Tag: Africa

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Made in Ghana

I earned this shirt as a volunteer at the Se’dav Va’aki Museum (formerly The Pueblo Grande Museum). But that is a different story.

This story is that the shirt was manufactured in Ghana. Here is proof:

If I were young and looking to help the poor and potentially make a lot of money I’d move to Ghana or Kenya and go to work in manufacturing. This shirt is proof that it can be done. For labor intensive manufacturing Africa for the next few years will be like China was twenty five years ago. The worlds low cost producer of low tech products.

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South African Diaspora

I saw last week that Nelson Mandela had been admitted to the hospital and in a separate news article that there was political and social unrest in South Africa.

I was reminded of what my brother Matt B, who does a lot of business throughout Africa, said about politics in South Africa last Autumn.  He thought that the only thing keeping South Africa from sinking into the chaos of Zimbabwe or Congo was loyalty to Nelson Mandela.  He expected that when Mandela died that South Africa would fall into the same sort of tribal violence that overtook Zimbabwe in the 1990’s and caused the whites who could to flee, the collapse of the economy and the total debasement of the currency.

There is a huge difference of scale however.  Zimbabwe has 13 million people and South Africa has 50 million.  About 10% of South Africa’s population is white and we can expect that, if what is predicted above happens, many of them will become international refuges.  Will the UK accept them?  How about Holland?  How about the USA?  Stay tuned.

There is already a diaspora happening from South Africa and a blog titled of course South African Diaspora.  But from the numbers I could gather there are less than a million white South Africans living in other countries.  Where will five million people go in a world that is increasingly xenophobic?  This will be a big test of the right to migrate.  Who will make room for them or will we allow a genocide?

 

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Geopolitical Thinking II

We all know about the recent discovery of vast amounts of natural gas and oils shale in North America and Northern Europe.   What we haven’t thought about yet are the tertiary affects of this discovery. It is clear that all these new btu’s will change the economics of fossil fuels for the next hundred years.  But all of this inexpensive oil and gas sloshing around will also have big a affect in many other areas. It will probably gives us enough time to get controlled fusion or economical solar energy working but they will also affect current geopolitics:

  • The relative power of the Arab kings, mullahs and dictators will decrease.
  • The relative power of the global warming/environmentalists movements will decrease.
  • The poorest countries in South Asia and Africa will be able to modernize economically.

The new supplies are predominately being found in developed countries with developed infrastructure and the rule of law.  So they can be developed without the need for despots to ensure a return on investment.  Over time the decrease in the need for kings, mullahs and dictators means that there will be less of them.  This is good news for the citizens of places like Iran and Iraq.

Global Warming alarm-ism is predicated on the old scare tactic of “we have to do something time is running out.” But time isn’t running out.  This new cleaner fuel gives us time to raise the standard of living of everyone in the world, stabilize the worlds population and develop new technologies.  What a piece of good luck.

And these new btu’s mean that Africa will boom.  The per-capita income in sub-Saharan Africa has doubled in the past six years and it will double again in the next six.  Without the danger of energy shortages Africa will start to self generate the types of surpluses that can be spent on irrigation systems, roads and potable water supplies.  Watch for the first Nike Factory in Africa.  The countries that will succeed first will be stable and have enforceable contracts.  The question to try and answer is which ones have the chance to be the next Singapore and figure out how to make some investments.

Life is Good!

Geopolitics I: Goading Iran