The Chicago-School Economists’ guru Milton Friedman and his disciples started to storm the White House in Reagan era. They brought with them the recipe to counter stagflation – a situation when the US economy remained stagnant in spite of rising prices. The recipe for the government was: increase money stock, cut interest rate, and make credit as easy and abundant as possible. For American people the message was: go …

  Like mathematics, economics has proved to be a ruthless subject. It has not only written its own rules of the game but has also trespassed on alien territories with poise and authority. It made the world believe that the level of material well-being was the only yardstick with which to measure the status and stature of nations. Economics was genetically more close to knowledge than faith. It dominated almost …

  Modern world’s financial mercenary, the corporate sector, has a history of sweeping aside every obstacle that hindered its way to the most “pious” goal of profit maximization. Historically, the so-called free market neither encouraged free competition nor did muster tolerance for government control over business. Free market always meant giving a “free hand” to big money to crush small money. Capitalism, now frequently described as American capitalism to highlight …

  Pakistan Economic Survey 2013-14, while appreciating government initiative to increase total expenditure outlay on health by 29% over the preceding fiscal year, laments the inadequacy of overall healthcare facilities in the following words: ‘However, some specific gaps continued to persist largely on account of demographic, epidemiological and socio-economic factors, leaving large segments of population with inadequate healthcare access. Healthcare facilities at some parts of the country are found to …

  It’s worth trying to determine Pakistan’s development stage in terms of Rostow’s five stages of economic growth that is: traditional society, preconditions or preparatory stage, take-off stage, drive to maturity, and mass consumption. The trouble is with Rostow’s failure to take into account government policies and economic reversals resulting from mismanagement and administrative corruptions. For example, the preparatory stage decrees development of certain economic and social infrastructure like ports, …

  History is witness to the bloodshed on ideological battlefields with one combating force insisting on the purity of its way of life and the other contesting it. With the end of the cold war, democracy has emerged as the most desirable way of life in a greater part of the Western world with its proponents to be seen everywhere in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The United States is …

  A recent study by John Merrifield and Barry W. Poulson measured the effects of fiscal policy variations in case of three US states: California, Montana and Utah. The study concludes: ‘A measure issue in the debate over tax policy is the supply-side impact of income tax rate cuts. Using the Poulson and Kaplan (2008) estimates of the negative relationship between marginal tax rates and state economic growth, we show …

  One amazing aspect of capitalism is that markets operating under this system harbor no biases; they are commercial to the core. With too many loose ends of capitalism showing off in the last three decades, the world at large hardly desisted from embracing Islamic finance. Same is the case with Halal food industry, which has grown worldwide at an amazing pace. According to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and …

  During the two decades of the current millennium, the world has been taken by some sweeping changes in the field of ICT. Not surprisingly, the year-on-year growth in ICT has been higher in the developing world in comparison to the developed world. With the change in the US economy from industrial to consumer, the flow of dollar has been from the West to the East. The outsourcing factor and …

  The tough-guy image of Putin has spelled much misery to Russian commoners than any good to the country. The US and the West have never been comfortable with this man; his actions have always been under a powerful scanner. He gave his foes a chance to be mean with his Ukrainian offensive. The sanctions came as an automated response sending the Russian economy and people into a state of …