Pakistan's chattering classes produce, nurture and promote, indeed thrive upon, a culture of corruption. That has over the years grown into a cancer that threatens our very existence and way of life, our health, education and national security apparatus, just about everything. Private schools, colleges and hospitals are a worldwide phenomenon that help support and supplement the state-subsidized welfare system to provide for those who can afford better services. However in Pakistan, the elite has used its political clout to take over the government-run schools for pittance to build Etons and Harrows for its children and acquired state land for private clinics to build luxury medical complexes at subsidized rates. , Although all of it is a thriving business with massive returns, all of it is tax-free. An investigation of those who own these private schools and clinics would reveal the type of people who run these business ventures. Most of these chattering classes consist of nouveau riche, or their off-spring who have acquired assets through wrongful claims on evacuee property or other criminal ventures like bureaucratic corruption They include members of the civil or khaki establishment, political operatives or members of our corrupt judiciary. The list also includes members of legal profession and illiterate expatriates who consider Pakistan to be a tax-free haven for their shady business ventures with no fear of regulatory control and documentation. This corrupt elite of Pakistan wants the status quo to continue. That is why they regularly come up with excuses like 'saving the system' to plead ignoring of even the heinous crimes like murder, plunder, loot, hoarding and black marketing by those of their ilk. Some of them are game to defend even cartelization of sugar, cement, fertilizers, wheat etc on the plea of maintenance of a so-called 'free market' economy. Some others argue that "for the sake of democracy" we must accept the cancer of corruption and the continued ravage of the state lands, treasury and other resources by politicians as well as the paid servants of the state. For this class of vultures, getting free gifts is not considered corruption, nor the transfer of capital to foreign shores a crime. What they don't understand is that in documented economies like USA, UK or France etc transfer of funds above $10, 000 have to be justified by documentation for the tax paid along with disclosure of the sources of income. Those who introduced the no rules regime misused them to transfer billion abroad. It is time the hypocrisy of this corrupt minority is exposed, their criminal businesses closed and exemplary punishment given to them all. -NABEELA HAYAT, Lahore, December 19.