"If I have a legal problem then I listen to my lawyer, if there is a medical problem I listen to the doctor, and if my tooth is hurting I go to the dentist..."

"And if you are in jail and have a medical problem then it is up to the jail authorities to determine which hospital or which doctor..."

"And there too God bless NP discrimination remains..."

"NP as in no problem?"

"No, NP as in Naya Pakistan."

"Discrimination is a fact of life in a capitalistic system, and we do have capitalism, you have all the advisors, who are being paid for from our tax rupees, saying that private sector must be the engine of growth and The Khan is totally sold on this; besides don't forget during The Khan's tenure the country's ranking in ease of doing business massively improved and..."

"Ha ha, ha, we are perhaps the only country where ease of doing business ranking has improved while business itself is down and almost out!"

"Well, I will have you know that the GMs working at the World Bank have improved our ranking in ease of doing business and the two economic team leaders, firm adherents of all multilateral prescriptions and rankings and..."

"All those who work in multilaterals are not General Managers."

"I didn't mean general managers when I said GM I meant Great Minds, and the duo, Hafeez Sheikh and Baqir, have convinced The Khan that whatever which ever multilateral says reflects the views of GMs and..."

"Don't be disrespectful..."

"You are not the leader of the house or the leader of the opposition..."

"Ha ha, ha. I reckon those two are subjected to even more disrespect than I am."

"Oh, well if you sit on the biggest seat in the country then have got to lose some."

"That's so not profound - anyway what I wanted to point out was that we should take the views of an expert over a layman."

"For example?"

"For example, I am all praises for our Army Chief in how he tackled the Pulwama issue and he did the nation proud."

"So you reckon as The Khan has no knowledge of economics for him to claim his satisfaction with the outcome of economic policies..."

"But the October current account deficit was in surplus though the July-October current account deficit was negative, by quite a bit but..."

"There is a need to understand whether the 3.2 billion dollar deferred oil payment facility was used in October over and above..."

"That my dear reminds me of the phrase, lies, damned lies and statistics."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019