Beware the black swan

Forecast to reach an altitude of $55.4 billion by year’s end, the precarious flight of Lebanon’s arrears is ruffling far too few feathers among our policy makers. Instead, they’re counting on economic growth to dilute the debt by reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio, which differing sources currently place around 150 percent. In the words of Finance Minister Raya el-Hassan: “Don’t use economic textbooks to understand the Lebanese model.” Is Lebanon somehow serendipitously always right on the money? Is the country some sort of economic maverick with a secret recipe for success? True, Lebanon has never defaulted on its debt, but staking so much on our economic exceptionality to see us through can only help hasten the arrival of our ‘black swan’ — that unpredictable and improbable high-impact event left unaccounted for in the economic models, which could sink us into a debt deathtrap. Prudence therefore calls for effectively managing the surging