Views on Lebanon’s economic perspectives have tended throughout the post-war period to concentrate on macroeconomic and fiscal issues. As a result of the worsening fiscal situation, socioeconomic needs in the last few years became overshadowed to a worrying degree by concerns over the national debt and its servicing. The state’s ongoing and exasperating procrastination in settling long outstanding dues with the National Social Security Funds for medical treatment of civil servants and other obligations in 2003, in itself an inexcusable inaction on behalf of any government, can by no stretch of imagination be explained in any other way. This year’s social debates were ostensibly fueled by self-serving political agendas, a primary example for the latter trend shown by complaints over the “hijacking” of the October 23 national strike. Power players and interest groups allegedly converted these demonstrations over a variety of popular financial demands into stages for promoting themselves. Nonetheless,
