http://www.startribune.com/business/46493962.html?elr=KArks:DCiU1OiP:DiiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr
As complicated as the Lebanese political system appears, it actually operates according to the same rules as democratic politics in most other countries.
IKE shame-faced bankers the world over, managers at the Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s central bank, have had to admit that their initial figures for last year were wrong. But while number crunchers elsewhere toil to trim over-optimistic estimates into punier real results, statisticians at the Banque du Liban are revising theirs sharply upwards. Lebanon’s GDP grew during 2008, not at an annual rate of 7.5%, it seems, but at 9% or better...
Yet even that trend-bucking number looks modest compared to other milestones scored by this small, almost comically turbulent country. Last year the value of deposits in Lebanese commercial banks rose by 15% to an impressive $94 billion, equal to 327% of GDP. Industrial exports surged 24%. Tax revenues, tourist arrivals, banking profits and the number of construction permits all soared by a third or more. A giant 46% leap in net capital inflows helped Lebanon post a record $3.5 billion surplus in its balance of payments, and boosted the Banque du Liban’s own reserves to a cozy $22 billion, nearly double its holdings a year ago....
Nor does this upswing show much sign of slowing. Sales of new cars are up by 19%, and the number of tourists arriving in the country in the first three months of this year increased by 50% compared with the same period last year. Property prices are holding the past few years’ heady gains, and worries that the global recession would force home thousands of Lebanese expatriates, slashing the remittances that underpin the economy, have so far proven limited....
This all seems odd for a country with few natural resources, and which in the past few decades has endured long and bloody CIA proxy militias' wars in a futile attempt at resolving the Palestinian problem at the expense of Lebanon, devastating Israeli wars and daily IDF attacks, and a monstrous campaign of assassination and destabilization carried out by CIA2, its neighbors, Syria and Israel, plus GID's meddling in assassinations, carried out by the infamous White House Murder INC, and Asef Shawkat from Syria's military intelligence, and proxy CIA militias training from Jordanian Intelligence...
http://newhk.blogspot.com/2008/12/uniiic-ii-report-revisited.html
Add to all of the above, a constellation of about fifty intelligence agencies' turf/covert battles on Lebanese soil, a traditional and historical hot-bed of various world class intelligence and covert operational bases .... Consider also the coexistence of 18 sectarian groups, several of them boasting multiple armed militias and accessory intelligence fronts...., and the extreme polarization of Lebanese politics into two bitterly opposed alliances that fought bloody street battles just a year ago, and the picture is more than puzzling still.
Furthermore, all these opposing factions face national elections in just over a month’s time, yet no one seems particularly worried. This, say Lebanese with a shrug, is because of two things. Outside powers that love to meddle here, such as USA, Britain, France, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Syria....plus some more new comers...., are not tired of bickering for now. And local politics have reached such a logjam that nothing much is likely to change. Whoever tops the polls in June will do so by a wide margin, leaving each factional alliance capable of offering the other in for the traditional consensual politicking.....
But these factors go only part of the way to explain Lebanon’s unwonted success. The ironic truth is that the country’s double curse, of chaotic internal politics and being located in a nasty neighborhood, are proving helpful for a change. For one thing, they have made Lebanese bankers unusually wary and resourceful. Four years ago, for instance, the Banque du Liban’s stern and far-sighted head, Riad Salameh, banned any dealing in such tricky foreign instruments as mortgage-linked securities. And while banks, property developers and service vendors raked in business as private cash spilled out of the oil-enriched Gulf, and the multi-faceted black monies for western/eastern covert intelligence stashes.....and competition between influence-seeking powers brought a windfall in aid for reconstruction following the criminal and ruinous 2006 war by Israel and USA on Lebanon. Iran alone has injected perhaps more than $1 billion to rebuild the heavily bomb-damaged parts of Beirut and south Lebanon run by our valiant Resistance fighters, Hezbollah. KSA, Qatar, UAE and others have done some more....
With global financial turmoil now shaking such upstart regional rivals as Dubai, Lebanon has looked increasingly attractive as a covert intelligence haven. Falling oil prices have cast gloom over the Gulf, and may eventually staunch the inflow of its money. But for Lebanese, they have meant a welcome shrinking of bills for imported energy.....for now.
All this relative rosiness could lead to complacency. This is a luxury, however, that most Lebanese know they cannot afford. On top of its constant curses, Lebanon also bears the burden of a colossal national debt. This has now dropped, in relative terms, to a mere 162% of GDP, triple the world average. Bringing this into more reasonable bounds will require not just wary resourcefulness, but actual leadership of a kind that the Banque du Liban alone cannot deliver. Keep in mind also, that Lebanese Banks can and have been used in the past as colossal Ponzi schemes for various western intelligence agencies.....to oil some rogue intelligence operations..., like Bank Intra, Bank Al-Madina and others.... so a word of caution for all depositors is in order if one is to remain objective.....about some of the existing Lebanese Banks and their "opaque" practices over the years.....
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