceptionally fuel efficient. We need fewer cars on road. Public transport system is not optional anymore. Other imports are smaller but cutting nonproductive ones will help.
While other imports grew since 2010 too, largest being pharmaceuticals, followed by plastics, cereal/flower foods(pasta,corn flakes,etc), & electrical machinery/equipment, fuel imports grew more than every other import combined AND the oil price has been LOW much of that time!
Then we build up our export industry from the ground up. That's a topic for smarter people.
