My Beauty Best Teacher

Emerging Markets reports on SSA debt markets:

If domestic debt markets are to develop, it is also vital to improve local debt management, which has generally lagged behind efforts at debt relief. Countries need a clear debt management plan(pdf) and issuance strategy(pdf), which might include publishing a debt management report, lengthening the yield curve, building benchmark issues as conditions permit and widening the investor base

Establishing a market for sovereign debt issues is key:

The limited size of local debt markets means that not all financing needs can be met domestically, and external commercial borrowing may also be cheaper than domestic debt, by removing the inflation and currency risk faced by international investors. Finally, it also fits in with the need to maintain a diversified funding mix. African governments now seem ready to test international investor appetite with sovereign issues, and Ghana’s milestone Eurobond issue in September points the way – the Ghanaian government could not have raised $750 million at a yield of 8.5% in the local market. African companies have also been active in the international market, especially telecoms and banks, and we believe international bond issues will be a significant feature of corporate Africa going forward.

A a recent article that Charles Moore wrote, I think he put his finger on exactly what is going on today- the success and advance of the twin threats of fear and doubt. Moore, who is a British journalist and former editor of The Daily Telegraph, in an article about Margaret Thatcher, wrote that after the long boom and success of capitalism and free market economics that "the worm of doubt entered the system":

You borrowed all the money needed for the price of a house. This made you, in your mind, though not in full fact, an owner. Because the value of the house was rising, it also made you, again in your mind, richer. The bank, which actually owned the house, found clever ways of mixing and selling on the loans it had granted so that it, too, felt richer. Governments, happy at rising revenues, thought it was their business to make sure that when the symptoms of high risk began to present themselves, they were suppressed.... (then) the roof fell in... (and now) when people now hear words like globalization or capitalism... they feel slightly sick.

Free market economics and capitalism did not lead our nation to failure- rather, during its wild success at making millions around the world more prosperous over the past centuries, communism and socialism and fascism latched on to it, sucking from its prosperity to feed its sick aims like parasites, and over time, many smart people began to become confused and unable to see the parasites from the concepts that they latched on.

Where free markets and capitalism created wealth and encouraged personal responsibility, governments and elites put in place rules and regulations which weakened the foundations of the system, subsidized risky behavior such as sub-prime mortgages and leveraging investments, and gave out handouts to favored industries and distorted the market by doing so. When banks, businesses, and corporations operated in a free market of capitalism, they could succeed or fail based on their own efforts and innovation; but in the new markets, which were no longer capitalistic or free, government subsidies and spending and lobbying and regulation and rules determined whether or not a business, corporation, or bank was successful or failed. And although this was no longer capitalism or free markets, but rather markets once free now twisted to the aims of elites and socialists and communists and fascists, many smart people became critical of the markets or capitalism because of the failures of the government bureaucrats who were twisting and corrupting the system.

And then the parasites of leftism began to weaken and kill the free market and capitalism, and the people cried out 'capitalism and free markets are failing us'- when it wasn't the free markets and capitalism that failed, but rather the people who failed the system.

They were led to this failure by fear and doubt- they did not believe in the hand of the God and the freedom of individuals and life, liberty, and the protection of private property.

The people (or The People, as leftists call them) feared that although they were becoming prosperous and their lives were rapidly improving, they were somehow falling behind others who were advancing more rapidly. Rather than looking at why they were successful in the free market capitalism- because of their hard work, innovation, and yes, luck- they instead demanded government policies to hold back others and help out themselves, corrupting the very system that had brought them so far. They doubted that if people were free and made free decisions, they would make 'the right decisions'- that is, the decisions that they would make if they controlled the other people and had power over them (their definition of 'right decisions').

Rather than just letting go and trusting that the unseen hand of God, trusting to the thousands and millions of individual decisions, and working to ensure that private property rights are strengthened and respected, they doubted that this giant experiment of capitalism and a free market would work, and feared that they would somehow fall behind others in material wealth if they didn't vote for and support people who promised to corrupt the system and abuse the system and circumvent the system. Many people trusted and believed in the power of men to control other men and redistribute property to other men, and in so doing rejected free markets and capitalism.

Fear and doubt came to the people's mind every time there was a recession, or even during periods when great wealth was created but wasn't immediately distributed evenly. The people reacted to the Great Depression by doubting that the free market would correct (as it had done in the 1920's and dozens of times before in the 1800's) and feared that he return to prosperity wouldn't come fast enough- and so they worked to destroy the system, corrupt the system, and make the market less free- and the results were a slight recession during into a decade long destruction of wealth.

And today, government policies and regulations and taxes and laws which corrupted the free market and corroded private property rights have let the worm of doubt creep once more into the people's minds, and in their fear that maybe they won't get to loot the dying Republic of its wealth they vote for Democrats who promise to manage the downfall and distribute the ever-decreasing wealth in the system to their supporters and voters and friends.

To return to success and advance again as a nation in wealth and happiness, we must reject doubt of the free market system and capitalism and trust the people- we need to trust and believe again that the thousands of decisions of free people will create more wealth and make more people happy, and reject those who suggest that having a smaller number of elites make those decisions for us is better. We need to let go of our fear that if we don't control the market and the system that you'll lose out, and instead work hard, innovate, save your money, and invest wisely.

UPDATE 12/7/11: President Obama delivered a major speech today on the economy, in which he expressed his doubt that the capitalist system could continue to provide wealth and prosperity for many and work to make society more equal, and from this place of fear he instead wants to trust himself and his fellow men to run a better system that will somehow do a better job of creating wealth and distributing it than having free people make free decisions.

Via memeorandum, in his Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas, we read the following fear and doubt from US President Barack Obama, one-term Democrat. These are selections from the speech- (you can read the whole thing yourself here if you want):

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success -- from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor.

In this passage, Obama communicates to us that his parents believed in capitalism and free markets and personal responsibility and liberty and protection of property. And furthermore, Obama knows that this system worked. But yet, he has this nagging doubt and fear...

But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

He doesn't BELIEVE in capitalism. He has no faith in people, freedom, liberty, and rights. It's clear he doesn't have any hope that people will make the 'right decisions' (the decisions he would make) and he wants to therefore control other people. He continues:

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.

And it is around here that we get to the heart of the matter- in the last quarter of his speech, after ripping on capitalism and freedom for 3/4's of the speech, that we finally here what he wants to do...

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want.

We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools. Of course, those productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

So, in summary, here is Obama's alternative to free markets and capitalism- give him more power. Give him the power and authority to tell employers what to pay their employees, give him the power and authority to combine big government with big business and big labor (ie, fascism), give him and his cronies the power to give money to favored constituent groups to fund pet projects of vanity (palaces, statues, etc), and the power to demand that all of these decisions are paid for by someone else who does not want to pay for it- to use the power of guns to the head to make people give up cash to Obama and his people to feed their wrong ideas about the power of men to control others for their benefit.

Obama is wrong. He needs to be defeated- not just politically, but his ideas and beliefs need to be rejected by all good people and good citizens and patriots and he and his policies need to be forever rejected in decent society. We must instead look to capitalism and freedom and liberty and property protection to our future, and not look backward to the sort of tyranny that Obama is proposing.

This is the sort of news that neither Fox nor memeorandum is reporting! I've been lucky the last couple days to corner both a Senator and a Congressman and get their thoughts regarding the debt limit- yesterday I wrote about what Senator Murkowski said (EXCLUSIVE: Senator Spills on the Latest on the Debt Limit)- today I'm going to pass on to you, my good readers, what Congressman Duncan Hunter (R, CA), told me today regarding the current debate about raising the debt ceiling.

According to Congressman Hunter, the situation looks grim. Cantor is pushing for $2 trillion in cuts and a corresponding increase in debt limit. The problem is that there are no real easy cuts to make- there is very little non-military discretionary spending in the budget and not enough to really close the gap, so any sort of real cuts will have to hit Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. “This is the budget today”, he said- the budget and purpose of the government has now simply become to redistribute wealth from those who work hard and produce wealth to those who don't. So in order to actually cut anything, you’d have to reform our entitlement programs. But the Democrats have drawn a line in the sand and refuse to do anything on the budget unless taxes are raised, and then after income taxes are raised, any entitlement reform will be 'in the future'- aka, passed on the future Congresses to really enact.

The biggest problem facing our nation is an utter lack of leadership in the office that is supposed to be providing the most leadership for our nation when it faces a crisis- the President. President Obama refused to released is a plan to Congress- something with numbers and words and written down that can be scored and marked up and analyzed. All Obama produces is rhetoric- in every meeting, he walks in with talking points and words and that's all. He has refused to actually take any sort of real stand or leadership on any issue facing our nation- the GOP keeps begging him to just release some sort of real hard numbers and something in writing, but he refuses because he thinks that if he takes any sort of positions on any issues it will damage him in the coming election.

“I really hope that after 2012 we will have an administration that will be more favorable towards moving legislation,” he said, pointing out also that the Democrats in the Senate have also completely abandoned any attempt to pass anything at all- Congressman Hunter says that “I don’t think the Senate is going to pass any budget on anything until after 2012”- he says that the reason why the Senate is refusing to even think about possibly considering passing any sort of budget is because it does not benefit them in any political sense- if the Democrats take any sort of stand on any important issue, they may be held accountable to voters and made to account on it.

So what is next, if we have a Democratic party that is refusing to take leadership and pass laws and face the real issues facing our nation. On this issue, sometime around August 1st to August 5th, the GOP- the party that controls 1/3 of the government and has controlled this institution for only a couple months- will have to step up and choose one of two options- agree to the Democrats plan, which, since they refuse to compromise will be basically lots of tax raises combined with empty promises to cut things in the future, or “hit rock bottom.”

“It is worth letting the market fluctuate for a short time if it means that our kids will have a market in the future,” Congressman Hunter said.

UPDATE: Thanks so much for linking to this story!

Let's not complicate things- the election in 2012 is about choosing the vision for the future of our nation. For all of the talk on the right about Clinton being too progressive and all of the talk on the left about Bush being too conservative, the truth of the matter is that both of our last two former Presidents have been pretty moderate in reality. But in the coming election of 2012, we will have a real choice of visions this time around.

The vision of these Presidents was to add a modest amount of debt every year, grow the size of government at a steady pace by implementing programs that were called for, cut an occasional budget and talk tough about turning some government functions back to the states, keep taxes fairly the same by lowering but broadening them, keep spending the same amount on the military, invade a couple states, and not question the basic soft welfare state that our nation found itself in.

But in 2012, our nation will face a decision on which sort of vision to embrace. David Warren of the The Ottawa Citizen says this:

If what we want is a functioning, even flourishing economy, and therefore jobs, jobs, jobs, then the policies of Texas make sense. They are, as Rick Perry says, low taxes, minimal regulation, the avoidance of debt, and business-friendly attitudes. It is a political culture which at least tries to focus on the political questions (law, order, and so forth), and leave economic questions to the free market (with its inevitable bulls and bears).

If what we want instead is a dysfunctional and stagnant or shrinking economy, and therefore spreading unemployment, then California's policies are just the ticket. They are: high taxes, maximal regulation, and excruciating debt. Also, a political culture that belittles and despises business, almost as much as it belittles and despises law and order; one not merely addicted to "fine tuning" things utterly beyond anyone's comprehension, but earnestly trying to replace the free market with a "political market" for goods and services - whenever opportunity calls. ("Never waste a crisis.")

I'm not saying the generation of wealth should be the sole purpose of human existence. I am saying it is one of the purposes, and further, that by politicizing economic activity we actually mire ourselves much deeper in materialism than we would ever do by just going out and earning a living.

The Texas model works, and the California model fails. Quite apart from whether anyone in the States should vote for Rick Perry, they must choose between these models.

He's right, and it doesn't even have to be just limited to the 'Texas model', since Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman both are preaching the same kinds of policies as Rick Perry, and even a moderate Romney is talking a strong conservative game and will be pushed to the right by a Tea-Party strong Congress in 2012, much like a moderate-talking Obama was pushed to the left by a progressive-dominated Congress in 2008.

We are facing a real choice in visions in 2012- freedom or tyranny. It's not a new choice, but one that every generation must make.

Simon Johnson from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Peter Boone from the London School of Economics predict that the world is close to inflating its final economic bubble. After this bubble bursts, the world will plunge into a long and lasting depression that we haven't seen in many centuries. The end is near, they claim, because interest rates are near zero all around the world and cutting interest rates was our best weapon to fend off collapse.

According to them, the US financial system has tripled in size over the last three decades, and each time it has gotten into trouble, the Federal Reserve would jump in and slash interest rates down to revive it. The problem is that the crises appear to be getting worse and worse, their impact is increasingly global, and interest rates around the world has been slashed already to zero. The economy is not reviving, the debt is piling up, and many countries around the world are on final trajectories to economic collapse.

According to these economists, what brought us to this failure is that the state has corrupted the free market system. Banks and capitalist institutions have been protected from risk-taking and failure by the government through subsidies and bailouts, and the government regulators who were entrusted to protect the people from these risks and failures have not done so. This has led to these banking and financial institutions to make an utter mess of things, the government to bail them out, this encourages riskier behavior and rewards failure, interest rates are cut to revive things, debt is taken on, the the cycle restarts again, each time getting worse and worse.

The only hope is for governments to begin to live within their means (no more debt), for governments to quit playing games with the market, for the regulators to do a better job, and for some bankers to be punished with failure. But, this isn't likely to happen.

Last election the second biggest contributor to the Democratic Party was Wall street, and they know that they own Obama and the Democrats and that they won't let them fail. They own the regulators and won't ever face real regulation or opening up. The other big owner of the Democratic party is the labor unions, in particular the labor union for the government workers, and they won't let government live within its means or quit playing games with the market.

So, if this analysis is correct, there is a major bubble going to burst soon, and it'll be a big one. Our only hope is that Republicans, real Republicans, conservative and libertarian Republicans, win control of every single government institution and jam through brutal austerity measures. That kind of change may indeed give us some hope for the future.

"...The Global Bond Fund For Emerging Market Local Currencies Program -- is designed to move more institutional investment into local currency bond markets in developing countries. Making local currency bond markets deeper and stronger can lower the cost of borrowing, and a liquid corporate debt market can help firms better manage risk. Institutional investors, both domestic and international, could benefit from investing in a diversified portfolio of local emerging market bonds as they offer diversification with low correlations and potential returns from an improving credit environment and currency appreciation..."

The WSJ writes:

The global credit crunch has shaken the kaleidoscope of the world economy. As sub-prime lending problems ricochet around the world, capital is seeking new places to grow. And it is looking farther afield than ever before -- not just to the well-established emerging economies of China or India, but to "emerging emerging" markets in Africa...Their success has been driven by getting the fundamentals right. Nigeria has benefited from banking and pension reform, a crackdown on corruption, debt relief based on sound fiscal policy and the high oil price. Perhaps more remarkably, Ghana has achieved its success without oil windfalls. A strong technocratic team in the top ministries has pushed through a homegrown reform program which has rationalized the electricity sector, led the development of a domestic debt market, and freed up capital controls. There is nothing to stop the rest of Africa following this lead. And the signs are encouraging: The IMF expects sub-Saharan Africa to grow 6.1% in 2007 and 6.8% in 2008.

Yesterday I wrote a post on how Obama's debt, and to a lesser degree the debt that would be piled up even under the GOP's 'extreme' proposal, is going to be destroy the life, liberty, and property of my children and grandchildren. They are going to grow up in a world less secure because our nation will owe money to nations ranging from Middle Eastern oil dictatorships to communist China, our children will have lesser fire and police and hospital and library services than we enjoy today, inflation will destroy savings and inheritances and businesses passed on, Social Security will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), Medicare will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), higher education will be too expensive except for the richest of the youth, and our society will be one which rewards those children whose parents have political connections and not those children who work hard and innovate. A Leviathan will rule over my children and grandchildren, controlling their actions and dictating to them in a poor society that is yet a shadow of what America used to be, all thanks to liberal and progressives and their failed policies which have destroyed the financial and moral foundations of nations, states, and cities already.

Robert Knight at the Washington Post summarizes Obama’s energetic war on the young, who continue to support Obama even though these naive college kids don’t realize that big-government servitude awaits them. Here is what Obama is passing on to our next generation, the most treasured resource we have, our youth and posterity:

Students and parents seeking to borrow for college are now denied a private option, with Uncle Sam taking over all federally backed student loans courtesy of sleight of hand in the Obamacare bill. The Department of Education is harassing for-profit colleges such as the University of Phoenix and Strayer University, which provide useful courses for prospective employees, particularly young people without a standard college degree.

Unemployment was 25.7 in February for teenagers and 15.7 percent for those 20 to 24 years old, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recent college grads are despairing of landing anything above the fast-food counter, where they face stiff competition from millions of recent immigrants. Businesspeople won’t hire because they know the Obamacrats see the rule of law as merely a speed bump on the way to more top-down management by Uncle Sam.

Our relatively healthy stock market reflects not so much a recovery as an indicator that businesses are happier with their bottom lines now that they have fewer employees. Benefits are disappearing as well as employers run scared from Obamacare and regulation-crazed bureaucrats. With every employee representing a plethora of federal, state and local obligations, you can’t blame businesses for trying to do more with fewer. This is not good for those kids clutching their degrees and entering the job market.

The national deficit is careening upward of $1.6 trillion this year, with a projected debt of $24 trillion by 2021. Those young people applauding Mr. Obama so heartily are the very ones with bull’s-eyes on their backs for ruinous tax increases in their prime earning years. They also are going to find out that Social Security has been a huge Ponzi scheme, with them as the “marks.”

Young people love the Internet. It is one of the last unfettered, cutting-edge technologies. Well, enjoy it while you can, kids. Mr. Obama’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and two Democratic commissioners decided in December that they needed no congressional authority to begin issuing net-neutrality regulations that could cripple innovation. If unchecked, this also could lead to government meddling with Internet content.

It takes a while to develop energy resources- decades to explore, drill, and transport oil, or to build cutting-edge nuclear power plants, or to build hydroelectric dams, and yet under Obama, all of these sorts of projects have been slowed or even halted, damaging the near and long term future of our nation- if he remains President for another 6 years, our nation will fall father and farther behind in developing energy and be forced to transfer more and more wealth to tyrants overseas just because Obama and the Democrats are slaves to a failed Green God religion and its corrupting influence.

The very nature of Obamacare is to transfer wealth from young to old, by forcing healthy members of society who are choosing not to buy healthcare to buy healthcare and subsidize the old people in society who use it. The promise is there that someday they'll also get to join in the intergenerational theft, but when America's debt soars ever higher, that promise will not be followed through on, and besides, promises of intergenerational theft are still nothing more than theft.

America's youth will rue the day that they voted for Barack Obama on a naive promise of hope and change and togetherness. They will rue the day.

From the IMF's Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa,2008(PDF):

The term “emerging market” was coined in 1980 to refer to countries that had stock markets and were in transition toward having the features of the mature stock markets in industrial countries.This box suggests that some African countries fit within the emerging market group and supports this view by benchmarking these African economies of 2007 against the ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,and Thailand) of 1980, when the term “emerging market” entered the lexicon.
Selected African countries compare favorably with the ASEAN countries of 1980. The ASEAN countries were already experiencing strong economic growth. Yet, in many other respects, the ASEAN countries looked quite different from what we see today. Inflation rates were still high in some cases, the depth of their financial sectors was limited, foreign direct investment had yet to accelerate, and their financial
resources, reflected in international reserves, were adequate but not high. Many African countries have perhaps reached broader macroeconomic stability than the 1980 ASEAN benchmark. Growth is strong, inflation moderate, and international reserves relatively high. Like ASEAN, financial depth remains limited.Foreign direct investment is quite high, although this is in large part a reflection of the larger share of naturalresources such as oil in the case of African countries.2 Debt-to-GDP ratios are low.

Chamberlain Peterside recommends a number measures to stimulate the fundamental base of Nigeria's economy.
"...It is quite realistic to recommend that Nigeria earmarks $5,0 billion of its foreign reserve for this purpose. Even after paying-off the foreign debt, Nigeria will still be left with substantial amount of money to sustain its current account status, support the currency market and tuck away some nest-egg for future generation. That is if subsequent governments don't steal it. Hypothetically, the $5,0 billion development fund could be deployed as follows:

1. Utilize $2,0 billion for infrastructure and power generation, to boost capacity to 10,000 – 20,000 megawatts over the next 5 years, electrify the rural areas and rehabilitate decaying road network and bridges nationwide.

2. Utilize $1,8 billion to create a Fannie Mae (US Federal National Mortgage Association) type housing fund to stimulate secondary mortgage market in Nigeria, guarantee home loans for low to middle income families and buy such mortgage notes from primary mortgage institutions (PMI).

3. Utilize $1,2 billion to fund agro and micro lending schemes, underwrite and guarantee loans to genuine micro businesses and mechanized farming organizations.

4. Utilize the $1,0 - $1,5 billion savings in debt service payment to target the lowest population segment and offer them social benefits that could translate into improved life-quality – basic education, primary health care, low cost housing subsidy, rural infrastructure etc..."

If America elected Presidents based on foreign policy success and experience, John McCain would be President instead of Obama right now, so let's get back to the reality of the American political system and talk about the effect that Obama's domestic policies are having on our nation. To that, I turn to a Nolan Finley column that ran in the Detroit News this weekend that some of you may have missed:

Republicans hoping to unseat President Barack Obama and his Democratic enablers in Congress should recraft the campaign slogan Bill Clinton used to topple George H.W. Bush: It's the policies, stupid.

Obama, with no shortage of audacity, is betting he can blur the connection between the decisions of his administration and the still wheezy performance of the economy and convince voters that soaring prices for essential goods and anemic job creation are not his fault.

That was the message pitched by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week when he told the Detroit Economic Club that the recovery is on solid ground and any lingering economic pain is the fault of the previous administration.

Given the money Obama has spent and the depth of his reach into the private sector, he now owns this economy. And it isn't anywhere near where he said it would be by now when he bullied through an $823 billion stimulus package and seized control of the free market.


Obama hopes to blame big, greedy oil companies for gasoline prices that are more than $4 a gallon today, and could be up to $6 by Election Day if trends hold.

But Obama has used his regulatory power to choke off domestic oil exploration, fueling speculators who are betting on tighter future supplies. The Fed's stubborn commitment to a weak dollar also is impacting oil prices and other commodities, including food.

This is the slowest economic recovery since World War II, and while Geithner tried to shrug that off as typical of a recession triggered by a financial markets crisis, the real blame falls on Obama's policies that are blocking development and spooking investors.

The biggest culprit after huge deficit spending is the Environmental Protection Agency, which has side-stepped Congress to put in place carbon caps that assure America won't have enough energy to power robust economic growth.

Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up the housing market, mortgage foreclosures continue to surge. Delaying foreclosures drags out the inevitable and keeps the market from resetting. Home values keep declining along with consumer confidence.

Small businesses complain they can't get loans to expand, and banks say Obama's rushed through financial regulations make it almost impossible to lend money to entrepreneurs.

The uncertainties of Obamacare, growing debt and the president's determination to raise taxes on the investor class make job creators nervous and less eager to risk their money.

Businesses see that Obama has tilted the labor field sharply in favor of unions, impacting decisions on whether to locate new operations here or overseas. Same goes for his corporate tax policies.

From the viewpoint of Main Street, the economy still stinks. Obama will work hard over the next 18 months to shirk the blame. But as the dots are connected, the line of responsibility leads to the Oval Office.

Finley hits the nail on the head- what we are seeing are the results of the policies of liberal Democrats such as those that controlled the House from 2007 to 2011, the Senate from 2007 to today, and the Presidency from 2009 to today. Let's get back to looking at what works and what doesn't work, and from my view, liberal policies don't work, and I offer as evidence liberal Democrat Detroit, liberal Democrat Michigan from 2003-2011, and liberal Democrat USA from 2009-2010. High taxes, high regulation, class warfare, bureaucratic control, attacks on wealth, and backwards energy policies that liberal Democrats push for yield the predictable results and attack the foundations of life, liberty, and property growth that America was built on.

Matthew Green at the FT reports on the Nigerian Capital Markets:

Some banking stocks have trebled in the past six months alone – the most spectacular sign of the shift in the country’s status from marginal emerging market play to star performer.
Driven by a combination of government reforms, debt relief and high oil prices at a time of heightened appetite for new types of risk, the gains have revealed a glimpse of untapped potential and looming hazards...A tougher line on money laundering and a newly-awarded BB- sovereign debt rating added to the allure at a time when global funds were turning to Africa as an antidote to dwindling returns in established pastures.
The sheer size of the country’s debt and equity markets has enticed hedge funds that worry about liquidity in smaller sub-Saharan countries, while strong domestic buying insulated Nigeria from a global sell-off in March

Matthew Lockwood writes on the need for non-standard remedies in Africa, he states "...What Africa needs is to shake off its dependence on primary commodity exports, a problem underlying not only its marginalisation from world trade but also its chronic debt problems. Many countries rely today on as narrow a range of agricultural and mineral products as they did 30 years ago, and suffer the consequences of inex orably declining export earnings. Again, the campaigners' remedy - to improve market access for African exports to Europe and America - is wide of the mark. While imperfect, various preferential schemes already give the poorest African countries excellent market access.To understand how Africa might diversify we must look elsewhere, to the experience of east and south-east Asia. Not only have these countries revolutionised their trade performance in the last four decades to become world leaders in everything from clothing to computers, they have also achieved the holy grail of broad-based growth. The "Asian miracle" has seen countries poorer than their African counterparts in the 1960s virtually eradicate $1-a-day poverty today. If you really want to know how to make poverty history, it is this transformation that you must grasp..."

History teaches lessons- it allows those of us in the present to see how results in the past worked. Economic recessions are a great teaching tool for policy makers and average citizens, because they teach us how the recession may have happened and how to emerge from the recession and therefore inform us as to the policy actions that we must take and those that we as citizens must support.

The problem is though that policymakers and citizens really only have learned about one historical economic recession, The Great Depression, and the lessons that they have been learned regarding this recession are usually the wrong lessons. There are other recessions that our nation has battled through and the lessons we can learn from them may be more instructive to policy makers and average citizens, especially in light of the current Obama recession.

The version of the Great Depression that most Americans learn is that unregulated capitalism, free trade, lax regulation, and unequal distribution of wealth led to a massive collapse of our economy in 1929, then President Hoover did nothing to intervene and help, and our nation didn't recover until FDR actively and aggressively acted with his New Deal policies of massive spending, massive debt, massive regulation, and massive changes to the American system. The problem with this version of history, and the lessons that it teaches, is that it is almost wholly false.

The Great Depression resulted from government policies- the Federal Reserve messing with rates, the regulations and taxes from the Wilson administration, etc- combined with restrictive trade policies and the collapse of a major economic power (Germany), which resulted in a recession in 1929. President Hoover then acted in a very active and ultimately destructive manner, increasing spending, regulation, and activity by the government, resulting in the recession deepening and lasting until 1932. FDR took these mistakes and expanded on them and enlarged them, and the result was that a real recovery never took place and rather the nation dropped into another recession (1937), leading us to just lump this whole time period together as the 'Great Depression.' Although the world war helped mask many of our economic problems, it wasn't until the death of FDR and the ending of his policies that our nation began to recover in any real economic normal sense, and wealth began to be created again. This is a closer version of events, with entirely different sets of lessons to learn.

But don't take my word for it- check out the following books to become more educated on the Great Depression- America's Great Depression, Great Myths of the Great Depression (this one is great- only $2, a dozen pages, and a great gift for any history teacher to receive), or Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse.

In my next post I'll address other economic recessions and the lessons to learn from them.

The best way for a company today to secure billions in loans is to donate money to Democrats, who will then steer taxpayer money to these companies so that they can then donate thousands of dollars to Democrats. At least that is the lesson that SunPower Corporation demonstrates.

I first heard about SunPower on Sean Hannity's show, where he was talking about how SunPower is going to be twice the scandal that Solyndra is. SunPower is a company with headquarters in California that builds solar panels and employees over 1500 people. For the last several years, it has been unprofitable and bleeding cash and is now heavily in debt, with a business model that most analysts believe is unsuccessful. But yet the United States Department of Energy gave a last-minute loan to this company for $1.2 billion on the hope that it will suddenly become profitable and also because this loan will help SunPower to create jobs (at a cost of $80/million per job). Here is more information on SunPower, via Human Events:

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain....

....According to the SunPower PAC filings for its activities in the 2010 midterm election campaign cycle, it donated more than $36,000. Of the $15,650 donated to House and Senate candidates, $14,650 went to Democrats, with these top recipients: $4,000 to Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.), $3,000 to Rep. Gabrielle Gifford (D.-Ariz.) and $2,900 Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.)...

Most of the attention on SunPower centers on Democratic California Congressman George Miller, who has been a big proponent of SunPower, probably because it has a major manufacturing facility in Miller's district and his son happens to work for the company as a lobbyist- in fact, Congressman Miller has supported the very loans that pay his sons $178K/year salary!

But in reality, the story is not simply one of a Democratic Congressman who steers massive loans to a company his son works for- in reality, the story is that SunPower is yet another example of the sort of crony capitalism that the new Democratic Party and Barack Obama support.

A quick look on OpenSecrets.org demonstrates how the corrupt system of government that Democrats run actually works. Opensecrets tracks how much money donors give to political candidates. To reward all of my loyal readers, I went ahead and did some research for you on OpenSecrets to find out just how politically connected SunPower was so that we can speculate using real numbers on how much of a role their political donations might have played in securing taxpayer-backed loans for their unprofitable business.

Using OpenSecrets,org, I searched the 2008, 2010, and 2012 cycles, and then under 'occupation' type I wrote in 'sunpower', and was happy to see 156 entries for people who work at SunPower. These entries indicate employees of SunPower who gave money in these campaign cycles. I sorted all of the 156 entries into six columns to help me to better understand the data.

The first column that I created was of the total amount of money that employees of SolarPower gave to Republicans. This amount came to $250, given to the Republican National Committee.

The second column was the total amount of money that employees of SolarPower gave to Democrats from 2008-2012. This amount comes to $82,700, most of it going to President Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign or the Democratic National Commitee.

The third column that I created represented money given to liberal/Democrat interest groups that primarily donate money to Democrats- this amounted to $15,750.

The fourth column showed that the amount of money given to conservative/GOP interest groups was $500.

Employees of SunPower also gave $83,006 to a political action committee that was set up called SunPower PAC, which in turn has donated heavily to Democrats (SunPower PAC has given $16.7K to Democrats vs $6K to GOP).

Employees of SunPower also gave $45,700 to a political action committee called Solar Energy Industries Association, which has also given more heavily to Democrats (2006-2012, $105.9K to Democrats vs $54K to the GOP).

The data is pretty clear- donating money to Democrats, in particular to Barack Obama, assures your company will receive massive loans regardless if your company is profitable or a good investment.

Under this Democratic administration, supported by these Democrats in Congress, the way to wealth, loans, high pay, and job security is to donate money to the Democratic party and then have them use the power of government to grant you these things. If the GOP were to do these things, it would be wrong too, but the reality of the situation is that it is not a GOP administration overseen and supported by a GOP Congress acting in such a corrupt manner, it is a Democrat with oversight and support from Democrats. 'Hypothetical Corrupt Republican' isn't on the ballot in 2012- Barack Obama is, and it really doesn't matter who the Republicans nominate, because they haven't demonstrated this level of corruption yet, whereas Barack Obama has. Voters need to vote out these Democrats who have used campaign donations and family connections to corrupt the usual decision-making process for granting government loans and turned our once great nation of the free and the brave into the home of the corrupt and bought-off.

For those who are new to my blog, I've written about this topic before- see my posts State Capitalism, Crony Capitalism, Corrupt Capitalism, Syndicaliam, Corporatism... Obamaism or The Third Way: Obama and Fascism.

UPDATE: The Detroit News today ran another editorial about Solyndra, in it pointing out that

...in October last year, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party and that company employees had kicked in $20,000 to Democratic candidates. They also contributed to the Republicans. But the Times said records show about 72 percent of the company's political contributions went to the Democrats and only 27 percent to Republicans. Contributing to Solyndra's failure were allegations that once it received the government-backed loans, it spent funds willy-nilly, including on a new $700 million plant deemed unnecessary by some company insiders....

That's how it works boys and girls- donate money to Democrats, get massive loans, pay yourself big salaries and live life large, and then get out before it all goes under, leaving taxpayers holding the bill. That's what you get when you vote Democrat (and sometimes for squishy GOPers too).

Richard Dowden writes"...Africa is changing fast. Driving those changes are mobile phones and radio stations and China's appetite for raw materials. The G8's agenda of aid and debt relief may, if delivered, play a secondary role. The external driver is China's search for minerals , particularly oil, which pushes up Africa's mineral prices...The internal driver is the mobile phone revolution that has transformed business and politics in Africa in the past ten years. In 2001, only 3 per cent of Africans had telephones of any sort. Now there are 50 million mobile-phone users, with numbers growing by 35 per cent a year. The phone companies completely misjudged the market - they thought that only the super-rich would buy mobiles. But it turned out that the people who really needed them were small self-employed businessmen, market women, taxi drivers and the casual workers who keep Africa going. In some areas, beer sales have plummeted as people have invested their meagre earnings in mobile phone cards instead. The pace of life has picked up hugely..."
Via Textually.Org

Chamberlain S. Peterside analyses the rise of the BRIC(pdf) nations and its relevance to Africa. "... There are a myriad of socio-political issues confronting them, but the potency of these countries (Brazil,Russia,India and China) transcends merely the labor market and natural resources into value-added productivity through utilization of technological tools that are easily accessible and cheaper to acquire. As free trade and globalization erodes barriers and diminishes competitive advantage of industrialized nations (such as financial wealth, developed infrastructure, high productivity and bargaining power), opportunities are gradually shifting to these erstwhile-impoverished countries...The Rise of BRIC the nations is dispelling the myth about archaic political doctrines and development models. The countries in question cut across all ideological spectrum and continents (except Africa). They all seem to agree on one thing - that the "market" is king. Another common denominator is size and natural resources, but today what counts is how countries deploy their human and material resources.You can identify amongst them, developing countries (all but Russia), former colonies (India and Brazil), former/current communist countries (Russia and China respectively) and of course poor or debt-ridden countries (all but Russia). Their experience could serve as a road map for most developing countries in Africa and other places..."
Via NigeriaWorld

According to a recent poll by CBS, most Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit. When asked "should taxes on millionaires be raised in order to lower the the deficit," 64% of those responding to this poll said "yes." This is exactly why our founding fathers rejected a democracy in favor of building a republic.

When our founding fathers built our nation, they knew from history that democracies inevitably fail. Democracies are governments built on majority rule, where the majority has the power to decide what to do with your property, your liberties, and eventually your life. In a democracy, votes are held, and if the majority decides that they want to take more of your money, property, wealth, or business in order to 'lower the deficit', that is exactly what happens. Although those who are voting played no part in you earning this wealth and those who are voting did not expend any effort for you to gain this wealth, they derive their power from the fact that there are more of them than you, and majority rules. On this basis, they feel that they can gather as mobs and demand higher taxes on you and more control over your choices, simply because there are more of them than you. This sort of mob rule is exactly the sort of rule that was common in ancient Greece and common at the end of the Roman Republic, and eventually both of these republics-turned-democracies slide into governments ruled by Caesars and Tyrants.

Our founding fathers knew this was the nature of man and knew that although democracies and majority rule have some favorable aspects to them, the only way that people's lives, liberty, and property could be properly protected is by building a republic. A republic is a government where political power is limited by the law, which sets up a government of limited powers that is frequently checked by separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism. In a republic, minority rights are protected and the government is unable to threaten your life, liberty, and property because it lacks the power and capacity to do so- it does not rule on majority rule, but rather rules based on the majority properly running a firmly established and defined political entity which performs certain needed tasks well, such as national defense and establishing police services, but which does not have the real power to inject itself into tasks which it can not do well, like setting up social values and controlling the free market of exchange. In a republic, the government lacks the capacity and power to take money from those who earn it simply because they have it- rather, taxes are raised on people because it is argued that those people benefit the most from the services of the state so should pay more. This argument only works to a certain point, and assumes that even the poor pay taxes into the system to a rate comparable to what the services that they receive from the state- it is not just 'loot the rich because they have money and there is more of us than them.'

Our nation is approaching a key election in 2012, much as Rome faced a key turning point in its history when Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic by playing to the lures of democracy and populism. Catiline rallied the poor to his banner by arguing for debt relief for the poor people of Rome, and many supported him because there are always more people who are poor than there are people who are truly wealthy. Because of the destructive policies of the government, which had collapsed the housing market and had taxed and regulated the small farms and small businesses to the brink of destruction, there were many people out of work who listened to the siren song of 'support me, I'll claim majority rule, and take from those who have wealth and give to those who do not.' Thankfully, Rome had an ardent defender of the Republic in a man like Cicero, and the conspiracy was foiled, but I believe that it had come close enough to succeeding to inspire men like Julius Caesar and Pompey to try again soon after, and they were successful in harassing the forces of democracy to institute a dictatorship over the masses.

So, after reading that the majority of Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit, I once again thankful that our nation is a Republic- if only we can keep it that way.

CK Prahalad comments that China and India "...represent 900 million people in poverty, a larger number than the entire population of Africa. There are about 600 million in Africa who live on less than $3 per day. Why, then, do China and India evoke fear and anger, while Africa elicits pity and guilt?...Despite the magnitude of their respective poverty problems, China and India may have a chance of meeting the Millennium Development Goals established by U.N. Their economies are following the lead of other countries that have raised their populations into a middle-class economic base. For example, between 1975 and 2004, GDP per capita in South Korea increased fourfold. Over the same period, Malaysian incomes rose threefold.
On the other hand, in those decades, per capita incomes in Nigeria declined by a tenth. Why? During the period 1955-2004, the West and multilateral institutions invested more than $1 trillion in aid and subsidies in emerging economies. But poverty persists. It would seem, therefore, that we need to challenge the role of aid and subsidies in promoting sustainable economic development. If poverty cannot be eradicated with humanitarian handouts alone, what is the alternative?...The G-8, led by Tony Blair and supported by Jeffery Sachs and Bono, believe that debt relief and a doubling of aid from rich countries to poor, especially in Africa, is the way to go. A less popular alternative focuses on the involvement of the private sector in poverty alleviation through the development of market-based ecosystems.
Irrespective of which route we take, we need to build an infrastructure to deal with poverty. There is an implicit aid overhead. According to Prof. Sachs, out of every dollar of aid given to Africa, an estimated 16% went to consultants from donor countries, 26% went into emergency aid and relief operations, and 14% went into debt servicing. How much of the remaining 40% escaped corrupt officials to benefit the intended recipients is not known..."
Via NextBillion

Business Daily reported that:

Creating a strong Africa domiciled investment banking industry is an essential factor to ensure capital market rewards stay in Africa. The bond market is seen growing as more countries acquire sovereign credit ratings and float debt instruments.Eighteen countries across the continent have got a sovereign issuer rating from at least one International Credit Ratings Agency.In the equities markets, increasing local private and institutional participation and new issues have improved liquidity significantly, says Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the executive chairman of Databank Financial Services.