The 60 days challenge

Dates: October 1 to December 1

Click on this link to see a Professor from CMU give the lecture of a lifetime.

He is such a very impressive guy. Dying from pancreatic cancer at age 46, he is delivering his last lecture which was taped for his children.

We all have a lot to learn from this guy.

Moving On - WSJ.com

Have you ever really want to achieve a goal?

First, determine what, when and how.

Next, create a metric and measure meticulously.

You get what you measure.

On a recent TV show, I learnt that Hindu saints classify the aim of human life into 4 categories. Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha.

1. Dharma (righteousness),
2. Artha (wealth),
3. Kama (desire) and
4. Moksha (salvation or liberation)

This is a neat way of looking at the human life. What does the Bible have to say?

Dharma has been variously translated as duty, faith, religion, righteousness, sacred law, justice, ethics, morality and so on.

Artha means wealth. Hinduism recognizes the importance of material wealth for the overall happiness and well being of an individual.

Kama in a broader sense means desire and in a narrow sense sexual desire.

The pursuit of Moksha or salvation liberates him and lead him to the world Brahman.

Although I have written on some interesting topics recently, I realize the posts have been too long.

Who has the attention span to digest all of that information - especially since you may not be interested in all of it.

Hence I will reduce my post and make it short, quick and to the point.

Feedback to Live Writer folks - how can I change the default font?

This blog is my response to a speech given by Lord Malloch-Brown (former head of UNDP and at the World Bank) at the China Institutes of International Studies titled Africa, new partnerships and opportunities.

Based on the content of the speech, highlighted below, I think that working with the Chinese for development is a better way for Africa to go. Will they exploit our resources, Yes. But there would be no pretenses about it. I have a sense the British and by extension America, is trying to co-opt the Chinese to see the developing world from their perspective. However, let's not forget not too long ago China was a developing country as well.

See the full text of the speech HERE

Some of the key points of interest:

• Millennium Development Goals is how Britain tracks its involvement with Africa. And have way to 2015, most of the goals have not been achieved.
• Note, that China is ahead of most OECD countries, especially with respect to debt forgiveness
• China's policy is non-interference.
• OAU policy used to be non-interference and Africa Union has adopted non-indifference. I'd rather see China move towards this approach as opposed to Britain's old "aid and trade" or even evangelization of democracy, which hasn't worked in the past.
• Today, half of all Africans live on less than a dollar a day. An average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is just forty six. And each month more people die in Africa from preventable causes than were killed in the Asian Tsunami.
• And the African Union expressly refuses to recognize any government that comes to power under military coup.
• China invested more in infrastructure in Africa than all OECD countries added together did. Same story on trade.
• The Chinese Exim bank alone, has lent $12.5 billion for infrastructure development.
• Let me start though with sustainable and equitable growth. Market forces alone will not guarantee that in Africa, as they do not anywhere else.
• The second challenge is governance and law. The old adage was that Africa was cursed with abundant natural resources, in other words the very resources that should have made Africa rich had led only to gross inequality, civil war and endemic corruption.
• The doctrine of non-interference has been for China a long and central and openly stated foundation of your foreign policy.
• African people can lift themselves out of poverty.

Today in talking to a prospective boss - it struck me, in my soul I really don't care for things. Yes I really enjoy my nice car and the beautiful home that I live in (Thanks to my wife). But deep down in my soul, I really don't care.

The most profound discovery is - I can't be poor, poverty is a state of mind, not a lack of things. I have always said that one of the things I love about Seattle is that it would be a great city to be poor in - given our homeless shelters and food banks.

Poverty in the sense of a lack of things is an indictment of the wealth and the lazy. The wealthy, when it puts the hard working poor in a position of not being able to get the basics. And the lazy, when their slothfulness prevents them from having the basics.

Prayer - "God help me to stop eating myself to death"

Tracy Chapman expresses it best in this song..."Mountains O' Things" -highlighted, things that really speaks to me.

The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a live of ease
And mountains
Oh mountains o' things

To have a big expensive car
Drag my furs on the ground
And have a maid that I can tell
To bring me anything
Everyone will look at me with envy and with greed
I'll revel in their attention
And mountains
Oh mountains o' things

Sweet lazy life
Champagne and caviar
I hope you'll come and find me
Cause you know who we are
Those who deserve the best in life
And know what money's worth
And those whose sole misfortune
Was having mountains o' nothing at birth

Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings

Consume more than you need
This is the dream
Make you pauper
Or make you queen
I won't die lonely
I'll have it all prearranged
A grave that's deep and wide enough
For me and all my mountains o' things

Mostly I feel lonely
Good good people are
Good people are only
My stepping stones
It's gonna take all my mountains o' things
To surround me
Keep all my enemies away
Keep my sadness and loneliness at bay

I'll be dreaming, dreaming...
Dreaming...

Preamble:

As you may know, Mr Charles Soludo - Head of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) -  in a recent speech proposed the floating of the Naira through re-denomination. Interesting enough, I got two reactions to this news. From Nigerians abroad - this is good news, and from those in Nigeria - this sounds good, however the questions from both groups is how can we take advantage of it?.

The floating of a currency -when it is properly done-  is neither good nor bad from an economic perspective, it is neutral. However, the keyword is properly done, which in this case will mean the real or equilibrium value of the currency is determined by the float. Hence no one should be better off or worse off, unfortunately this only happens in the mathematically beautiful world of economic theory. As Soludo himself succinctly stated several countries (12 listed to be exact) has tried re-denomination most failed and some even after trying several times and he failed to state why he thinks Nigeria's case will be any better.

The proposal for re-denominating the Naira is simply to remove two zero's by moving two decimal places and alas! the exchange rate will have been magically fixed to "around N1.25 to US$1. The gut reaction is to state that this seems gimmicky however, I will posit that the issue is not that of moving the decimal point nor or changing the color of your currency (which Nigeria have tried in the past) or even changing your currency completely (circa. Germany post 1945).

The fundamental flaw in this logic is ignoring the basic law of demand and supply. Basically, the value of a currency (fiat money) is what another country's citizen is willing to trade for it in goods or as economists will say in "real" terms.

To understand the issues there are several concepts one must have clearly in mind

1. Reasons why Naira was devalued in the first place
2. International trade and balance of payments
3. Exchange rate regimes
4. Differences between re-denomination and re-valuation
5. Ultimate objective of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN)

Stated Objective:

From the speech by Soludo, "Strategic Agenda for the Naira" (Please read the transcript for yourself) we can tease out the long & short term objectives of the CBN and by extension the FGN.

Long Term Vision:

1. Nigeria's economic prosperity
2. Nigeria as the financial hub of Africa by 2020

Short Term Objectives:

1. Stabilize the exchange rate
2. Reduce Inflation
3. Reform Microfinance
4. Promote efficiency of the payment system

In examining why the Naira was devalued in the first place, one can conclude that post the oil boom, Nigeria became a net consumer nation without the foreign reserves nor goods to finance the consumption. Hence, it took more and more Naira to buy those same goods. While this view may seems simplistic for not taking into consideration the political climate, economic policy etc. of the time. The basic issue is this, Nigeria depended on oil to pay for her voracious appetite for foreign goods and between OPEC and subsequent reduction in oil prices coupled with, massive debt, massive corruption and misinformed economic policies we became in essence a banana republic one which the international community will no longer accept her IOU's.

The fact that Nigeria's International trade and as a result her international balance of payment is out of whack, led to a situation where the currency was devalued. Our internal facility and productive capacity was corroded by our own internal politics. Internal economic policy then led Nigeria through a series of reforms in an attempt to fix (more like band-aid) the problem. This attempts includes the changing of currency (Buhari),  Structural Adjustment Program, innumerable amount of loans to finance our consumptive ways up to the attempt to join the Organization of Islamic States by Babangida.

To be continued....

Read about the Ghana experience with re-denomination here.