Economy Archives - Maroonsquare

Interrogating the Concept of Restructuring for Progress or Balkanizing to Retrogression; Using Sudan and Yugoslavia as Case Study

6Aug

By Chijioke UwasombaNo Comments

Articles, Economy, News

Interrogating the Concept of Restructuring for Progress or Balkanizing to Retrogression; Using Sudan and Yugoslavia as Case Study

At The Maroonsquare two-day Discourse on National Development held on the 1st and 2nd of July, 2021 held at the Science Auditorium, Federal College of Education (Tech), Akoka, Yaba, Lagos with the theme; Identity Politics and the National Question in Nigeria sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Issues of National interest that includes insecurity, agitations by different minority groups within the Nigerian entity and facts with solutions were brought to the fore. Ms. Oliseh Kadishi in her paper discusses the issues surrounding the idea of whether a broken Nigeria will bring progress to the various nationalities in the Nigerian entity, considering the experience of other nations. Ms. Oliseh in her paper concedes to the fact that the history of the creation of the Nigerian state...

11Aug

By maroonsquareNo Comments

Economy, News

America: A Declining Empire

Regardless of the outcome, the election will not stop the rise of hypernationalism, crisis cults, and other signs of an empire’s terminal decline. The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark yearnings amon...

25Mar

By Peter KoenigNo Comments

Articles, Economy

Water Is Profit – The Song of the New Age

Very soon, there may be no river to swim in as National governments in the spirit of disposal of national, natural and mineral assets would have sold all to private individuals writes Peter Koenig. Author’s Update, March 24, 2019: Today is World Water Day 2019 – and the situation has become much worse. Today, Jair Bolsonaro, is Brazil’s President, pushed in by Washington, a fascist with no respect for human life, as long as it is not his own, or that of his cronies, and even less respect for the environment, the beautiful planet earth which gives us all life. Under his leadership, not only water is being privatized, but all of Amazonia is up for grabs -that’s what Bolsonaro says and wants to make sure the corporate thieves understand. Rain forest can indiscriminately logged ...

Davos: The Rich Gather to Disdain the Poor

28Jan

By Dr. Jack RasmusNo Comments

Articles, Economy, News

Davos: The Rich Gather to Disdain the Poor

At Davos, Switzerland every year the global capitalist elite gather to party…and to prepare for the year ahead. This year more than 1500 private jets will reportedly fly in. Thousands more of their underling staff will travel via business class to handle their personal, and corporate, logistics. Shielded from the media and the pubic, the big capitalists share views in back rooms and listen to experts on finance, government policy, technology, and the economy. The experts are especially probed to identify and explain the next ‘black swan’ or ‘gray rhino’ event about to erupt. Wealthy celebrities are invited to entertain them as well after evening dinner and cocktails. But the real networking goes on privately afterwards, in small groups or one on one, among the big capitalists themselves o...

Sanctions of Mass Destruction: America’s War on Venezuela

1Jan

By maroonsquareNo Comments

Articles, Economy, News, Politics

Sanctions of Mass Destruction: America’s War on Venezuela

American economic sanctions have been the worst crime against humanity since World War Two. America’s economic sanctions have killed more innocent people than all of the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons ever used in the history of mankind. The fact that for America the issue in Venezuela is oil, not democracy, will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet. America seeks control of Venezuela because it sits atop the strategic intersection of the Caribbean, South and Central American worlds. Control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond. From the first moment Hugo Chavez took office, the United States has been trying to ...

IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and Scaremongering

17Oct

By Peter KoenigNo Comments

Articles, Business, Economy

IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and Scaremongering

17 October 2018 Chief Olusegun Obasanjo As former Nigerian president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo pranced about like an overfed sun-bird that ate pepper at the Bretton Woods Institutions' meeting in Bali, Indonesia and his supporters clapped for him, we wished they had taken out time and read this interesting article on the Bali Conference by Peter Koenig As key representatives of the three chief villains of international finance and trade, the IMF, World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) met on the lush resort island of Bali, Indonesia, they warned the world of dire consequences in terms of reduced international investments and decline of economic growth as a result of the ever-widening trade wars initiated and instigated by the Trump Administration. They cri...

Poverty in Nigeria: Revisiting Theresa May’s Concern

4Sep

By Salihu Moh. LukmanNo Comments

Articles, Economy, Politics

Poverty in Nigeria: Revisiting Theresa May’s Concern

Ahead of her August 29, 2018 visit to Nigeria, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, remarked that 87 million Nigerians live on less than $1.90 a day, making Nigeria “home to more very poor people than any other nation in the world.” It is interesting how the statement attracted public attention almost as if it is a new discovery. The truth is that Ms. May could have made the statement to justify why her visit to Nigeria was a priority for UK government. Whether such a justification is validated with reference to details of bilateral relations between UK and Nigeria is a different matter entirely. No doubt UK government should be concerned about developments in Nigeria for its own strategic interest. Considering the population of Nigerian or Nigerian students, medical doctors and ot...

Development in Nigeria – Professor Princewill Alozie

20Jul

By Prof. Princewill AlozieNo Comments

Articles, Economy

Development in Nigeria – Professor Princewill Alozie

Prof. Alozie In many respects, it is a misnomer to speak of development in Nigeria the way we understand it generally to mean positive improvement in life. Development however, entails motion relative to a notional starting point and can veer towards any direction of a compass. It can be negative or positive as we say in terms of integers in mathematics. It is probably better in discussing the development, to be talking about the deepening of over-exploitation in Nigeria. Nigeria, following Claude Ake’s logic, belongs to polities where “there is really no state, liberal or autocratic”. That assertion by Ake makes it pointless to discuss Development Paradigm in the sense Thomas Kuhn used the term in his Structure of Scientific Revolution. A paradigm in the scientific sense has ...

Agrarian Crisis: Poverty, Climate Catastrophe and Violence

10Jul

By Colin TodhunterNo Comments

Articles, Economy

Agrarian Crisis: Poverty, Climate Catastrophe and Violence

According to the World Bank’s lending report, based on data compiled up to 2015, India was easily the largest recipient of its loans in the history of the institution. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the World Bank exerts a certain hold over India. In the 1990s, the IMF and World Bank wanted India to shift hundreds of millions out of agriculture. In return for up to £90 billion in loans, India was directed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies, run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops to earn foreign exchange. The plan for India involves the mass displacement of people to restructure agriculture for the benefit of powerful corporations. This involves shifting at least 400 million from the countryside into cit...

Pastoralist-Farmers Conflicts and the Search for Peaceful Resolution

1Feb

By maroonsquareNo Comments

Articles, Economy

Pastoralist-Farmers Conflicts and the Search for Peaceful Resolution

Introduction Pastoralists-farmers’ conflicts in Nigeria have grown, spread and intensified over the past decade and today poses a threat to national survival. Thousands of people have been killed, communities have been destroyed and so many farmers and pastoralists have lost their lives and property in an orgy of killings and destruction that is not only destroying livelihoods but also affecting national cohesion. Each day, we witness more reprisal killings that are simply making the possibilities of peaceful resolution more difficult. Rural banditry is becoming the norm in the Nigerian hinterland and has been transformed into a vicious criminal activity. The result is that the scale of loss of both herds and human life has been escalating and the victims are on all sides – subsist...