1) A recent interview with a Lebanese political figure exposed, once again, the failures of the current political rhetoric on the ongoing #economic crisis in #Lebanon. This rhetoric, which dominates public discourse, is not only outdated and futile, but also harmful
2) In the interview, Geagea stipulates that his party stands against the principle of “distribution of losses”, considering that no losses have occurred and that debt is accrued and should be repaid to depositors
3) He suggests that repaying this #debt should happen through state resources, simple fiscal adjustments, and support from the #GCC without the need for an IMF program
4) This reading is the result of an ill-intentioned diagnosis of the problem, that considers losses to be due to BDL’s financing of #state corruption which wasted billions of dollars in deposits that were loaned by commercial banks to BDL
5) It also serves to preserve impunity and shift the burden of #financial mismanagement and crime of a web of #business, political, and financial elite that accrued #wealth at the expense of society for decades, to the "state" and the general
6) This reading misses the fact that only a fraction of BDL’s financing of the state was in #USD and that commercial banks consciously placed their deposits at BDL to generate large and quick profits
7) This serves to justify the sabotage of the IMF program, which all major parties seem to converge on, by considering that the state can repay, over the long term, this “#debt” through its assets
8) These assets, however, are dwarfed by the scale of the losses and should be utilized to revitalize critical #public services and institutions instead of repaying private individuals
9) Moreover, this discourse ties this “no-cost” recovery, that does necessitate reform, to regional realignment in which electing a new #president that has a “sovereign” agenda would unlock billions of dollars from friendly countries in the #Gulf
10) However, foreign support of any kind will be dwarfed by the scale of losses, which stand at around $75 billion #dollars. This support will unlikely be disbursed as most international actors and investors await tangible reforms
11) The soft and ill-informed questions posed in the interview are exemplary of the relationship between traditional media and the country’s political elite, where the former serves as a platform that propagates fake narratives to preserve the status quo at the expense of society
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