Some reasons for the present failures.
The former colonialists made a terrible mistake after colonial rule ended in the 1960’s and ’70s. Instead of handing over power to the well-educated African elite, they adopted stratagems and put in place marginally educated politicians and when these failed, they supported military leaders, who were not trained in the art of governance.
A civil service structure, which was very prone to corruption, headed by the Oxbridge group, further stultified national progress. Cleavages of power were assured to trading post agents, who have done well for themselves and the absentee-owner directors, to whom they regularly fly out to consult with.
The new political elites have used their party’s supremacy to amass wealth through holding ministerial and other posts. When the corruption became too shameful, the government had to curtail the looting by setting up regulatory and prosecuting agencies. Their findings have been mind-boggling.
These officials, who were found to be corrupt, have strong linkages with the international movers and shakers, secret banking conglomerates and international swindlers. These people have polluted the international corporate financial system and brought the world to its knees. Had post-colonial governance been ceded to knowledgeable Africans, the Singapore and Malaysian success stories would have been replicated.
In my view, this present economic crises was the direct result of inefficient supervisory and regulatory regimes, currency counterfeiting by states, the inequality in the international division of labour, dishonesty in price-fixing, subversion of Central Banks, inflation of invoices and money transfer manipulations, amongst others.
Well-laminated plastic cards, automated machines and computer macro-chips replaced paper money and the gold standard was heavily subverted.
Since stolen national wealth from African dictators and politicians, like Mobutu Sese Sekou, Emperor Haile Selasie and what’s his name, were no longer forth-coming into secret accounts in Europe and America, and because of the successful efforts of Transparency International and national regulatory agencies, the corrupt financial system suffered sudden degradation. The Madoff/ Stanford phenomenon confirms that at times, capitalism thrives on fraud.
William Shakespeare, the English bard, told a story about the “Merchant of Venice.” A Jewish character called Shylock demanded a pound of flesh in satisfaction of a debt default. This fictional character has been so vilified in literary history that a demon incarnated in the person of Madoff, to act out the Shakespearian fiction in real life.
The Madoff episode strongly confirms the Machiavellian theorem that “People are so simple-minded and trusting that anyone who wants to deceive will always find people to deceive “As you know Nicolo Machiavelli wrote these words over 800 years ago. Man has not changed much through the hurrying centuries!
New Ideological Framework
Now that Governments are eager to re-shape their economies in other to achieve economic expansion, full employment, a steady price level, increase in production, distribution and exchange, the coast is now clear to evolve a new ideological framework for fair and equitable global economic arrangement in which mutual benefit and consideration for the interest of all will be the paramount concern of states.
The old order, in which some states benefited from the existing unequal division of labour, will have no place in the new pattern of international economic relations.
Hackneyed economic theories and practices as propagated by Wall Street and regular economic writers, who prescribe heartless measures for down-sizing, retrenching workers , artificially pushing up prices and manipulating economic indices, have no place in the new dispensation.
We must realise that the 21 century international community is no longer dominated by Euro-centrist economic laws. The world is now populated by reasoning human beings, who imbibed Western economic thought but have moved beyond Adam Smith, Alec Cairncross, Galbraith and Davies. They no longer rely absolutely on geometric theorems that shape the economic thinking relating to economic data, e.g.” other things being equal, changes in the quantity of money must affect either prices, interest rates or the level of income” They now insist on knowing what those “other things” are.
It is true that central economic planning by the state- Soviet style, proved cumbersome and slow. Also, decentralized ownership of property propelled by a free market mechanism regulated by demand and supply and control by Boards is loosing steam.
The more recent market system in a state directed economy has been tried, with a measure of success in China. They call it socialist economy, with Chinese characteristics.
In framing the synthesis of the new economic internationalism, the working people should participate fully and democratically in the selection of Chief Executive Officers and Board members. Investment opportunities must be made available to workers, whose interest in production, distribution and exchange would then be strengthened.
Professionalism, high literacy and not as-man-know-man will be the new ethics of corporate governance. The G 20 so-called richest nations must fine-tune the free market economy system and their entrenched methods of economic organization in which they make all the profit and then throw aid crumbs to other states making hilarious, philanthropic, well advertised gestures of Caucasian benevolence.
In future, both producers and consumers should work out tolerable accommodation. The process whereby consumers are made to pay through the nose discourages consumption patterns and consumer demand. This, in turn, affects production.
With the collapse of the old financial order, new alliances should be formed through genuine transfer of technology, international co-operation, and international accommodation of divergent economic interests and unified clean banking practices. The old economic order collapsed when the science of Economics was replaced by guesswork, speculative statistics and computerizations, of which no-one could vouch for the accuracies of posted figures.
In the new era, all banks should be cautious and should strictly monitor the abuse of credit cards in order to avoid an imminent credit card crunch. The companies should watch out and avoid debts they cannot redeem as, and when due because many companies go under as a result of the impact of financing debts.
Every Ministry of Finance ought to review a company’s past performance, its turn-around diagnosis, the performance ability of the Chief Executive, before granting permission to the company to fill for bankruptcy.
A thorough project assessment must be undertaken before the approval of loan finance facility, in order to check deliberate contract stoppages.
The practice of abandoned projects has become wide- spread, especially in developing states. The foreign contractor collects his first down payment and disappears under some flimsy excuse of inadequate funding.
Companies should avoid heavy borrowings in pursuit of rapid modernization and expansion. Some over-zealous CEO’s go over the top and over the bend in trying to please their Boards only to run into financial difficulties a few years later.
During the 1982 US recession,” at least 100 companies among the 1000 largest US companies had serious financial crises leading to the filing for bankruptcies by Addressograph- Multigraph Corp and Saxon Industries.
Business failures have largely stemmed from hare-brained speculations, casino good luck mentality, greed, plain idiocy and reckless behavior at the highes
t level. Yet, they collect extra mouth-watering sums for incompetence!
What happened in the US in the last five years was that sales in the major manufacturing industries, for example cars, machines and capital goods slackened over time. Interest rates remained high, the most successful American corporations became saddled with financial problems, the magnitude, which they lest expected.
Attempts to sell off some of their assets failed because prospective buyers wanted to buy at under-value. Above all, nearly every one else was looking for a fair offer.
As industrial production continued to fall, the one development that could have helped matters and put an end to the recession was not in sight. Companies, which shifted their borrowing to short-term loans, discovered that the ratio of short-term debt to long-term debt was much too high and unhelpful.
Many CEO’s started running from pillar to Congress, where their lobbyists and the CEO’s were asked by Congress to leave their private jets at home, wear modest suits and not the Seville Row stripped ones before approaching Congress. In short, they should look like Oliver Twist.
Corporate invalids and their CEO’s were given the borrowers treatment. They were asked to provide the strictest evidence that they would not fritter away tax –payers’ money and that they must design prudent measures before asking the US government to come to their rescue.
Governments may wish to request their companies to hold bidders conference in good time to minimize corporate failures.
Developed economies should explore the potentials in doing business with Afro-Asian states. Itinerant, sensation-loving and exuberant foreign journalists must stop misinforming their people about Africa.
I have travelled within five continents and I have seen poverty, extreme poverty and affluence in America, England, China, Russia and other cities and towns.
So, what is the joy about the African predicament to warrant failed artists, politicians and others to engage in image-laundering by announcing petty projects in Africa?
Capitalist rule over the world affected Africa in every conceivable way.
For over two hundred years this vicious order reigned and was perfected. Antagonism to this order resulted in wastages in lives and needed resources. So, militarism, counter insurgency took a toll on human lives world-wide.
The dead were buried in decorated cemeteries, where they are honoured once a year with military bands playing “TOLL FOR THE BRAVE THAT ARE NO MORE….”
In the New Era of the Gentiles, Atonement and the Brotherhood of Man, Humanity must turn from policies that exploit the weak to those that seek to empower and lift them up.
The G 20 meeting in London is appointed for failure, except European member-states shun ante-diluvia and antiquated rivalries in pursuit of narrow interests
The new internationalism is an ideology that will foster and promote international economic relations, create an acceptable universal framework for fruitful international trade, adopt a common currency, create a Universal Bank with stringent oversight functions over the growth of the world economy, the rate of interests, the general price levels, exchange movements and the state of liquidity around the globe.
A United Nations Economic Global Forum should replace existing fora, where a select group of states deliberate like occult brotherhoods in coven secrecy. The new Commonwealth of Economically Associated entities will have supra-national status.
Recently, a Conference on Africa’s Future was held in Tanzania, with Euro-American and their preferred African leaders in attendance.
Euro-American leaders have a habit of wanting to deal with pliant and malleable African leaders, who listen to them, grinning from ear to ear, with bovine stares, wondering eyes and hanging lips.
As long as Africa’s denigration, mind-boggling exaggerations, inaccurate reporting, plain lies and insults are the CNN and other Western media policy on Africa, so long will the needed transnational co-operation between Europe and Africa suffer
Total lack of knowledge of Africa’s geography, history and cultural attitudes has resulted in semi-literate Western journalists reporting from obscure hide-outs to send their false reports. They always talk about Africa, as if it were one big village. If the report is not about “aids ravishing the continent”, it is about malaria. According to our experts on Africa, “Ghana is the capital of Nigeria, where the Nigerian civil war is still raging and Biafrans are still fighting” In Africa, people live off one dollar a day!
Yet, Western private jet companies are selling private jets to Nigerian businessmen. Nigeria’s ZENITH BANK has an asset base of over 21 billion. To the iterant Western journalist, that is bad news, because those, who enjoy morbid reports about wars, diseases and curious events, will not be tickled.
This is why Africa’s development is not monitored in Europe with the attendant lack of knowledge of growing opportunities for investment.
Yet, European leaders dared organize a Conference on THE FUTURE OF AFRICA, in Tanzania as if Africa’s future is in their hands.
Western Freedom or Licence?
Is freedom in Western society which allows young men to buy guns as if they were buying candies not going too far? My experience with many European children is that they extol wild behaviour and their insistence in having their ways always. It is amazing.
This is a result of their parental libertine attitude about disciplining them. The Bible says “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Loves your child by not correcting him a wise act when he is appointed to meet violent ends?
Euro-American children are becoming a social problem and when they carry that mien into adulthood, May the Good Lord deliver their parents. Few young children of earth, so young have reached such heights of infamy like the two recent shootings in Alabama and Germany. Is the economic down-turn leading to despair and desperation?
Many now drop out of schools and colleges. Who will fix the dwindling Euro-American future or the lack of it? I agree with President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton that education, health-care and civics are economic issues, in their own rights.
Under the present circumstances, Government spending and regulation seem to be tangled issues, too knotty to untie. Therefore, a consensus will prove problematic. Some states are considering protectionism, without making it obvious.
We hope that DAVOS 09 will not be repeated during the G20 meeting in London in April 2009. If that happens, that will be significant evidence that the die is cast and that the pledge, which the G20 states made last November “to combine stimulus with a host of reforms to rein in the excess of banks and financial markets that led to the current crises”, has become inoperative.
Finally, in this treatise, we have reviewed some aspects of the world’s economic history and we have examined what we think are responsible for the tightly interlocking circles of misery in today’s world.
I hereby inform the G20 leaders that instead of spending colossal sums probing the other space; they should harvest the abundant wealth in the ocean beds. There are manganese noodles, fish, herbal vegetables, which if used regularly can prevent cancerous growth and other ailments.
In the long history of Man’s greed, “he does not stop to note the end. Man is himself indeed the field; his deeds are seeds and what he does to others grows apace; the harvest time is sure.”
Behold the yield! If he has sown the wind, he reaps the wind. If he has sown the noxious seeds of colonialism, slavery, ec
onomic exploitation, plundering scandal and corporate wrong choices, the harvest is assured. Yea more, the seeds produce a hundred fold.
The TRIUNE GOD is watching out for Atonement and the Brotherhood of Man in this Era of the Gentiles before opening in us the new spirit to understand the new way to go. The frenzied wantonness and cruelties on earth, will no longer prevail
We should join King David in singing, “Oh that Man will praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the Children of Men. HE has broken the gates of Baal and cut the bars of iron in two”.
