Can Africa Continue Booming In A ‘Global Crisis Economy’?

Can Africa Continue Booming In A ‘Global Crisis Economy’?

Africa As Other ‘Emerging Markets’ Is Still In An Upward Swing, Especially Compared To The Stagnating Western Economies An article, “Africa’s Big Boom” on the pages of Project Syndicate discusses the recent positive developments on the “forgotten continent.” Africa is undergoing a period of unprecedented economic growth. According to The Economist, six of the ten fastest-growing countries in 2011 were in Africa. Average external debt on the continent has fallen from 63% of GDP in 2000 to 22.2% this year, while average inflation now stands at 8%, down from 15% in 2000. This positive trend is likely to persist, given that it is based on structural geographic and demographic factors, such as rising exports, improved trade conditions, and steadily increasing domestic consumption.” Is Local Development, Continuing Growth & Progress Possible In An Otherwise Struggling Global System? One of the biggest problems and reasons  that no solution has been found for the global economic crisis is that isolated outlooks on all kinds of situations, including the economy of single nations or continents, still prevail. In other words, outlooks that do not take the full, global picture into account. Thus, there is a lot of talk about “emerging markets,” China and India, and now also Africa, regions and continents that were either suppressed, or were dormant up until recently and that have now started to catch up to the more developed part of the world. This, however, does not mean that the system being used, which copies the Western model, is a fruitful one. It simply means that they now have a lot of growth potential in relation to where they were...
How To Deal With Tax Evasions

How To Deal With Tax Evasions

Singapore, A Tax Haven, A Refuge For Tax Evaders, Started Taking Steps In Tightening Regulations The article “Singapore: Full disclosure” in The Economist describes how Singapore is introducing tougher measures trying to combat tax evasion in line with the worsening financial crisis in the Western world. From July 2013 financial institutions will be legally obliged to alert authorities to any overseas customer who they suspect of bringing in funds to evade taxes at home, just as they are expected to report on other offences. Equally, the authorities have been sending out stern circulars to all the banks warning them to monitor their customers better, follow the existing guidelines more closely and generally get their houses in order. The flurry of activity is partially a consequence of the debt crisis in Europe and America. Cash-strapped governments have been ramping up tax-collection efforts. Inevitably, attention has therefore turned towards those countries perceived to be offshore havens. Just as Switzerland has become a target for European tax authorities, so has Singapore.”  People Need Either A Negative Or Positive Motivation For Change The key to solving these problems is motivation. As long as the solution is forceful, there will always be people who will find another way, tax evasion, offshore accounts, one trick to the next, and there will always be people, organizations and nations helping them since it is in their best interest. Firstly, today’s global society will have to find a way of educating its citizens, aiming to lead them to the understanding that by cheating, by harming the system, they actually harm themselves. Today there is enough actual field data...
2 Roads To A Different World

2 Roads To A Different World

People Are Running Out Of Options How To Save, Maintain The Integrity Of The Eurozone Ashoka Mody, a visiting Professor of International Economic Affairs at Princeton University writes about the narrowing options for the Eurozone in his article, “The Eurozone’s Narrowing Window.” Thus, the eurozone faces three choices: even more austerity for the heavily-indebted countries, socialization of the debt across Europe, or a creative re-profiling of debt, with investors forced to accept losses sooner or later. Austerity alone cannot do it. Some countries face the growing risk of near-perpetual belt-tightening, which would further dampen growth and thus keep debt ratios high… …More ambitious pan-European efforts are embodied in various Eurobond proposals. These schemes imply socialization of debt – taxpayers elsewhere in Europe would share a country’s debt burden. These proposals, once in great vogue, have receded. Not surprisingly, the political opposition to such debt mutualization was intense. Given that perpetual austerity is untenable and others in Europe can only do so much, without robust growth the options will narrow quickly. As a result, much now hangs on the ECB’s actions – and how long they will be sufficient to maintain a truce with financial markets…” It Seems, As It Happened So Far In Human History, Humanity Will Only Make The Necessary Next Step In Development When The Present System Collapses, When The Present State Becomes Intolerable While based on the article’s argument that the window is narrowing, and that European countries as well as the whole global economy are gradually running out of options, this narrowing and eventually closing window still leads to solution, to the next stage of...
Trying To Push A Cube Through A Circular Hole

Trying To Push A Cube Through A Circular Hole

Politicians Are Desperately Helpless In Tackling The Issues Of The Deepening Crisis Hugo Dixon, the founder and editor of Reuters Breaking Views writes in his article, “Spanish circle getting hard to square“: The art of politics is about squaring circles. In the euro crisis, this means pushing ahead with painful but necessary reforms while hanging onto power. In Spain, where I spent part of last week, these circles are getting harder to square. Mariano Rajoy isn’t at any immediate risk of losing power. His 10-month old government has also taken important steps to reform the economy – cleaning up banks, liberalizing the labor market and reining in government spending. But the recession is deepening, the prime minister is a poor communicator and his political capital has plummeted. Madrid will also find it harder than thought to access help from its euro zone partners…” Humanity Is Trying To Push On With A Fragmented Worldview In A Rounded World The example of squaring circles is a fitting one, and it is even more fitting turned around. The problem with Spain, Europe and in fact with the whole global economy and political leadership is that everybody tries to push a square through circle, or more precisely try to push on, force a polarized, fragmented and isolationist mindset and behavior in a world that has become round, global, that has evolved into a totally interwoven and interdependent network. All the present tools and even Nobel Prize winning ideas are based on the “old” square reality, and they do not work in the new round, circular reality. Not only are they useless; they are...
Understanding Crisis And Today’s Need To Shift To A Global, Interconnected And Integral World

Understanding Crisis And Today’s Need To Shift To A Global, Interconnected And Integral World

John Dupré, Professor of Philosophy of Science and Director, at the ESRC Center for Genomics in Society, University of Exeter writes the following in Project Syndicate: …The creationists are right about one thing: contrary to the impression given by much popular writing on the subject, the theory of evolution is in crisis. But this is a positive development, because it reflects the non-linear progress of scientific knowledge, characterized by what Thomas Kuhn described in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as ‘paradigm shifts.’…” …Beyond undermining the gene-centered theories of evolution that have dominated public consciousness for several decades, these developments call for new philosophical frameworks. Traditional reductionist views of science, with their focus on “bottom-up” mechanisms, do not suffice in the quest to understand top-down and circular causality and a world of nested processes…” …Evolutionary theory’s current contretemps – and our inability to predict where the field will be in 50 years – are a cause for celebration…” Crisis = Turning Point, Point Of Decision, Rebirth Indeed the word “crisis” in its original meaning describes a “turning point”, “point of decision”, or even “rebirth,” thus it does not necessarily mean a negative event as the word is mostly used nowadays. As the above mentioned article suggests, a crisis opens up new possibilities, clears previous dogmas and prepares paradigm shifts. Today, humanity is in a global crisis. It is not only evolutionary theory that has reached a turning point, but basically all of the human institutions that looked well grounded, even 10 years ago, are facing crisis situations. Moreover the developments in quantum physics started challenging even the...