Must Have Meant “Kenyan”

7 Replies to “Must Have Meant “Kenyan””

1. The nation that produces 2.5 million barrels a day, the nation that is #14 in global oil production needs foreign aid?
   Makes sense if the nation is in Africa.

2. More evidence that the “feel-good” foreign aid system is wasted on truly unworthy people.
   Never was there a better case for providing a hand-up (hands on charity) rather than hand-outs (impersonal guilt remittance).

3. Always an interesting source of information on the world is a partial excerpt from
   https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html
   Oil-rich Nigeria has been hobbled by political instability, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, and poor macroeconomic management, but in 2008 began pursuing economic reforms. Nigeria’s former military rulers failed to diversify the economy away from its overdependence on the capital-intensive oil sector, which provides 95% of foreign exchange earnings and about 80% of budgetary revenues. Following the signing of an IMF stand-by agreement in August 2000, Nigeria received a debt-restructuring deal from the Paris Club and a $1 billion credit from the IMF, both contingent on economic reforms. Nigeria pulled out of its IMF program in April 2002, after failing to meet spending and exchange rate targets, making it ineligible for additional debt forgiveness from the Paris Club. In November 2005, Abuja won Paris Club approval for a debt-relief deal that eliminated $18 billion of debt in exchange for $12 billion in payments – a total package worth $30 billion of Nigeria’s total $37 billion external debt. Since 2008 the government has begun to show the political will to implement the market-oriented reforms urged by the IMF, such as modernizing the banking system, removing subsidies, and resolving regional disputes over the distribution of earnings from the oil industry. GDP rose strongly in 2007-11 because of growth in non-oil sectors and robust global crude oil prices. President JONATHAN has established an economic team that includes experienced and reputable members and has announced plans to increase transparency, diversify economic growth, and improve fiscal management. Lack of infrastructure and slow implementation of reforms are key impediments to growth. The government is working toward developing stronger public-private partnerships for roads, agriculture, and power. Nigeria’s financial sector was hurt by the global financial and economic crises, but the Central Bank governor has taken measures to restructure and strengthen the sector to include imposing mandatory higher minimum capital requirements.
   GDP (purchasing power parity):
   Field info displayed for all countries in alpha order.
   $450.5 billion (2012 est.)
   country comparison to the world: 31
   $420.8 billion (2011 est.)
   $391.9 billion (2010 est.)
   note: data are in 2012 US dollars
   GDP (official exchange rate):
   Field info displayed for all countries in alpha order.
   $272.6 billion (2012 est.)
   GDP – real growth rate:
   Field info displayed for all countries in alpha order.
   7.1% (2012 est.)
   country comparison to the world: 25
   7.4% (2011 est.)
   8% (2010 est.)
   GDP – per capita (PPP):
   Field info displayed for all countries in alpha order.
   $2,700 (2012 est.)
   country comparison to the world: 176
   $2,600 (2011 est.)
   $2,500 (2010 est.)
   note: data are in 2012 US dollars

4. Nigeria, Zimbabwe, USA, what’s the difference? All banana republics, where the wealth of the country goes to the already-rich.
   But the energy and enterprise of the USA may not be dead, just transformed.
   I hear that oil exploration in the Gulf is at a new high. I would guess (I don’t know) that the oil companies have figured out what the financial industry already know: that His Foulness is for sale. He isn’t cheap but he is available, together with most of the Democratic Party. And it probably requires a membership in the Democratic Party as well, to do business. Well, considering that the Republicans are mostly RINOs (and also for sale), there are just going to be a lot of businessmen who just hold their noses and get on with things.
   Of course that is not democratic. Of course it is done on the backs of working people, lower middle class people – but they don’t count. The US doesn’t need much of a military – probably the US Army will keep a couple of good units, and fill up the rest with women from the hills of West Virginia, and similar such. Lots of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom are unlikely ever to be regularised – well, they will swamp the blacks and keep wages low. Police trained to do what police usually do – keep down the lower middle class, and disaffected unemployed.
   And the Prancing Foulness will keep them all entertained.
   Anyway, that appears to be what is emerging south of our border – a stinking prosperity which nauseates as it sustains.

5. There seems to be something about these Black Emperor types, they all hire and hang out with the same entertainers. Strange that. I wonder whether the Nigerian National Anthem is being recorded for Nigeria day or what ever.

6. Film makers that please Obama and give him money get favours bestowed upon them. As mentioned in another thread, film makers that make Obama angry get the LA County Jail. And a dozen more jails would have to be built if they locked up everyone with similar ‘legal’ indiscretions, so it’s obvious he’s only locked up for angering the Naked Emperor.

7. This is not a new aspect of foreign aid. Remember Bokassa, the cannibalistic dictator of the Central African Republic in the ’70s and ’80s, who built a highway just for one motorcade trip by himself? This is “infrastructure spending” at its worst, and something to think about the next time some political bigwig starts flogging it. I recall reading that Amtrak ran several trains through sparsely-populated Montana because an “influential senator” came from that state. More waste.
   Foreign aid should be abolished. It’s just another cynical way to squander taxpayers’ money in the developed world, preying on our feelings of guilt that are undeserved. The West didn’t become developed and (relatively) rich through foreign aid, we did it through productive effort rewarded under capitalism. The “Third World” countries should do it too. Quite a few of them already have, incidentally.