The emergence of China, Russia and India as economic powers has reduced American exports to those states. These nations now lead global integration and international cooperation. Reports from Arab States say that the region is financially buoyant and is doing business as usual.
The total neglect of the Continent of Africa as a trading partner yielded the Chinese the opportunity to engage in international trade with Africa. America lost the advantages of economic engagement with Africa, as a result of poor and biased press coverage about developments in the continent. An agreement establishing Investment and development strategies with Africa would have been better received than the Gulf of Guinea Military Strategic arrangement.
Right now, American banks can establish Accepting Houses, Acceptance credit facilities to enable African entrepreneurs buy American goods. These will boost clients’ accounts receivable in aid of business promotion. Granting amortization to credible business houses in Nigeria will foster the capacity of the companies to expand their import abilities.
Since the dollar plays a major role in Nigeria’s international finance mechanism, Arbitrage firms and allied agencies are necessary for foreign exchange deals. Although the Central Bank of Nigeria has lessened the hardship in this area, serious problems still exist as bullish speculators complicate our banking practices. We still encounter automatic transfer hiccups.
After NICON INSURANCE Plc was re-capitalized fully and its license was re-presented, a successful turn-around by the Chairman and the Board of NICON INSURANCE, Nigeria Plc took place, followed by multi-million acquisitions of hotels and a national newspaper. Some Nigerian financial institutions that front for the affected multi-nationals in Europe and America have reasons to panic.
The US economy needs turn-around experts to undertake appropriate diagnostic review and put in place new business plans. Outsourcing of American companies overseas, regular cuts in the work-force, inability of workers to meet up with all sorts of bills, high charges on credit, taxes, the inability to provide collaterals for loans, compound interests, consumer credits, poor credit ratings, all have created unpleasant living environment in America.
Economists say that theoretical and empirical evidence abound that benefits from business are still available. Active international trade will have mutually beneficial results, if an aggressive new programme is pursued by the new US government.
These are the reasons why the November 2008 Federal Elections in the United States are considered very crucial in framing the synthesis of better life in the years ahead. To restore America’s glorious days, the voters must see the elections not in terms of an African-American becoming the President of the United States, but whether he has the inherent abilities to govern, which is not in dispute.
Considerations of who will fight wars better, in future, beg the issues. The strategy is to employ diplomatic skills to prevent those incidents that lead to war by talking, even to perceived enemies.
The people of America, a kind and generous race must discard primordial sentiments and chose a government with which the international community will be comfortable with. The notion that America is a peaceful country which must occasionally fight wars to prove it is antiquated and discredited.
America needs to have a flexible but controlled immigration policy. Efforts must be made to talk to perceived enemies of America. A permanent state of siege profits only gun manufacturers and politicians. The civil society, which pays for war should tell me what the jobless man in Ohio will gain after the Arabs became democrats.
Right now, Iraq has billions of petro-dollars. How much of this will be paid into the American treasury for American’s use? Who is fooling the masses? Surely, something for nothing cannot be the basis of international relations.
The AMERICAN WORLD REDEMPTION CRUSADE has lost its ancient appeal and Americans must have a re-think. The US has just suffered terribly from formidably named HURRICANES. I have not heard citizens from other nations offering a helping hand.
In the 1960s, Russians also engaged in internationalism to the detriment of its own people and the Soviet Union. I am not saying that big states should not assist poorer ones, but there should be a limit. There should be no ideological impositions and the establishments of regimes of capitulation and consular jurisdictions, which tend to prolong foreign military engagements.
A financial meltdown in the US is a frightening proposition. It will lead to more crimes, hardship, social dislocation and “winds against their souls”. Using the ostrich approach and saying that it is well, falls short of the objectivity which the US Emergency represents.
Injecting 168 million dollars into the economy is a drop in the ocean. America should aim at specialization and economies of scale in order produce goods at competitive prices. It should plough back war-wasting resources into the advancement of new technologies in order to lead the world again to forge closer integration among states in a globalized world.
A new financial regime must replace the pre-crisis era. Oil-dollars, platinum-dollars and gold-dollars, should replace currencies, whose values have become almost worthless and who’s tenure as world currencies have lapsed. An International New Monetary Regime Conference is hereby proposed for November, 2008 to effect the GLOBAL SWITCHING from the old exchange system to the new financial regime. This will restore confidence in wholesale banking once again.
Through its scary foreign policy, America has cut itself from its leadership role in a globalized world. It should open its shores to international trade under the existing WTO rules and regulations. There are many interlinking questions which have been left unanswered in the field of international trade, environmental laws and economic policy choices and why war should continue to be an instrument of US national policy.
Americans spend a lot of time telling other people what is good for them, so much so, that they have no time to listen to others or themselves. In fact, from my experience, anything that does not tally with the American view-point is either regarded as an affront or viewed with hostility. Indeed, there only two ways, the wrong way and the American way.
This is perhaps why other nations have learnt from the US and moved past. It is always good to listen to others, even “the dull and ignorant because they too, have their stories”. Perhaps, the affected American banks could have saved themselves the present embarrassment if they had listened to the persistent warnings of some investment bankers and investors in and outside America.
Prompt interest rate cuts could have ameliorated the situation. The social welfare scheme will be put under pressure since nothing is trickling down any more.
The financial plight of some people in America can be improved upon by an inward-looking policy of AMERICA FIRST, world redemption last. The American press seems to report power, but does not speak to power. Could the American press not see the hand-writing on the WALL STREET? All those Rose Garden spineless interviews should give way to what Wolf Blitzer suggests and should be replaced with “tough questions”.
Many identifiable factors have conspired to wreck havoc on the US economy. Iran is no longer using the dollar as an exchange instrument. Some states in Latin America are threatening the same avoidance. The price of oil is very high. The relations with Russia are worsening. Niger Delta militants are cutting America’s reliable source of oil. China is buying up Iraqi oil. North Korea is back in nuclear business. They tested a rocket recently. Iran’s is on course.
Those who create tensions and murder innocent people should reflect on their actions. How much more pain and mayhem do they intend to inflict on the rest of us before they see the harm they cause?
Afghanistan needs more troops and money, Pakistan is crying out loud over US incursions into its territory. China, India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan are supporting Russia in her stand-off against Georgia. Russian war-ships and planes are now in the Caribbean for war-games. Winter and rough weather will add to the American people’s misery in December, 2008 .And now, and this financial crunch!
I have evolved a new ethical concept, which propagates that arrogance is a modest virtue and that modesty died with Gandhi and Martin Luther King jnr. Arrogance challenges one to do bigger things. Modesty reduces one to pious living, which is totally at variance with the go-getting jet age. I will rather run than crawl. This mind-set got me to thinking how I can formulate a strategy for the US Democratic Party, to win the elections in November, 2008.
Mr. Joe Biden has ruefully ruminated over why he should be the Vice President and running mate of Mr. Barack Obama, instead of the deserving lady, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who did very well in the primaries. Joe’s misery was plain, a day after his nomination.
Now, this is my winning strategy for the Democrats. I call it the football Coach’s winning strategy in which he recalls a star player and replaces him with a fresh shooter, who then goes and scores the winning goal, in the dying minutes.
On 1st October, 2008, Mr. Joe Biden may step down, citing “personal reasons”, a diplomatic nicety. Then, in a full stadium in New York City, Hillary Clinton will be declared the new Vice Presidential running mate to Barrack Obama. There will be a deafening applause that will reverberate throughout America and world-wide.
If this happens, the Republicans will be numb, confused and beat a retreat. You see, my arrogance drove me to send my new book (as it was then) entitled, “Human Rights In International Law” 2nd edition, 1992, to “Hillary and Bill Clinton” during my one-year teaching engagement at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1992 . In the autographed book, I wrote, “You will win.”
I was attracted to the intellectual agility of Mrs. Hillary Clinton, after she spoke to the University of Michigan audience for forty-five minutes, extempore. The young law student sitting in front of me was so impressed by the address that she shouted,” Why are not running for President” I responded intuitively, “She will, she will.”
My arrogance has made me into an intercessor and a political soothsayer or better, a seer. My attitude fuelled by arrogance has enabled me throughout my living in the five continents on Planet Earth, to treat with utter contempt any person, who nurtures the notion of racial superiority. I speak and write your language better than you, Johnson. You cannot understand mine. Yet, you were born in Nigeria! What is the difference between the colours of our tongues and our under-foot?
What I am leading up to is that no jaundiced writer should talk about a” Black Monday, week or month,” when referring to the current financial crisis because I do not see how the colour black contributed anything to proven white-collar incompetence.
This soliloquy ended when I read some newspapers that carried frightening headlines as if the end-times for capitalism are here. Capitalism, being a social system, cannot be timeless, unlimited and unchanging. For many hard-working, regular tax-paying, decent American citizens, “expectations have darkened into anxiety and anxiety into hope and hope into despair.”
We are all Americans till January, 2009. If Americans vote for sustainable change and a new beginning, they have my rose-studded congratulations! Should they be carried away by race-consciousness, heroic exploits sentiments and vote to go back to “EGYPT”, then they have my regrets and heartfelt condolences. May better times come to America in January 2009? Can a pious American Christian say, AMEN?
