If "Wishful Thinking" Was On Steroids, This Is What It Would Look Like

From a letter in Dawn today, explaining how to help Pakistan's perilous financial situation:

THE recent news about Pakistan is very disturbing to all of us expatriates. According to a recent news report, the State Bank of Pakistan does not have funds to order oil come November. It is, therefore, becoming essential to beg and borrow and, if necessary, sell the country’s sovereignty for survival.

Here is a simple and common sense solution. Let’s do fundraising for Pakistan. There are three sources for this fundraising. Primary donors, Pakistani leaders including:

a. All of the current leaders.

b. Those that aspire to run the country and

c. Those that have run the country in the past.

Here is how they can donate to Pakistan:

1. Declare the current value of their personal assets in Pakistan and abroad.

2. Declare the source of revenue from the day they took power to the day they were forced out of the office.

3. Liquidate their assets in Pakistan and abroad.

4. Keep only what they earned legitimately and turn all excess funds to the State Bank of Pakistan.

5. No questions asked. Let’s agree to bygone be bygone.

Only No.5 is a possibility, unfortunately. Wait, there's more:

The secondary source is: while we are at being an honest country, may I offer another suggestion to the rest of the citizenry. Let’s all make a pledge to Allah that we will not accept, pay or engage in bribery, corruption, cheating, poor workmanship, price gouging, smuggling, etc.

You know, in all seriousness, it really warms my heart that there are people out there who put forward suggestions like this. It's just nice, you know? They actually believe this stuff; for someone as cynical as your humble blogger, I can't help but admire such idealism (sometimes).