We want US dollars

Some years ago, I came across a rickshaw, which had its quintessential couplet on its back. It read: wazan ki fikar nahi, dollar ki zarurat hai. It translates literally as I don’t care about the load (the number of passengers being hauled), I just need the dollars.

If one goes around the various money exchange shops in any city nowadays, one would find that nobody is willing to sell any US dollars. They are all happy to buy them from you if you happen to have any. You can only have guaranteed access to US dollars inside the USA. But getting an appointment for a US visa at the US embassy Islamabad, let alone getting the visa, seems to be a much harder task. If you apply for a US visa today, chances are you’d get an appointment by the time Biden would have already left the office in 2024. Hopefully!

One of the main reasons behind the inflation in America is because the Trump administration printed too many of them during the height of the pandemic. I remember those days when Trump was sending cheques to American citizens with his name printed on them. Jobs were lost due to the various businesses that were shutting down amid the pandemic but people were getting those cheques to get by. For many, this was extra cash because their jobs were paying under the table and they were not employed on paper. That extra cash was also the main driver behind the ridiculous rise in the crypto prices. The funny thing is that people used money given by the government to buy crypto currency, the idea behind which is the distrust of the government.

Regardless, many jobs and businesses were gone. What happened was that those cheques stopped and those jobs lost didn’t come back. That created the economic mess that America finds itself in today and the worst days are yet to come.

Life in Pakistan under terrorism was one of fear but life under the cloud of dollar uncertainty is cruel. Life was uncertain during terrorism but life under uncertain availability of dollars is less certain. We are living in precarious times. The main driver of the shortage of US dollars inside Pakistan is because of the massive movement of the dollars from Pakistan into Afghanistan. A funny fact here also is that this used to be in reverse; Afghanistan used to smuggle their surplus US dollars into Pakistan.

Since the departure of the US forces from Afghanistan in 2021, Afghanistan finds itself in shortage of US dollars. Low supply and high demand has always resulted in higher prices; at least on this planet that equation has never changed. What is thought provoking though is that the Taliban had given shelter to Osama Bin Laden who had planned the 9/11 attacks targeting the main trade center of the United States. They wanted to attack the symbol of the American trade, economy and defence on that day. The Taliban had always abhorred the freedoms that America cherished or at least that’s what the American propaganda accused them of. Today, the same Taliban demand freedom for the movement of the currency of the same economic system, which their guests had attacked on 9/11.

Two other funny facts are that one of the main drivers of inflation inside the United States is because they printed too many bills, whereas, Pakistan has inflation because there aren’t enough US dollars here.

The funniest fact of all and which not too many people seem to understand is that somehow the dollar has become the yardstick for measuring our economic health. Just as plazas are now called malls and wedding halls have gotten a new name called marquee, dollar rate has unquestioningly become the norm for the lazy minds, of which there’s no shortage in Pakistan. To dollar we bow, to it we must convert. The race is on.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2022.

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