Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free

A press conference by the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Riad Salameh, addressed things on people’s minds — capital controls, haircuts, and devaluation/floating the currency. Should we do it? Can we avoid it? Let’s start by establishing a benchmark of mutually agreed-upon facts and premises.If you have a deposit in a current account at your bank and you can only withdraw a small amount of your money, like a teenager pleading with his dad for his weekly pocket money, don’t we already have capital controls? Maybe it’s temporary, right? When a government is formed, we’ll get relief? When CEDRE funds come? When the US or EU writes us a check for $20 billion because we are too important for the survival of the world order? When oil and gas starts gushing in a few short months? If two thirds of all deposits are at the central bank, with his having no way of creating it to pay you back, what exactly are we waiting on, for us to recognize our ailment?If you’re too busy to read the balance sheet of your own bank (published on its website) to see exactly what percentage of its deposits are with BDL, don’t you feel something is wrong just from the reaction you get when you visit a branch? This is the quintessential metric in Lebanon to know the real liquidity of your bank. The average is 65%. If your bank ratio is below, this is good. If it’s higher, then the senior managers at your bank own the most expensive suits, watches, cars, homes, and yachts ... thanks to you. Before you start transferring your money to banks with lower ratios, or a Lebanese foreign bank, which (probably) wasn’t allowed to play in Disneyland, it’s too late — it’s just fake money moving around.Does Governor Salameh have to spell it out for you in black and white? Are you waiting for him to tell you that things are not “top”? Can’t you see the truth in his eyes? In the grave look on his face? In the ever-so-slight quiver in his voice?The one time he told the unvarnished truth on CNN, he was hammered by the market and commentators, and was alihas...