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thembnko · 4 years ago

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The China/US spat hurts Africa and will escalate into WWIII Since its outbreak in early 2018 China's spat with the United States (US) hurt Africa. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows in its World Economic Outlook for 2019 the US was first to increase tensions through imposing higher tariffs on aluminum and steel of 25 percentage points on imports of $50 billion from China and 10 percentage points on imports of an additional $200 billion. After China retaliated the US imposed 15 percentage points in tariffs on all goods (roughly $300 billion) that had not yet incurred tariffs starting in September 2019 and a 5 percentage-point increase on already-tariffed $250 billion imports. The imposition of higher tariffs reduce Africa's economic activity for China depends on the continent for aluminium. China's impact increased the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1 percent. Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo, Ethiopia and Namibia feature in investments while Europe and the US regards them as 'failed states.' The countries had 1.6 percent of the population move out of poverty annually. In Tanzania extreme poverty fell by 5.3 million people. Chad and the DRC saw a 3 percent drop. Since South Africa started a peace process focusing on the DRC and Burundi n 2000 and helped the countries run elections, negotiated with the South African private sector to invest, refocused the Organization for African Unity hence its renaming to being the African Union, and established additionally the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) China boosted the initiatives by providing finance. The United Nations names it in all peace reports as the only country in the world helping the African Peace and Security Architecture. South Africa accepted more than 2 million refugees from the continent before this. Now they have reduced by more than 800,000. China brought a new emphasis on development boosting the NEPAD by promulgating the Belt Road Initiative in 2013. Though focused upon growing Asian economies it includes non-regional countries like Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Djibouti. It ‘grows’ its power with them miles away from its geographic space building a vast network of railroads and shipping lanes at an investment in 2019 of $1.2 trillion. All US thinktanks see this as China's efforts at 'recolonizing' Africa yet the US does not provide investments. Meanwhile, the Belt Road Initiative will increase investments by 14 percent annually reaching $1.3 trillion by 2027. China encouraged all its companies and banks to go into the continent, restructured its economic model to move away from cheap labour so the country moved up the value chain of high-quality electronics and new technologies while the US and Europe only encouraged big companies like Google and Microsoft. Regionalisation as initially conceptualized by Britain worked on the basis of colonization. It has no place in a rising Africa. For economic growth to happen with it being at the centre or part of economic objectives all regional players must agree before they each have national economic policies on priorities, objectives, resources, budgeting and implementation methodology. China facilitated that yearly having African policy makers and Heads of States assembled in a single forum with it's own leaders. Throughout the 400 years Europe had colonized the entirety of Africa and after liberation from 1960 when Africa needed help with development it had no such plans and initiatives. It hated the idea of an African Rennaissance and blemished Kwame Nkrumah's image for it. World Bank and IMF officials colluded with the US in hating Thabo Mbeki for reviving the idea. He had South Africa help Zimbabwe boost its currency with the rand and not the US dollar alone. More importantly tensions between the US and China escalate when European economists are now realising because of prosperity J.M. Keynes’s famous economic 'prophecy' that Europe and the US would have solved all their economic problems by 2030 is coming true. He wrote leisure was to be their focus

since working hours were historically to be reduced. To emphasise its poverty Africa meanwhile has not even a Survey of Income to measure incomes after colonization and make comparisons with Europe. The US has high labour participation rates giving a high standard of living that in the case of an outright war will not make US citizens poor but only reduce equality.

Evidence since 2017 - that is before the trade tensions erupted - is the US was given China's growth in Africa preparing for war. All US thinktanks have discussion documents showing US military mobilization in the Pacific Rim pretended to be a watch on China's East Asian ambitions. They did not see regionalisation taking place which Europe and South America permitted through respectively having Britain and the US lead. The Economist's 16 August 2020 publication titled "America musters the world's biggest naval exercise" described the exercise as 'bibulous' showing off the newest US destroyers. The magazine described the relationship between the US and China which was in 'freefall.' The now overtly shown military build up comes as more than in any country and continent the US has 7 million Covid-19 cases and 170,000 deaths. China where Covid-19 it claims originated has less than a third of both. The US's foreign policy calls for military action when its citizens are affected by death while based in another country or the death is imported into the US. Who does not recall the demise of Libya and Muammar Gadhaffi? The pretext against China is it is hiding information on the origins of Covid-19. The Rand Corporation which produces policy and discussion documents for the US President, Department of Defence, and the Department of Homeland Security recently bolstered Donald Trump's and the Secretary of State's rhetoric on the claim. It documents, researches, analyses, and conducts a project entitled U.S.-China Long-Term Competition sponsored by the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7, U.S. Army which has the stated purpose of helping the US Army understand China's capabilities and military.

It published a tool detailing air travel data from the International Air Transport Association. This data visualizes how the coronavirus travelled from China between December 2019-February 2020. The tool titled The Covid-19 Air Traffic Visualization (CAT-V) tool has a "heat spot." It has never been commercialised or made known to the public and was given to the Rand Corporation on condition it showed the public the coronavirus emanated from China. It boosts the underreporting claim and uses estimates of importation risk to the US. It concludes air travel interacted to export infection risk across the world and states by late January 2020 exported from China via commercial air travel on a daily basis. One other conclusion is that countries with modest numbers of confirmed cases still represent the greatest risks of virus exportation to the US if those countries have relatively high active case rates per capita and high levels of connectivity to China. The organization specifically writes the tool inform(s) 'defense-related decisions.' It is preparing for WWIII escalating tensions to more than a Cold War. If WWIII takes place South Africa and Africa must take sides. This is because • the US jeopardizes the New Partnership for African Development and peace initiatives South Africa commenced. • food in the whole of Africa will become short since Covid-19 already disrupted chains of supply • refugees will increase • China's obliteration will mean an end to the whole of humanity because high precision weapons will be used by both sides and the US has a military station mounted on the Moon

Before the tensions rose Africa was projected to have a food market of $740 billion by 2027. It will not come. Hence, the entirety of Africa must take sides. Huawei will stop its investments. South African companies are in Nigeria. They will close. Africa and South Africa will have bourgeoining unemployment which will never get reversed. South Africa has because of Covid-19 a $40 billion loan from the IMF it will never repay because its economy will never grow again. Europe and the US on the other hand will keep growing whatever the outcome because they have just respectively publicized agreements for an injection of $858 billion and $1 trillion to grow businesses and give more than 50 million workers affected by Covid-19 income. The entire world will be imperiled because Russia has an alliance with China including India. They are with South Africa part of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries. Taking sides means South Africa's national defence force and those of all countries in the continent must start training. Citizens must be told to stockpile food and other necessities and plans drawn to move them to places of safety. This must happen whilst efforts as a priority are made to broker peace. China has since February 2020 been refusing to sign a nuclear deal with the US. The US has been hoping to pressurise Russia to convince China to become part of a deal that involved the three countries. But China has been seeing war coming. With tensions now nearing military confrontation it indeed will be suicidal if it signed including Russia. The US has a military station on the Moon which fact they must consider extremely seriously. So to protect humanity both Russia and China deserve support in maintaining their current nuclear capacity. Maintaining it as a minimum deterrent force is of interest to Africa. In fact it is also time Africa asked both nations to train and equip the continents' separate national defence forces including India. BRIC had better be military. South Africa must use its muscle to negotiate with both. China too has responsibility to start the negotiations if South Africa delays. Tanzania after South Africa has the next best national defence force to train and Libya though it had suffered defeat in the hands of the US's army in 2009. It wants revenge. When the war breaks out Japan, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and the entire Western Europe will side with the US. Japan has in South Africa investments of R100 billion consisting of 5 different car manufacturers (R60 billion) employing 25,000 South Africans; electronics (R2 billion) employing 20,000. Its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reported to have the closest personal relationship with former US President Donald Trump. Trump consulted him closely on the Indo-Pacific. Japan views China in its 2020 defense White Paper as the region's greatest security threat and is responsible for the US's majority intelligence products concerning China's maneuvers there. It has allowed the US Navy to mobilize and gives it at present very extensive logistical support. China deteriorated relations with it for years over the conduct. It has not been able to succeed to make Japan look towards Asia for its security because after the outbreak of WWII the US government invested heavily in Japan advised by its Navy to keep its power in check. The relationship was based on racism for both the US and Britain regarded Asia Pacific as an extremely important geographical space for the expansion and protection of British colonialism that included Africa. It levies extraordinary payments upon the US for hosting its bases. Australia lies not far from Japan.

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thembnko · 4 years ago

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The Witsun Julian Felipe Reef

THE Witsun or Julian Felipe Reef involving the Philippines and Taiwan is a source of much focus by the Philippines media and politicians (https://globalnation.inquirer.net/195010/us-warns-china-cites-pact-to-defend-ph-in-case-of-attack) seeing China which deployed its military ships on the reef as an aggressor. Politicians especially see China as "a bully" pretending to develop fishing. Sovereignty and freedom is a right. International law must protect it. Philippines and Taiwanese politicians and the media therefore have a rightful claim over their territory. But inviting the US to protect is risking a world war. A US war against China will invite South Africa, Africa and Russia to the side of China. The entirety of Europe except Russia will be on the side of the US. In 2019 the US already mobilized Israel, Turkey, Australia and India including Japan against China. It was over Covid-19. That mobilization stayed after President Joe Biden was inaugurated. He kept it as Operation Freedom.

We are establishing a Covid-19 National Information Centre which is about enabling churches to heal and prevent Covid-19. Churches can

• reveal prophecies God has given about Covid-19 and the post-Covid-19 world or economy

• pray and preach

• share knowledge and increase compassion

• be the conscience of the poor

• unite churches

• issue Covid-19 alerts

• speak against corruption and advise governments

• heal divisions already opening up in countries like Canada

The details are on my Facebook page for the Stop The US War Against China Group and the Church Covid-19 National Information Centre. These groups are because of a prophecy about what is to come regarding Covid-19. If the war - a Third World War - breaks out it will be followed by lies as was the First World War and the Second World War.

In a few weeks I am to publish two books each detailing separately what the true origins of the wars were. Britain will be forced to establish a commission of inquiry on both the First World War and the Second World War including the United Nations. This is because on both lies were for 110 years now told to the world. The world's current education system suffers those lies and there is poverty, famines and a spread of diseases.

The Church Covid-19 National Information Centre has as its first task to help countries come out of Covid-19 to end the war the US already envisaged in 2018 against China. The Stop The US War Against China Group on Facebook was established with that motive. We are mobilizing funding to establish and fund diplomacy groups that will have bilateral meetings with countries at war similarly as churches. Adequate publicity and outreach and direct intervention cannot yet happen because of the funding we are waiting for. In the meantime we advise the Philippines and Taiwan to desist from calling on the US for support against China

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thembnko · 4 years ago

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THE world needs Africa

Covid-19 has devastated all economies but incidences in the United States of America have profoundly shocked that nation and the world. South Africa and Africa have the lowest infection and death rates while struggling with health services and infrastructure whereas the US has together with China the best in the world. Wuhan in China is known as the first city where the initial cases were reported in December 2019-February 2020. They claimed 76,000 lives. But quickly since April 2020 discrepancies in both cases and deaths divided the US and China and the rest of the world and now South Africa and Africa. By October the world had 47 million people diagnosed with the coronavirus and 1.2 million have died. Three weeks after the 3 November US presidential elections where Joe Biden won Donald Trump by 253 electoral votes against 214 there were 172,935 new cases recorded in the US and 2,146 deaths. The country recorded more than 100,000 cases per day every day for over a fortnight. When a Centre for Disease Control map showing all US towns and cities are Covid-19 hotspot the shock was even more. The deaths total was the highest daily figure since May. Yet, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health could control exposure to workers. It has 164.6 million workers 1.17 million of whom in 2.2 million farms work in agriculture exporting to China and the rest of the world. But it had a “hierarchy of controls” where elimination or vaccination, testing, and engineering solutions occupied the top whereas the World Health Organization has in priority protection through masks and the maintenance of social distance of 1.5 meters. In violation it had workers working similar shifts grouped together all the time in transportation and the workplace as well as in the places where they stayed. The result was catastrophic.

These developments make the case for the South African government to quickly adopt a new Development Plan in place of the currently existing as Vision 2030; formally adopt the idea of African Renaissance which must inform the new Development Plan; and encourage the African Union to adopt a new continental vision to replace Agenda 2063. It must be recognized that new national planning is necessary to address not only the reorganization of basic industries to make them compete but is primarily about giving the state new capacities. Therefore, additionally, the South African government must prepare to manage a large immigration from Europe and the US of healthy or tested and Covid-19 negative citizens into South Africa from the end of 2021. After the Presidential Elections the US recorded more than 200,000 Covid-19 cases daily and 195,000 deaths. A total of 76,000 farmworkers were diagnosed. Covid-19 not only has changed relations between countries permanently and profoundly affecting trading and traveling. It decimated the US and left the European Union leaderless. Any state lagging now behind with entirely new planning is destined within 10 years to have rampant unemployment, inequality, and extreme poverty. Health for the entire population will collapse and labour will be displaced removing productivity and domestic consumption. Social and political instability will increase. Marginalisation and racial discrimination that threatened to come from the US and Europe within the six months of Covid-19s outbreak dissipated after the much more deadly second wave in November.

Debt in the world especially Africa exponentially grew. The basis for improving South Africa’s and Africa’s contribution to world knowledge affecting mainly economics which already is negligible as a result of colonialism and apartheid faced permanent removal since all published articles in journals and newspapers in economics and their future, lessons from the Great Depression, impact on international relations came from only Europe and the US that are more affected by Covid-19. That also very directly threatened the extraordinary gains made in democracy since 1994 including Africa’s. The knowledge is apart from being negligible internationally domestically confined to historically white universities and academics.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will lead a rich few in the world to hoard money and seek safe sanctuaries with no government able to stop them if Covid-19 continues. A catastrophe in other words no government can control will result if South Africa does not assert itself onto the world stage providing leadership. All the proposals made thus far by the IMF and several economists on the future do not address South Africa’s and Africa’s need for the world to change. They only become relevant to Africa when they discuss the need of repayment of debt yet more than in any other period before Covid-19 has crystallized extreme poverty and world inequality and highlighted glaring inequalities in health. That very drastically exposes that despite its relatively high national expenditure on health, education, and infrastructure when compared to all of Africa South Africa is as a result of Covid-19 on the brink of a disaster.

While the whole of Europe is coordinated and has ready regional institutions for that for new trade and military cooperation Africa still has to create the institutions. That calls for very strong and urgent leadership. Additionally, South Africa has to identify the immediate areas for intervention. Those areas are

• trade, innovation, and local entrepreneurship

• national security and defence

• IT

• human resource

• Intra-Africa immigration and mobility

Africa must be provided with leadership and consulted very consistently to resolve issues of tensions with some African states that arose during Covid-19, build enthusiasm for the African Renaissance, and make Africa an inclusive part of any process of the African Renaissance.

The hardcore premises of this view are US dominance is over; Africa is ready for the world, and currently trade favours no country.

The cost of Covid-19 in human lives and social upheaval, its economic impact is unprecedented. Many governments imposed a lockdown of business and citizens for undetermined periods from March-October 2020. They lowered strictness in November which allowed the retail sector to bounce relatively back but a second wave of Covid-19 hit in November. Stricter regulations were reapplied and for the first time in the history of human kind all countries blocked the citizens of other countries from reaching their borders shutting down airports totally. The first wave disrupted supply and shook demand. Financially, public firms accumulated a considerable amount of corporate debt. Extremely few countries in the world have had deep debt levels that arise out of extraordinary circumstances they could not control or they never anticipated. Those countries are only in Europe and include the US. Trillions of US dollars in loans were repaid by US individuals, municipalities, and businesses within a very short time of two years from 2008-2010 during the 2008 Financial Crisis. About 1,159 transactions under several facilities the Federal Reserve established like the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper to meet investors’ demands for redemptions and to foster liquidity in the money market were worth $990.2 billion. The facilities were used for the funding of purchases of eligible ABCP to provide the US economy with liquidity after in March of 2008 the New York Stock Exchange lost $678 billion in rapidly withdrawn investments. No country in Africa has the facilities. The crisis happened after a US company - Enron - was involved in large scale corruption. Now debt in advanced economies is set to reach 125 percent of GDP by the end of 2021 and to rise to about 65 percent of GDP in emerging market economies according to the IMF. But though emerging market economies debt is lower the failure and ability to repay is higher. In December the IMF revised its global GDP forecast higher at 5,4 percent. An assumption is financial conditions which eased following the release of the April 2020 World Economic Outlook are to remain broadly at 2020 levels. This indicates the body sees no fundamental change in the world economy despite Covid-19. It projected growth which was at -4.9 percent in 2020. Proposals informing this analysis of the impact show it is massively miscalculating and South Africa and Africa need to take a stand against it for not driving world growth away from the symptoms of an unfair and unequal world economy Covid-19 exposes. It has an unreliable measure of world economic growth. More than 150 countries and territories eased Covid-19 related travel restrictions according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization by December but that did not revive the world’s economy. The IMF had a 1.9 percentage points below the April 2020 WEO forecast when the world only had two months of the Covid-19 pandemic. It assumed Covid-19 had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of 2020 whereas given the nature of the disease of still virulent mutations into unknown variants and making any development of an effective vaccine not a near possibility its elongated impact drastically increases illness and death and negative economic consequences. Europen economists show universal social distancing results in the loss of output of 25 percent. If restrictions on labour supply reduce effective hours worked by 30 percent the impact on output would be 20 percent. Covid-19 regulations reduced hours worked per working age adult by 25 percent. Over 60 percent of working hours were from home compared with a total of roughly 10 percent in 2017-2018. Extended illness, death, and economic slowdown into 2021 will increase each of the percentages by 50 percent.

The IMFs including projections by economists from the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London show developing countries will be hard hit. About 51 percent who represented a majority a CfM-CEPR panel of macroeconomic experts on the European economy predicted a 2-5 percent decline in the level of potential euro area GDP and the European Central Bank forecasted growth of 1.4 percent in five years’ time throughout the pandemic suggesting for economists ‘a permanent loss in the level of GDP.’ Nearly 40 percent of the economists predicted a small or negligible cost in GDP with 21 percent predicting a potential decline by 2 percent or less and only 19 percent saw no decline at all.

In a paper titled Post-Covid-19 potential output in the euro area Ethan Ilzetzki highlight five key reasons why Covid-19 will have persistent effects. The first is supply chain disruptions that have reduced productivity and only monetary policy interventions would prevent them from leading to larger negative shocks. Second, new entrants to replace firms that failed due to Covid-19 may take time to build fresh capacity and markets. Already an ECB bank lending survey conducted between 21 September and 6 October 2020 from a total of 143 banks who gave a response rate of 100 percent reveal the banks’ rejection rate for loans in the euro area for enterprises increased in the third quarter of 2020 to 3 percent. Third, unemployment tends to be persistent as workers’ skills deteriorate and their attachment to the labour force weaken. Fourth, corporate debt overhang may now create a lesser incentive to invest in productive capital. From research Ilzetzki finds no historical support for post-crisis growth with very large debt levels. Even Africa in the 1980s had to first have its debt of $97 billion addressed through the IMFs High Indebted Countries Initiative for its countries to start growing from 1995. Fifth, low demand will lead to disinvestment in capital and innovation. Demand depends upon very large financial resources for it to be created after a crisis. From the First World War Europe and the US depended upon the US's £1,000,000,000. US bank rates remained unchanged at 4 percent to create access to capital. Growth was fueled by the discovery of new oil fields in Palestine. The war had production decline by 42,028,000 barrels. Britain gave the US the exploration rights in Palestine following a convention between the two countries. This then means there has to be during Covid-19 new production. From all the publications thus far there is no indication from where it will come or that it must take place. Demand after the First World War also depended upon the US shoring up Japan as a new destination for investments and productivity. US investments in Colombia of $170,000,000 created railways, funded other public works, and sent up wages. Imports vastly increased and banks managed voluminous assets which they dispersed easily. To this list must be added the sixth which is that weak technology development which currently has many US and European companies focused upon will very drastically reverse gains in growth Africa has been seeing since 2000. Africa’s growth in 2018 cushioned the world’s from recession according to the IMF's WEO 2019 amidst the US’s trade tensions with China. Africa grew at 4,5 percent but has that growth now threatened by lack of development comparatively of webinar facilities to drive production and facilitate political decisions. All economists on Covid-19 favour the implementation of new technologies to add potential to growth and improve health. There is however no study of the long-term effects of Covid-19 a national planning exercise needs. Ilzetzki says ‘it is difficult to come by’ it.

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thembnko · 4 years ago

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Covid-19 and the world

Since Covid-19 started the world has now reached a stage where

• important people in society are dying (Kings, politicians, journalists, CEOs of companies and celebrities)

• churches feel they are being attacked by government through the police

• societies everywhere are facing increasing financial and economic difficulties, political and social divisions caused by issues of vaccination and racism

The crisis is leading to the worst humanitarian disaster South Africa and Africa ever experienced. Covid-19 cases at the Beit Bridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe reached 101,050 in January 2021 as Zimbabweans fled Zimbabwe after the introduction of new lockdown regulations. South Africa had to shut down 20 land borders. Crime increased and uncertainty and instability in the world. South Africa and Africa faced increased marginalization by the US and Europe in even vaccine manufacturing. South Africa will pay 2,5 times more for vaccines than Europe even though it had negotiations helped by India at the World Trade Organization. International collaboration is increasingly fragmented and inequities are increasing. More than 90 percent of countries now rolling out vaccines are wealthy. Only delays in manufacturing are keeping them from vaccinating. Seventy-five percent of the 130 million deployed doses have been in only ten countries. Meanwhile, almost 130 countries with 2.5 billion people have yet to administer a single dose.

What makes Covid-19 worse are variants. They are more difficult to deal with because they are resistant to any known medicine. Diseases are known to mutate and an effective medicine found. But Covid-19 has not allowed that. The breakdown of the World Health Organization's Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus fter an investigation of the origins in China still haunts. In the event governments had to spread hope through only vaccines. The Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and Covax Facility were created to increase equity. But with every passing day the WHO is concerned that goal was since February 2021 when Ghebreyesus wept not reached. What meanwhile gave South Africans added hope was the visit the President of France Emmanuel Macron paid. He promised to with funding support South Africa's vaccine manufacturing initiative for Africa. The G7 led by the US waved adherence to patents.

The waving of medicinal patents is a historical first. For the first time it levels the playing field between Africa and the world in fighting diseases. The next hurdle is mobilizing massive funding. South Africa must not be lulled. Getting patents is not enough. South Africa suffers a host of chronic and infectious diseases that now are linked with Covid-19. So an integration of vaccines and medicines as well as the personal data of patients on a massive scale is the next hurdle to pass. It will come with a massive recruitment of epidemiologists, medical statisticians or infographers, and doctors. That means a total reorganization of health infrastructure. The National Health Insurance (NHI) was intended to make medicine cheaper by integrating services by the public and private sectors. Covid-19 has required more. The health history of each and every person by street within any municipality is now a priority. New diseases are about infecting blood. The availability of total up to date data for each person will make consistent and regular analysis of medical threats possible. On the basis of the consistent regular analysis early warning capabilities can be developed. This is the comprehensive planning South Africa must have. It cannot just earmark vaccines.

The planning must think anew the role of medical schemes. Funeral insurance must be integrated. The purpose is to make life cheaper. For Covid-19 is driving the costs of medicines and food up. StatsSA has just released a survey showing increases on average are 5,2 percent higher than in 2018. Increases of that kind slow the economy. Hence the co-operation of everyone is necessary. The compilation of the data will create 25,000 new jobs led by information technology and data capturing.

The financing gap for the ACT Accelerator stands at more than $27 billion (about R397.6 billion) for 2021. The WHO does not understand “why, given this is a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars” mobilised for stimulus packages. Most poor nations 'will take until 2024 to achieve mass Covid-19 immunisation. The WHO’s Covax delivered 600,000 vaccine units of the AstraZeneca to Ghana and 504,000 to the Ivory Coast for a continent of 1.7 billion people.

Increasingly healthcare workers in all the provinces have become infected with Covid-19. They are overworked and short.

The state can only deal fast with Covid-19 comprehensively by massively reorganizing. It is the only way to avert total incapacitation. All governments do not have any other solution as schools have been forced to close, hospitals are full, and Gross Domestic Products are falling everywhere.

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thembnko · 4 years ago

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Beware of speculation

WAR produces speculation. As the aftermath of the First World War and the Second World War saw massively produced amounts tend to make governments the target of financial speculators. This is because as producers of the monies they keep in central banks as securities or bonds governments also acquire debt they use as collateral. Many United Kingdom (UK) and US citizens and civil servants during the First World War were private bondholders who lent to the US, British and French governments. When on 24 April 1917 President Woodrow Wilson signed the First Liberty Loan Act authorizing the Treasury to borrow up to $5 billion for the US to enter the war that made them extra-rich. Entente and Allied debts were after the war $600,000,000,000. They purchased some of the debt. Britain and France soon refinanced their short-term debts to private US citizens by borrowing from the US government. The Transvaal supplied about half the total world output of gold. It funded 60 percent of the war debt paying even for German reparations when Germany had massacred 100,000,00 Hereros before the war in South West Africa. War debts were a form of massive “profiteering” because the British also pretended they entered into agreements with colonies even though they had no planned economic development taking place there. All that they emphasized in reports to the League of Nations was how resource endowed Africa was. The Treaty of Saint-Germain was for Austria to pay Britain £250,000 monthly and on it interest of £97,670 4s. 11d. The title indicated colonies were signatories. France had its own debt paid in gold because it insisted so.

Era Dabla-Norris edited in 2019 for the IMF In Debt and Entanglements Between the War. This book is for the whole world to understand how debt for Europe and the US accumulated after the war. The IMF and the World Bank determines financial assistance and exerts strong influence on policies developing countries adopt and on whether or not they receive credit. It highlights learning about the debt the First World War caused is an important step in the resolution of any large-scale problems the world currently has like Covid-19 but as a policy determining help it leads all potential international creditors to conclude developing countries do not have money and commodities to pay emergency loans. They also do not have similar wealth as the citizens of the US before the First World War. Currency volatility and permanent debt are now a permanent feature of developing countries meaning more than 55 percent of the world's population will starting in 2025 have countries with no revenues. Chad, Somalia, and Niger are already those countries hence US officials and Army Commanders went to all the three countries in September 2020 to establish military bases to fight China.

A basis for all countries to understand the international debt the First World War caused is looking at demand and productivity capitalism very quickly underwent as a result of the plundering of Africa during the First World War. For 90 years the IMF like the League of Nations which gave Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium African colonies made the world not to know that. The fall of the international gold standard made Europe and Britain face political uncertainty Africa faced too.

South Africa's gold helped and made the US emerge as a major creditor nation. Governments in Europe were swamped with debt after the First World War but co-operation with the US made 'common movements in growth rates in national GDPs (for example, a worldwide boom in the 1920s followed by the Great Depression in the 1930s)' possible within a short period of 18 years. No region in the world had produ the fall of the international gold standard made Europe and Britain face political uncertainty Africa faced too the same consequence. South Africa's gold helped and made the US emerge as a major creditor nation. Governments in Europe were swamped with debt after the First World War but co-operation with the US made 'common movements in growth rates in national GDPs (for example, a worldwide boom in the 1920s followed by the Great Depression in the 1930s)' possible within a short period of 18 years. No region in the world had productivity as Europe and the Americas because raw materials France, Britain, Italy, and Belgium extracted from Africa were extremely abundant. Labour as a result grew demands for social security, housing, wage increases of 10 percent, shorter working hours, an age limit to start to work, recognition of women's protection and bargaining rights. Realise this: social security and housing together form a 'social wage' that is provided for by the state in billions of US dollars. Worker income was seperate. This in human relations was a great revolution funded through speculation. The standard of living increased dramatically. The International Labour Organization (ILO) had one aim after it was formed after the war in 1919: to prevent another war using social policy. All governments co-operated with it. All countries eventually increased momentum for faster delivery of social services such as education, health, child and elderly guardianship by having volunteers except in Africa. By 1973 governments had so co-operated to make Europe's and the US's living standard equal at so an entire region moved at the same time. An entire region now has the same labour legislation.

The ILO only started working in Africa in 1973. To date labour legislation in Africa is not uniform and does not equal Europe's or the US's. It only covers work injuries and bargaining and unlike in Europe and the US excludes housing and social security.

When making comparisons between 1913 and 1928 regarding productivity and population growth it will be found the world’s population had increased by 10 percent. The production of foodstuffs and raw materials had increased by 25 percent. Foodstuffs alone increased by 16 percent and raw materials by no less than 40 percent. GDP growth rates averaged 5,8 percent. The League of Nations recorded that this was for Europe a ‘very rapid and substantial progress.’ ‘Other Continents’ just had ‘normal progress.' For the rest of the world it was only 2,4 percent. This differentiation continued in 1929. If the Soviet Union was excluded the differences would be still great. Growth in international trade was not so marked showing the increases were due to South Africa and Africa.

Britain had a standard of living that was higher than any other country in the world. In 1930 it had 1 million people that were unemployed but 12 million workers were insured. There was in general an expansion of 43 percent in the number of the insured population since 1923. There was a post-war boom which raised Europe's competitiveness. Weekly wage rates in Britain were 70 percent above the 1914 levels. Overseas investments totalled £235 million. Gold placed Britain internationally in the strategic position of being able to influence the value of all currencies and the price of commodities because it set the value. Mines in South Africa had to increase employment. From 100,000 South African mines had to employ 205,000 black workers producing £42,997,608 worth of gold in 1927 and £85,323,447 the following year. The world's monetary stock of gold rose during 1930 from £2,301 billion to £2,407 billion but only eight countries (Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, US, Argentina, and Japan) held 80 percent excluding South Africa. Of the eight the US, France, and Britain controlled 74 percent.

South Africa's gold exports increased from 10,7 percent to 10,8 percent in 1956. The ANC had by the time already a known delegation to the UK in 1919 pleading for liberation and adopted in the wake of the Second World War an Africa Claims document calling on Europe and the US to stop colonization and the Freedom Charter promising the nationalization of mines. It had no British government’s support for the white South African government to end apartheid and yet again reinstated the gold standard premising as before the Second World War national security on it. To the extent a Trends in Usage of Gold report of the National Materials Advisory Board showed Britain made South Africa still produce by 1965 more gold than any other country. It produced 30,554,000 ounces; Canada 3,587,000 ounces; and the US 1,675,000 ounces. Austria came last at 878,000,00 ounces. This gold was for a single country with a population slightly higher than South Africa’s. Because of apartheid mining companies including municipalities deferred the payment of wages arguing blacks used the money for liquor. The US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facilitated the arrest of Nelson Mandela for forming UMkhonto WeSizwe (MK) as a military wing of the ANC. Thus after giving its gold and raw materials for capitalism upon which speculation rose South Africa now has 2.2 million people living in slums. Every year it delivers 200,000 free formal houses but because of population growth the figure just moves slightly. Consequently government will never end slums and that prospect has now been increased by the need for government to repay the R500 billion it borrowed from the IMF for Covid-19 during March 2020.

There are seven chapters in Debt and Entanglements Between the Wars and they all emphasize the fact that sovereign debt is a claim on a state’s future revenue. Karl Marx devoted time for four decades to write about the debt. In The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850 he highlighted the increasing role of the state on debt under capitalism. He saw debt as an instrument by which the exercise of political power and repression by the powerful over the powerless was made possible. For debt gave political power to the creditors of the state. He wrote it turned unproductive capital accumulation into a vital form where the national debt through government bonds formed the most important subject of speculation and the bourse the chief market for the investment of capital. So speculation under the development of capitalism before 1900 was made rife against the state because it had revenue and sources. Gold after its discovery strengthened the trend because cash deposits and liquid assets kept by central banks all of a sudden became very large.

Speculators siphoned money off the state paying little attention to the public’s needs. When he wrote speculation was a developing capitalist trend that had not caused wars. The world since then had two major wars in the First World War and the Second World War. They killed 10 million people. The Second World War originated because Adolf Hitler claimed Germany lost its surplus through the League of Nations when it gave Britain, France, Italy, and Belgium its African colonies after the First World War.

The IMF regarding Covid-19 has an Extension of Consultation Cycles Due To Covid-19 Pandemic, and Suspension of Framework To Address Excessive Delays in Article IV Consultations and Mandatory Financial Stability Assessments document. It is about mandatory Financial Stability Assessments (FSAs). The approach is not flexible for it lays the framework consultations as in the case of Venezuela going back to 2004 when Covid-19 did not exist. That opens opportunities for speculation since as Ingham Analytics also reports that from March 2021 the US ten-year Treasury hit 1,74 percent, its highest since January 2020. Stocks in the UK also rose to 0,84 percent from 0,2 percent. It reports yield curves steepened across the board compared with last year causing bond investors in the US to anticipate a rise soon in interest rates betting that inflation is close given the very large amounts central banks and the IMF gave for Covid-19 social relief. Ingham Analytics highlight inflation is bad for bonds. So bond investors are globally to press for interest rates to quickly rise again.

Much like in South Africa there has been a big rise in the supply of Treasury stock. To prepare for the speculation and prevent its possible damage to South Africa and Africa and to relations with Europe, US and BRICS including with multilateral organizations or international financial institutions the South African government must demand (a) an amendment of the IMF's Article IV so where Covid-19 matters are pertinent they are the only focus (b) an inclusive thorough study of prices in all major countries, the state of their exchange rates and monetary policies and preparedness to cope with higher interest rates.

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