The conditions were the usual ones: phone and electricity privatizations, price increases on fuel, cuts to the public service and an increase to an already controversial tax on consumer purchases. Kamal Hamdan, a Lebanese economist, estimated that, as a result, “household bills [would] increase by 15 percent because of increased taxes and adjusted prices”—a classic peace penalty. As for the reconstruction itself, the jobs would of course go to the giants of disaster capitalism, with no requirement to hire or subcontract locally.36
