The Rise of the NERDS and the Fall of the Academics
This is one of those untypical success stories you read about everywhere. It’s the story of how the NERDS got themselves an appointment with representatives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. It all started with one such ‘Peter Griffiny’ twitter account called Lebfinance, who joined in August of 2018. Lebfinance’s main goal was to troll self-proclaimed financial ‘experts’ who situated themselves as the ultimate authority on economic matters hopscotching their way from one tv channel to the other, espousing for the most part nonsense.
I stumbled upon the account a couple of days into the October 17th Lebanese revolution. Twitter can be a very interesting platform that brings people with the same interests together. In this case, a complex maze was starting to slowly form a network of individuals who cared about one thing, and one thing only: “deciphering the black box that is the balance sheet of the Central Bank of Lebanon. (BdL)”
This was the introduction of the brief statement put together by Lebfinance with the help of a group of non-academics who were motivated by a genuine concern to understand the main reasons behind the dire economic crisis the country was passing through. The problem as it turns out is so complicated that not even the governor of BdL knows what’s happening— were we to take his words for it, of course. It’s as though the problem has run out of public officials’ and bankers’ hands.
Amidst the lack of transparency in the balance sheets, and a wave of pseudo-assurances by many stakeholders on TV and elsewhere claiming that everything was fine, reality was indicating the complete opposite. Banks have been imposing informal capital controls on its depositors, limiting their USD withdrawals to a couple USD 100s per week. Many videos circulating on social media showed how people struggled to take out some of THEIR money, in some cases it was their salary deposited in their account in USD. The wave of violence at banks has been aggravating, at times leading to altercations between bank employees and customers.
Long story short, things on the ground have not particularly been as reassuring as some ‘experts’ wanted everyone to think. In many cases I think we can divide those experts into two broad categories: the stakeholders, and the academics. It is understandable why the former would want to spread positivity across all boards, because ultimately they are doing what is in their best interest. Those tend to reduce the crisis to naive causes and give even more naive solutions like, say, let’s all use LBP instead of USD and our problems would be magically solved. Those who belong to this category are easy to detect, but given that they are at the helm (bankers, politicians, etc.) they need to be closely monitored now more than ever.
The category of academics often includes individuals who are so detached from reality they don’t know what they’re saying anymore. They also make appearances on all TV talkshows espousing populist opinions that neither offer real solutions nor indicate that they have any real understanding of the economic black hole we find ourselves in. They don’t do that intentionally though, but you see, based on my experience as an academic who teaches philosophy, it is very very difficult to keep up with the real world when all you do is teach in a classroom, and carry out theoretical research. So much so that when academics finally meet with people on the streets they could quickly engage in patronizing practices.
This quick detour was meant to pave the way for the big entrance of the third category: NERDS (as per Lebfinance), which I think is a circle that falls outside those labels. As it turns out, many really understood the gravity of the economic situation, and were trying to give an informed diagnosis of the ailments that were befalling our economy.
Alas, very few paid attention to what economists like Dan Azzi were saying. Azzi, who’s a retired banker, was sounding the alarm about a looming economic crisis a year or so before the impending collapse. His articulate pieces were published both in English and Arabic, and like the good diplomat that he is, on a variety of platforms irrespective of their political ideology. Azzi was trying to get his message across to everyone because ‘ljoo3 kefer’ as we say in Lebanon. Unfortunately, very few academics or stakeholders listened to Azzi at first. Those who did are thinking of building him a Gorgias-like gold statue. Of course, they can because they opted out from this farce early on, and their money is real, not a mere lollar entry.
Things steadily started taking shape as the NERDS, from all walks of likes, were popping up each adding their two cents in an effort to understand BdL’s undecipherable balance sheets. Of those NERDS are Ehsani22 and Andy Khalil whose threads have been more informative than many an academic paper written by ‘surfonomists’.
This group has been doing serious digging over the past months, or years, that overshadows many of the papers published in obscure journals no one reads. The great thing about this bunch is that they don’t need to use jargon to feel superior to the rest. They are merely interested in making advanced economic concepts clear to non-economists in order to raise awareness about the seriousness of the situation we find ourselves in, and subsequently in hopes of making the public more engaged in an informed discussion away from useless populist propagandas.
Fast forward to today, what began as an expert-trolling account, quickly turned into a serious body that is willing to make their voices heard by institutions like IMF and World Bank. The statement that figures at the beginning of the article was eventually read by employees of said institutions, and today a two-hours meeting took place by representatives of the NERDS with senior administration of both entities in order to channel their concern with regards to any possible packages these would be willing to offer in case Lebanese officials end up deciding to ask them for a helping hand.
See, instead of just saying ‘IMF wa7ad mennon’, we now have a circle of informed individuals interested in making their concerns heard in order to stop any potential measures that would end up harming the economy more than providing useful solutions in the long run.
What we need today more than anything else are individuals who are not disconnected with reality, and are willing to scrutinize any monetary and economic-related decisions to be taken from now on. As it turns out, the situation we’re in is so critical so as to only listen to the academics or stakeholders.
Brace yourselves as we are witnessing the rise of the NERDS, and the fall of the academics. So the question now is: who are the real ‘technocrats.’?
