During an informal chat with one of Lebanon’s most senior politicians last month, I was told to stop being so pessimistic. The deal between the Russians and the Americans over Syria and the region would allow more breathing space for Lebanon, the politician assured me, and so the economy would start to boom again in just a few months. While I wanted to believe him, it felt like yet more evidence that the world our political class lives in is totally divorced from our own. While those of us in the private sector face squeezed budgets and declining revenues, it feels that they — with their fixed salaries and clientelistic networks — are oblivious to our suffering. Later in the month I got a clue as to how this sad state of affairs developed when I attended a debate where a government minister and private sector leaders discussed growth in
