My Beauty Best Teacher

Via The Hill:

David Zucker, the director of the 1980 comedy classic "Airplane!" who has worked on myriad films including the "Naked Gun" and "Scary Movie" franchises, directed the "Call Me Senator" spot for Right Change, a 527 and 501(c)4 organization "committed to supporting policies and candidates dedicated to fiscal responsibility and a strong national security for the United States, while upholding the principles of freedom, competitiveness and entrepreneurial spirit of the American people."

The spot goofs on Boxer's testy exchange with Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh at a June 2009 hearing of the Committee on Environment and Public Works. "You know, do me a favor," Boxer told the officer, who was using military protocol to address those higher on the chain of command by "sir" or "ma'am." "Could say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?'"

"Yes, ma'am," Walsh responded. "It's just a thing, I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it, yes, thank you," Boxer continued. "Yes, senator," he responded.

Obiageli Ezekwesili writes:

Today, there is strong consensus among African leaders that regional integration is indispensable to unlock economies of scale and sharpen competitiveness. And promoting intra-African trade has emerged as a top priority, in recognition that the African market of one billion consumers can be a powerful engine for growth and employment.
Yet despite the introduction of free trade areas, customs unions, and common markets within the Region, the level of intra-African trade remains among the lowest in the world -- only about 10% of African trade is within the continent, compared to about 40% in North America and about 60% in Western Europe.

Suman Bery writing in the Economist:

With the two exceptions of Malaysia and Indonesia these countries did not enjoy rents from significant mineral resources. As such they were not subjected to the so-called “resource curse” of a struggle for control of these rents, the problems of an appreciated real exchange rate, and lack of competitiveness of the tradables sector. Also, at the time of their fast growth episodes, most of the Asian countries were well into their demographic transition, with the dependency ratio declining as the labour force expanded. This led to a rise in their saving rates, complemented in many cases by significant foreign aid.
As Angus Maddison pointed out a decade ago (in his "The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective") Africa’s underlying circumstances are much less favourable. (His discussion includes Mediterranean Africa, while I will restrict myself to sub-Saharan Africa.) Several of its major economies enjoy enormous mineral riches, which the world over pose tremendous problems for economic management. The prices for these minerals fluctuate violently in global markets causing volatility in revenues; the easy availability of mineral revenues inhibits the growth of a domestic taxation culture essential for the development of accountability to the citizenry; the struggle for illegal control of the mineral resources has been a source of fierce conflict and corruption; while the easy foreign exchange revenues the mineral exports make available boost the real exchange rate. This inhibits the growth of labour-intensive manufacture, which was the source of Asia’s growth.

This is Africa reporting on efforts to bolster regional integration. A bugbear if there ever was one:

Africa accounts for just 3 percent of world trade today, and just 12 percent of that is internal. Underdeveloped transport and power infrastructure, as well as cumbersome regulatory environments and corruption also make it the world’s most expensive business environment. Dominated by fragmented and small economies, the continent lags well behind the likes of Asia, Europe and North America in terms of competitiveness – and as a consequence – struggles to attract large scale private investment outside of the extractive minerals and oil and gas industries.Addressing these challenges will invariably focus attention on Africa’s regional economic communities. While each geographical part of the continent has its own REC, one has quickly emerged as a model for integration; the East African Community. Having broken up in 1977, the EAC was re-established in 1999, and has since then taken significant strides towards building an effective economic and political framework for integration across its five member states – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

And Francophone Africa thinks its independent? Sanou Mbaye writes about the yoke of the CFA franc:

More appalling is the fact that France guarantees the CFA franc’s free convertibility into hard currency, originally on the condition that all 15 Franc Zone countries surrender 100% of their foreign reserves to the French Treasury. The amount was reduced to 65%, and then 50%, in 2005, but France still deducts its share directly from these countries’ export earnings.
Moreover, the mandatory 20% foreign exchange cover stipulated in the convention signed with France in 1962 now stands at 110%. And a foreign-exchange control enacted in 1993 ensures that only France benefits from this capital drain by limiting the free flow of capital to France alone. The ensuing massive capital flight has bled the region’s economies and eroded their competitiveness.

Today the Detroit News glows over an article that says that the auto industry is happy to be getting 3 percent of the money that will be raised over the next 6 years by the government's new 'cap and trade' scheme. It is projected to raise $15 billion dollars for the auto industry.

I'm no expert in math, but if 15 billion is only 3 percent of the money that our government means to suck out of economy, that means the House is passing a tax scheme that will levy $500 billion in new taxes over the next 6 years. That means that this 'cap and trade' scheme is in effect a half trillion dollar tax increase on US citizens.

This $500 billion is a lot of money (enough money to put in place a 'revenue-neutral' national healthcare scheme). Where will it come from? The money will come from auctions for permits to produce more energy and grow America, and will come from fines of those companies that meet the demand of our vibrant industry and citizens and increase energy and growth beyond what the government arbitrarily sets as the cap. The energy companies will suffer only in that their profits might be lowered- but times are tough for all companies, and there is pressure to increase profits for every firm, so soon those costs of doing business that the government is imposing with little reasoning or logic will be passed on to consumers.

The people who will suffer from this scheme are the auto companies, who will find that the $15 billion does little to stem the hundreds of billions they bleed when consumers are no longer allowed to purchase the cars they want to purchase or are forced into buying expensive hybrids. The auto companies will lose jobs, investors will lose money, and society will suffer.

The people who will suffer the most from this cap and trade tax scheme are anyone who uses power in their lives, to power their dishwashers and microwaves and computers and businesses. They will have to pay the increased costs, lowering their cost-competitiveness and efficiency, and putting them at a further disadvantage vs firms in other nations that do no have to bear these government imposed burdens. The poor and those on fixed incomes will be hit especially hard by this scheme, as they will find it difficult to pay electric and gas bills.

And the benefits of this scheme are inconclusive at best. Perhaps less pollutants will be emitted, and a tiny little bit of harmful waste will be emitted into the atmosphere. This perhaps will stop the Earth from warming.

Following up on my earlier post about The Horror of Disbelieving in Global Warming and Signs of the Times, Signs of Times to Come, I have to direct you to check out this speech by Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic and current head of the EU. His speech is mainly about efforts to expand and strengthen the authority of the European Union- but it is also about larger issues of freedom, responsibility, liberty, choices, and the best way to build a prosperous future. Klaus grew up in a communist society, fought against these forces, and now sees these very forces growing in our midst. Thanks to Belmont Club for pointing me to this speech.

The issue of Europe and of its future has stayed with me since the fall of communism in spite of other topical issues. It is not surprising. The undergoing weakening of democracy and of free markets on the European continent, connected with the European unification process, is a threatening phenomenon especially for someone who spent most of his life in a very authoritative and oppressive communist regime. I consider, therefore, the marching towards an ever-closer Europe (which is one of the crucial tenets of Europeism) a mistaken project. The gradual shift from liberalizing and removing all kinds of barriers towards a massive introduction of regulation and harmonization from above, the ever-expanding, overgenerous welfare system, the innovative, and more sophisticated forms of protectionism, the continuously growing legal and regulatory burdens on business, the markets undermining quasicompetition policies, the Single Currency arrangements, are all very real. They weaken and restrain freedom, democracy and democratic accountability, not to speak about economic efficiency, entrepreneurship and competitiveness.

Having said that, let me turn to two other issues I consider significant. I see another big problem in environmentalism and in its currently most aggressive form – global warming alarmism. This ideology has gradually turned into the most efficient vehicle for advocating extensive government intervention into all fields of life and for suppressing human freedom and economic prosperity. I am frustrated that this ideology has not been sufficiently challenged both inside and outside of climatology. We keep hearing one-sided propaganda, but do not hear serious counter-arguments.

The third issue, I would like to mention here today, is the current financial and economic crisis. I recently spent three full days discussing this topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos and my feeling is that the rationality and the economic science have been suppressed or forgotten. The very unpleasant, day by day deeper economic crisis should be accepted as a standard economic phenomenon, as an unavoidable consequence and hence a “just” price we have to pay for the long-term playing with the market by the politicians. Their attempts to blame the market, instead of themselves, are unacceptable and should be resolutely rejected. Their activities, aiming at “reforming” the economic system, are all very doubtful and I as said in Davos: I am getting more afraid of these reforms than of the crisis itself.

Aggregate demand needs strengthening. One traditional way to do this is to increase government spending, mostly on public infrastructure projects, on condition these are available. It would be much more helpful, however, to initiate a radical reduction of all kinds of restrictions on private initiatives introduced in the last half a century during the era of the brave new world of the “social and ecological market economy”. The best thing to do right now would be to temporarily weaken, if not permanently repeal, various labour, environmental, social, health and other “standards”, because they block human activity more than anything else. In the moment of the fall of communism, almost 20 years ago, I did not expect to experience such a degree of government intervention into my own life as I face now. I am, therefore, convinced that fighting for freedom and free markets remains the task of the day. We may be, some of us, oversensitive in this respect but I am sure it is – in principle – not about our personal oversensitivity. It is about the real dangers we see around us.

Mauro de Lorenzo writes:

Entrepreneurial philanthropists provide credit and business education to small-scale entrepreneurs, mentor and finance small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), offer strategic advice to governments that want to improve the competitiveness of their exports and investment climates, and devise innovative ways to demonstrate "return on investment" in traditional philanthropic projects. They are entrepreneurial because they tend to believe that profitability and accountability are the best form of sustainable development and the best strategy for poverty reduction; they are philanthropists because they are private actors who do not themselves seek to make money from their efforts. Moreover, they have the potential to outflank often moribund development agencies and state-funded NGOs by demonstrating that enterprise solutions to poverty are possible, scalable, and sustainable...[continue reading]

This week someone said something that I thought was really perceptive- she said that the reason why so many people voted for Obama, particularly young people, is that they wanted to get there name in the record books. People who lack self-esteem, people who lack self-worth, people who haven't yet made a difference in this world, all wanted to point to electing an African-American and say "see- look what I was a part of- look what I did- look at the change I made."

That's a good point. Now days are searching for self-worth, and what better way to gain some personal worth, when professionally or personally you are doing poorly, than to say that they put Obama in the White House. Your job is unproductive, your personal life is unfufilling, so you can point to your vote and say "look what I changed!"

This feeling might have been something we could all be a part of- for instance, many recall 9-11 and our response to it as the 'change' that will forever effect our world. But if you have forgotten 9-11, or believe that it was our fault we were attacked, or have been soured by the Iraq War, you might instead say that voting for Obama is the event that changed the world. And they are probably right.

Obama being our President will change things. He will raise taxes on the rich, which will mean lower investments in companies, resulting in lower job creation, lower profitability, and lower competitiveness overseas. Obama will lower real supplies of energy by drilling less for oil, bankrupting coal producers, making nuclear energy tougher with more environmental standards, and this will mean higher gas and heating costs. Obama will put in place economic protectionism, which will drives up costs for everyone. Obama will sponsor more government regulation of businesses, meaning less innovation and more red tape. Obama will change our foreign policy, which will mean we will be challenged internationally. He will change our policy in Iraq, emboldening our enemies, giving up on millions of free people, and giving terrorists bases to train. He will change the courts interpretation of our god-given rights, taking away our liberties and freedoms, pressuring for more 'fair speech' and more politically correct speech. In every way, America will change, and not for the better.

I for one believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that's as simple as it is. It's too bad America has to change to a country that doesn't believe in these things.

Mima Nedelcovych of Global Partners and Buchanan Renewable Energies discusses infrastructure at VOA:

“It’s the very lack of infrastructure that actually is making Africa non-competitive.” For example he says no electricity means no competitive industry, and no industry -- such as an effective system of transporting agricultural products -- means no jobs, and no jobs means poverty.

Businessweek reports on an initiative to engage Senegal's cotton industry by the HEC School of Management.Bertrand Moingeon a professor at the school outlines some of their goals:

Students would be enrolled—especially those concentrating on sustainable business—in what happens at the local level in the different villages. We can see having students who go into villages and organize meetings with the local cotton producers and could contribute to knowledge-sharing forums. We think that some students, just as they did in Bangladesh, will write their research project or dissertation on these experiences in Africa...At the end of the day, what we expect is that we have an impact on the economy of this sector. If we increase the managerial skills at all levels of this industry, we will foster the competitiveness of this sector. This same knowledge can then be applied to other industries in Africa.

The aims of the Private Sector Foundation Uganda, are "...To promote private sector influence for business growth and competitiveness through policy advocacy and capacity building in a sustainable manner...To strengthen private sector capacity for effective policy advocacy and market competitiveness..."

Kenneth Okoth writing in Migration Information Source stated that:

The challenges facing Kenya are not unique. Countries like China, India, and South Africa have developed different approaches for tapping into the expertise and other resources of their diasporas to meet their development goals and achieve global competitiveness. These countries are leading the way in turning the despair of brain drain into brain exchange and brain gain in different ways. Hopefully, a robust private-public framework that can facilitate productive linkages between Kenyan academics, researchers, artists, and investors at home and in the diaspora will emerge to consolidate the political and economic changes taking place in Kenya, as has been the case elsewhere.

The [African] blog wars writes about the 'Resource Curse':

It is widely suspected that the ‘curse’ is largely caused by the effects of over-dependence on resources. Governments, perhaps believing resources will never run dry (in their time), fail to wean economies off these commodities. One of the consequences of this is that in times of high prices, the real exchange rate rises making local industries less competitive, while encouraging borrowing as it becomes relatively cheaper to do so.
The danger though is when prices fall, exchange rates fall and debt repayments soar, and this is after industries have contracted, which dramatically decreases tax revenues. Sure, taxes could be pushed up to compensate, but this wouldn't do much for competitiveness.
Over-dependence is the big issue though. Botswana still gets 70 percent of its export revenues from diamonds, while Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda all earn more than 50 of their export earnings from coffee. Looking west to cotton producing nations, the picture isn’t really any better. And, then, of course, there’s oil, which earns Nigeria 95 percent of its export income. Perhaps part of Chad’s defection to China was because the Asian giant is more likely to be able to buy all of Chad’s oil than Taiwan is.

Charles C. Soludo wrote;

It is evident that the development challenge facing Africa requires major strategic, creative thinking. The SSA needs to do certain things very differently, but the question is how? A dominant view is that the best chance of sustained development in Africa should be pursued within the framework of a growth-promoting and market-accelerating model, but which is human-centred to address the pervasive poverty of the region...
With regard to specific area of strategies for rapid industrialization, several questions emerge. For example, where would Africa’s comparative advantage lie in the future, and how can such comparative advantage be “created” — a la the Asian way — without being constrained by the GATTified world? Should Africa start small (with little things that have lost competitiveness, and as Ojimi(Yoshishisa Ojimi a former vice-minister of MITI) argued in the case of Japan — areas that have lowest productivity and lowest returns), or, should it go high-tech. and seek to compete all the way? In the latter case, how would SSA do it, and with what technology and market penetration strategies?
It has become fashionable to suggest diversification of the export base into manufactures, but the challenge is to demonstrate how such an option is viable and that chosen sectors/products are potentially competitive. In essence, while it is important to learn how the Asians dealt with the past, it is even more important to understand how some of the countries (especially those in “transition”) are coping with current constraints and opportunities. For example, a lot of lessons could be learnt from other emerging industrializers (e.g., China, Vietnam, etc.) in terms of their innovations in interpreting and exploiting the provisions of the GATT/WTO and their strategies for “economic diplomacy.”

Writing about the African University Donald Ekong stated that"...Emphasis will have to be on the formation of graduates who have the flexibility to respond to changing demands in the economy and who are capable of self-employment. With the rapid advances in knowledge, structures will be required to provide a space in the university as well as encouragement for life-long learning. The implication is that the university should be able to cater for a variety of learners and a variety of learning needs through diversification of its programmes, curriculum contents, and mode of delivery. Currently in much of Africa the university has a virtual monopoly as the source of learning. But this will change and should change as other forms of higher education are developed and have already begun to be developed in some countries. Only through creativity, innovation, and flexibility in catering for diverse learning needs will the university be able to retain a leading position in terms of relevance to the needs of society.
A further challenge for Africa is the danger of new forms of dependence which could be just as devastating as the current forms if not even more so, that is, dependence on knowledge and knowledge application processes from elsewhere. The challenge for the African university is to contribute new useful knowledge and application processes that derive from the African environment and draw from African experience and ingenuity. There is also an urgent need to increase participation in higher education from all sections of the population-currently participation in higher education in Africa is the lowest in the world-with a view to raising the collective capacity and productivity of African society. Both aspects are essential for enhancing African competitiveness in the global market place..."

Anton La Guardia writes "...While Asia has moved aggressively into manufacturing, Africa languishes as a producer of raw products - such as oil, diamonds, minerals, cotton and sugar. If it is to revive, it not only needs to export more, but has to diversify and add value to its goods...Breaking down the rich world's trade barriers may be important, it said, "but we must underline that these measures will make little or no impact if Africa does not improve its competitiveness"...What is needed is "good governance" - leaders that seek to prevent conflict, create stability, fight corruption, build infrastructure, encourage educated Africans to stay in their countries rather than seek jobs in the West, and give businessmen a reason to invest rather than salt their money away abroad..."