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Tuesday 09th of March 2021
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08-MAR-2021 :: Lights Must Never Go Out
World Of Finance
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The lights must never go out,
The music must always play September 1, 1939 W. H. Auden
#Giacometti 'Walking Man' #sculpture
Notwithstanding the departure of President Trump from The White House and his Social Media Megaphone [a Megaphone that induced such a neck snapping intra day volatility into geopolitical affairs],
one senses that the c21st World remains viral and even exponential just below the surface.
The Volatility we experienced on a daily basis via Trump’s rat-a-tat Tweets [but somehow he managed to keep the markets on a tight leash] seems to have now been exported into the markets proper but more of that later.
President Biden soft-pedalled on Xinjiang “Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow”
Which comments delivered the Uighurs to Xi Jinping on a silver Platter.
Xi Jinping is both Sun Tzu ‘'The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting'' And hard edged at the same time.
He has brought Hong Kong to heel, he is prowling around Taiwan like a Lion prowled around our Tent one night in the Tsavo, he has marched 400 kms into Indian Territory and Narendra ‘’Benito’’ Modi has said nary a word.
Xi has taken calculated risks.
The muscular and multi-faceted nature of Chinese Power is seen in its handling of COVID19
.@FHeisbourg François Heisbourg: «Le coronavirus, c’est un Tchernobyl chinois à la puissance dix»
First, they staged their "exemplary handling" of the pandemic in a very loud manner, in order to avoid interest in the regime.
And then they severely punished countries that demanded an impartial international investigation, made up of the best experts. Australia, which had insisted on the need for transparency, was imposed economic sanctions and a block on its imports.
The debate on the origin of the virus remains totally open, fundamental and potentially explosive.
Controlling the COVID19 Narrative, suppressing the Enquiry, parlaying the situation into one of singular advantage marks a singular moment
and Xi Jinping has exhibited Chinese dominance over multiple theatres from the Home Front, the International Media Domain, the ‘’Scientific’’ domain over which he has achieved complete ownership and where any dissenting view is characterized as a ‘’conspiracy theory’’
It remains a remarkable achievement.
Of course, the c21st World is not bipolar but the relationship between the US and China remains the overwhelming question.
The Markets have been bracing themselves for a Post Pandemic World.
@Naval said Scientists who support silencing opposing voices are actually priests. @naval
And the belief in Vaccine Efficacy is now bumping at euphoric levels.
Folks I followed on Twitter for their epidemiological excellence now simply recite Vaccine / Inoculation data like a liturgy.
And sure the numbers slid for around 6 consecutive weeks but they have bottomed out of late.
Its not clear what % of the suppression was due to the ‘’hard’’ lockdowns [non pharmaceutical intervention] and what % was due to the vaccinnes.
We will discover the answer imminently.
My concern is that Brazil which was the epicenter of the Virus in May 2020 is once again a Precursor and a Harbinger
“I see a huge storm forming in Brazil.” Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington
The bottom line: P.1 is 2.5 times more transmissible than the wild-type B lineage. And way more transmissible than B.1.1.7. @bollemdb @obscovid19br
? s=20
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Professor Allen Bartlett
Exponential growth unlike any other that we have seen. Brazil is a global threat @bollemdb
Model-based evaluation of transmissibility and reinfection for the P.1 variant of the SARS-CoV-2
The variant of concern (VOC) P.1 emerged in the Amazonas state (Brazil) and was sequenced for the first time on 6-Jan- 2021 by the Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
It contains a constellation of mutations, ten of them in the spike protein.
The P.1 variant shares mutations such as E484K, K417T, and N501Y and a deletion in the orf1b protein (del11288-11296 (3675-3677 SGF)) with other VOCs previously detected in the United Kingdom and South Africa (B.1.1.7 and the B.1.351, respectively).
Prevalence of P.1 increased sharply from 0% in November 2020 to 73% in January 2021 and in less than 2 months replaced previous lineages (4).
The estimated relative transmissibility of P.1 is 2.5 (95% CI: 2.3-2.8) times higher than the infection rate of the wild variant, while the reinfection probability due to the new variant is 6.4% (95% CI: 5.7 - 7.1%).
If you have a "normal" pandemic that is fading, but "variants" that [are] surging, the combined total can look like a flat, manageable situation. @spignal
We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
COVID19 Historic Peaks Deaths a day @brodjustice
? s=20
This week, as Brazil reported back-to-back record deaths from the virus, Bolsonaro welcomed allies for a lunch in Brasilia. http://j.mp/2PCqgnH
The largely maskless group feasted on typical dishes, including beans with sausage and collard greens, plus a whole roast pig.
The following day, the president raged against governors for creating panic in the population.
"You didn't stay home, you didn't cower," Bolsonaro told a crowd of supporters on Thursday.
"We have to face our fears. No more fussiness, no more whining. Are people going to cry forever?"
States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”
Ibn Khaldun explained the intrinsic relationship between political leadership and the management of pandemics in the pre-colonial period in his book Muqaddimah
Historically, such pandemics had the capacity to overtake “the dynasties at the time of their senility, when they had reached the limit of their duration” and, in the process, challenged their “power and curtailed their [rulers’] influence...”
Rulers who are only concerned with the well-being of their “inner circle and their parties” are an incurable “disease”. States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”
I expect th P.1 Lineage to be dominant worldwide in 8-12 weeks notwithstanding the Focus on SARS-CoV-2 lineage B.1.1.7
My Thesis is based on the ultra hyperconnectedness of the c21st World.
Therefore, I would be tempering my COVID19 optimism and holding my horses which introduces interesting dynamics into the markets.
The Markets Its all been about the move in the US 10 Year Bond
It's been the third worst start to a year for benchmark Treasuries since 1830: DB's Jim Reid @lisaabramowicz1
1367815942084952064?s=20
2021 could be like 2009 for long-maturity bonds @jsblokland
1368306891898707968?s=20
chart of the week, showing the rise in 10 year US Treasury yields. @WilliamClouston
The World is pirouetting on the pinhead of the Yield of the US 10 YR
81⁄2 ~ Federico Fellini (1963) @Futura_Noir
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YCC is already in play The Fed is on its largest buying spree of Treasuries since June 2020. $95B in the last 4 weeks. 90% of all were longer duration bonds. @TaviCosta
World Of Finance
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Pamela Anderson is putting her California beach house on the market. @WSJ.
RealEstate, Housing & Construction
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Python in the Zambezi National Park of Zimbabwe @zimlocals
Africa
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Heavenly @kaziranga_ PC - jyotipon sarmah [@WillKnocker Butea monosperma]
Africa
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'You felt the land taking you back to what was there a hundred years ago, to what had been there always.”
Africa
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The 1894 Rand McNally Map of Africa received a digital makeover with elevation data @simongerman600
Africa
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Brompton Cemetery @London_W4
Misc.
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We're the last billionth of a second in the evolution of matter. DON DELILLO, Point Omega
Misc.
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Sunrise over Samburu National Reserve @nigelsainsbury
Africa
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Sunrise in Samburu. Photo by Christopher Tak @WanjiruWahomes
Africa
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Political Reflections
Law & Politics
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@Pontifex has boarded a flight to leave Baghdad for Rome
Law & Politics
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The Spectre of Totalitarianism @TheCriticMag @RSkidelsky
Law & Politics
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In March 2019, tax expert Maya Forstater was dismissed from her job — legally, according to a later judicial ruling — for voicing the view that “sex is a biological fact, and is immutable.”
When author J.K. Rowling came to Forstater’s defence, she was bombarded with abuse, including an invitation from one lady to “choke on my fat trans cxxk”. The case became a cause célèbre.
But it is only one of many such cases. Today, anyone who ventures a controversial opinion on “trans”, race, disability, Middle Eastern politics and a handful of other issues risks being fired, insulted, intimidated and possibly prosecuted.
Last year, a “Journal of Controversial Ideas” was launched, offering authors the option of writing under a pseudonym “in order to protect themselves from threats to their careers or physical safety”. How did things come to this pass?
The new intolerance is often seen as a specifically left-wing phenomenon — an intensification of the “political correctness” which emerged on US campuses in the 1980s. But that is a one-sided view of the matter.
It was US Zionists who pioneered the tactic of putting pressure on organisations to disinvite unfavoured speakers; far-right nationalists are among the keenest cyberbullies; and religious zealots of all stripes are prodigal of death threats.
Generalising, one might say that left-wing groups, being more publicly respectable in our part of the world, prefer to pursue their objectives through institutions and the law, whereas right-wing groups seek out the anonymity of the internet.
But the goal on each side is the same: it is to intimidate, suppress, silence. In any case, the distinction between “left” and “right” is becoming increasingly muddled, as lines shift and alliances regroup.
All one can safely say is that the various forms of contemporary extremism imitate and incite each other. What has given way is the civilised middle ground.
For this reason, I prefer to speak not of “fascism” or “political correctness” but of “totalitarianism”, a label designed to pick out what is common to fanaticisms of left and right.
Totalitarianism is often thought of as a type of regime, which may make my use of the term seem hyperbolic; after all, we still live in a democracy.
But it can also be understood in a broad sense, as a frame of mind and a style of political action.
Totalitarianism in this broad sense existed in Russia and Germany before the establishment in either country of a totalitarian regime, and it remained a force in West European politics even after the war, if only on the radical fringe.
It is totalitarianism in this sense whose recent rise to prominence alarms me.
A public inured to totalitarian habits of thought and action is unlikely to offer much resistance to a totalitarian takeover of the state.
Lenin and Hitler were at least open in their disdain for tolerance, associating it, correctly, with the liberalism they hated
What are the marks of totalitarianism, understood in this broad way? First and most obviously, intolerance.
All totalitarian movements are intolerant in aspiration, even if they lack the power to give their intolerance legislative force.
Lenin always insisted on obedience to a single line, dictated by himself; much of his energy prior to 1917 was spent attacking “deviationists” among the ranks.
Hitler was equally vigorous in persecuting opponents, though in his case these tended to lie outside rather than within the party.
From 1929 onwards, “unGerman” writers and artists could expect to receive threatening letters and phone calls and to have their public appearances disrupted.
In March 1932, the Nazi paper Völkischer Beobachter published a declaration, signed by 42 professors, calling for the protection of German culture against its enemies.
Later that year, the Dessau Bauhaus was shut down under Nazi pressure.
All these strategies of intimidation and suppression have been revived in recent years, usually by people who have no idea of their Bolshevik and Nazi antecedents.
Lenin and Hitler were at least open in their disdain for tolerance, associating it, correctly, with the liberalism they hated.
But many of their modern imitators regard themselves as supremely tolerant, indeed as more than tolerant. How is this possible?
The answer lies in a peculiar mutation of concepts, whose significance often goes unnoticed.
Tolerance in the classical liberal sense involves the simultaneous affirmation of two propositions: that 1) an idea or practice is wrong, and that 2) it has a right to exist.
This dual affirmation, if not strictly contradictory, is at any rate hard to sustain psychologically.
It runs contrary to our natural inclination, which to eliminate ideas and practices which we think are wrong.
Tolerance is a strenuous attitude. It is the attitude of a cultivated elite, which has succeeded in managing its disagreements with irony and good humour.
The demand for affirmation entails a new form of intolerance
In recent years, the classical liberal idea of tolerance has shaded, imperceptibly, into the very different idea of affirmation.
If tolerance requires us to grant liberty to beliefs and practices which we regard as wrong, “affirmation” demands that we embrace without qualification the full spectrum of lifestyles and identities.
(“All different, all equal” and “acceptance with exception” are two recent Stonewall campaign slogans.)
From the standpoint of affirmation, mere tolerance is an unsatisfactory half-way house — a grudging “putting up with” what ought to be wholeheartedly embraced.
As Bernard Williams once put it, there seems to be something not quite right about the outlook of a couple who “tolerate” their gay neighbours.
This view of affirmation as the perfection of tolerance — “super-tolerance”, as it were — is misleading.
In reality, the demand for affirmation entails a new form of intolerance, all the more powerful for not being recognised as such.
For logically, if affirmation is required, non-affirmation is forbidden. There can be no tolerance for the unaffirming.
This — note — is very different from the older liberal principle of “no tolerance for the intolerant”.
That principle served only to rule out the Lenins and Hitlers of this world, preserving a wide scope for disagreement.
But if what is required is not just tolerance, but affirmation, the scope for disagreement is nil. All must affirm, or else face “cancellation”.
Herein lies the secret of that strange and horrible metamorphosis whereby the champions of “diversity” and “inclusivity” have become the most zealous persecutors of the modern age.
In recent years, the call for affirmation has sounded loudest from one quarter in particular. There are many views of what it means to be a man or woman, none of them established by science or reason.
But under the advocacy of Stonewall and other powerful lobbies, a single view has attained a virtual monopoly on public discourse: to be a man or woman is to “identify as” a man or woman, irrespective of looks, anatomy, or other people’s opinion.
To query this view, even by way of philosophical discussion, is transphobic hate speech, which is a crime. “Some women have penises. Get over it.”
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The Spectre of Totalitarianism @TheCriticMag @RSkidelsky [continued]
Law & Politics
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One might have expected the universities, those self-proclaimed bastions of free inquiry, to have taken the lead in debating this controversial new set of ideas.
Instead, they have taken the lead in enforcing it. Most UK universities are Stonewall “diversity champions”, meaning they are committed to implementing the Stonewall line on gender identity.
Dissenters among staff and students are investigated, censored and sometimes expelled. Many choose to remain silent. Fear and shame pervade the air.
One anonymous critic writes of being shunned by colleagues and friends wary of “guilt by association”.
Another admits to having been “cowed by the fear of dispute and conflict”.
True, there are no Black Marias at dawn — not yet, at least.
But the basic totalitarian principle has already been conceded: gender voluntarism is now an official tenet of British education, just as dialectical materialism was an official tenet of Soviet education.
Intolerance is essential to the totalitarian spirit, but it is not exclusive to it. All the great Abrahamic religions obey wherever they can the psalmist’s injunction not to let “an evil speaker be established in the earth”.
What distinguishes totalitarian intolerance from this age-old religious intolerance is its demand for complete, enthusiastic commitment to the cause.
Not just abstention from evil, but wholehearted promotion of the good, is enjoined on us all.
Neutrality is a smokescreen. Silence is treason. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
The classic exponent of this “either-or” style of reasoning was Lenin, who used it to great effect to silence the independent-minded among his supporters.
“The only choice is either bourgeois or socialist ideology,” he wrote in 1901. “Hence to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree, means to strengthen the bourgeois ideology.”
Lenin’s logic was implacable. Since Marxism comprised the totality of truth, to depart from it by as much as a whisker was — “objectively”, as he liked to say, meaning independently of intentions — to put oneself the side of falsehood and reaction.
There could be no middle way, no compromise.
The Black Lives Matter movement is in this Leninist tradition of revolutionary maximalism. Slogans such as “Silence is violence” and “It is not enough to be not racist, you must be anti-racist” are designed to make enemies of all those who are not allies.
Everyone must “sign up”, get “on board”. Those who choose to occupy their time in other ways are either traitors (if they are black) or racists (if they are white).
This is the significance of those ritual gestures which BLM has inflicted on a bemused public.
If everyone around you is raising a fist or taking a knee, refusal to do likewise becomes a deliberate statement of opposition. Neutrality is not an option. You are either with us or against us.
But the drive for total commitment does not rest content with raised arms and bent legs. It seeks to penetrate deep into the psyche, to ferret out the hidden resistances and biases which are assumed to lurk there.
It calls for self-scrutiny, self-criticism. Hence BLM campaigners furiously reject the protestation of many whites that they are not racist.
All whites are racist, if only “implicitly” or “structurally” — claims impossible to falsify.
They must confess their guilt — or “reflect on their privilege”, in the wheedling language of the movement — if they wish to be admitted as “allies”.
Sometimes rituals are devised to assist them in this endeavour.
For instance, participants in the “privilege walk” are requested to take one step forwards for each advantage they enjoy (being white, male, straight, cisgender, etc) and one step back for each disadvantage, after which they are invited to “think about” what they have learnt.
This Maoist exercise in public humiliation is now part of diversity training workshops in many institutions.
Everyday is another target of the totalitarian project. To minds weaned on gender and race theory, a casual chat in the corridor or after-work drink in the pub is by no means the innocuous private affair we might naively suppose it to be.
It is a minefield of petty insults and humiliations — or “microaggressions”, as they are known.
A microaggression is a small indignity of the kind which members of minority groups are said to experience on a daily basis.
Examples (I quote from the literature) include being complimented on speaking good English, being stared at in public, and being asked “where are you from?”
Crucially, a microaggression may be unintended by, or even invisible to, its perpetrator. What defines it as a microaggression is the upset which it causes its “victim”.
Anything, then, can be a microaggression so long as it is perceived as a microaggression. The concept has no legal or scientific value.
Nevertheless, microaggressions are now taken very seriously, especially on campuses, where they can form the basis for a charge of harassment.
A report on racism in UK universities published last year by the Equality and Human Rights Commission contains the following revealing statement:
The perpetrator of the microaggression may not have any harassing intent. Therefore, whether their behaviour amounts to harassment is likely to depend on the effect it had on the victim.
Philosophically and jurisprudentially, this statement is a disaster. It amounts to a denial of the mens rea, the intention to do what is wrong, which is an essential component of crime in all civilised systems of law.
(It is also a misinterpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which makes the judgment of “a reasonable person” the criterion of whether or not an action is harassment.)
Practically, it has led to a surge of malicious accusations and a consequent waning of trust, especially, and sadly, between lecturers and students.
A cold wind has descended on UK campuses. One Chinese scholar I know says that she feels less free in Britain than in Beijing or Shanghai.
There, certain topics are untouchable in public, but over dinner, among friends, nothing is off-limits.
Here, she has to watch herself all the time, even among friends. Perhaps it is time to retire that pompous phrase, “the free world”.
Liberal societies are rightfully proud of having nurtured traditions of debate and inquiry which transcend differences of political opinion.
“I disagree with him on almost every issue of substance, but he is someone committed to reasoning about ideas,” said philosopher Jeff McMahan about fellow philosopher Roger Scruton in the Guardian.
I find such statements strangely moving. They speak of an allegiance to something higher than party and faction, to shared standards of argument, and ultimately to truth.
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Whoever Controls The Narrative Controls The World
Law & Politics
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The Pandemic and Political Order @ForeignAffairs @FukuyamaFrancis
Another reason for pessimism is that the positive scenarios assume some sort of rational public discourse and social learning.
Yet the link between technocratic expertise and public policy is weaker today than in the past, when elites held more power.
The democratization of authority spurred by the digital revolution has flattened cognitive hierarchies along with other hierarchies, and political decision-making is now driven by often weaponized babble.
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VIDEO: For generations, Ghulam Sakhi and his family in the Bamiyan valley in central Afghanistan, took pride in the two giant Buddha statues The ancient artifacts were blown up twenty years ago by the Taliban @AFP
Law & Politics
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VIDEO: For generations, Ghulam Sakhi and his family in the Bamiyan valley in central Afghanistan, took pride in the two giant Buddha statues for which their home was famous The ancient artifacts were blown up twenty years ago by the Taliban
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04-JAN-2021 :: we are witnessing massive decline in the cognitive capacity of leadership and a steep decline in the intellectual capacity of the corpus.
Law & Politics
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We live in an Era of gobbledygook debate, a moment of complete combustion. Just open your social media account and its a torrent of bite sized nonsense.
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The ''warp speed'' Vaccine Roll Out is chasing the coat Tails of the Virus.
Law & Politics
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In a real-life, textbook example of host-microbe interaction, 2 parallel arcs have dominated “recent” SARS-CoV-2 news—vaccines and variants.
Law & Politics
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SARS-CoV-2's spike (S) protein is 1273 amino acids long and is the main target of current COVID-19 vaccines, as well as those in development.
It is the portion of the virus that recognizes and binds to host cellular receptors and mediates viral entry. SARS-CoV-2 is unable to infect host cells without it.
Because of this, mutations in the S gene, particularly those that affect portions of the protein that are critical for pathogenesis and normal function (such as the receptor binding domain (RBD) or furin cleavage site) or those that cause conformational changes to the S protein, are of the greatest interest.
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“Why should current Covid-19 vaccines not be used for mass vaccination during a pandemic?” Geert Vanden Bossche, PhD, DVM H/T @amicocolorido
Law & Politics
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Please do have a look at them. The bottom-line is that I don’t see how mass vaccination campaigns would not lead to a disastrous aggravation of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, no one else seems to realize; instead, vaccinologists, clinicians and scientists are merely focusing on the (positive) short-term results and impact at an individual level.
Nobody seems to be looking at the consequences and risk at a human population level (which, according to my understanding, will become manifest quite soon).
Why is nobody worried about ‘immune escape’ whereas Covid-19 has already escaped people’s innate immunity as reflected by multiple emerging, much more infectious, viral variants (most likely due to the global implementation of infection prevention measures)?
Vaccine deployment in the ongoing mass immunization campaigns are highly likely to further enhance (adaptive) immune escape as none of the current vaccines will prevent replication/ transmission of viral variants.
The more we use these vaccines for immunizing people in the midst of a pandemic, the more infectious the virus will become.
It's not exactly rocket science, it’s a basic principle taught in a student’s first vaccinology class:
One shouldn’t use a prophylactic vaccine in populations exposed to high infectious pressure (which is now certainly the case as multiple highly infectious variants are currently circulating in many parts of the world).
To fully escape selective immune pressure exerted by vaccinal antibodies, Covid-19, a highly mutable virus, only needs to add another few mutations in its receptor-binding domain ...
However, unless I am proven wrong, this cannot be an excuse for ignoring that mankind may currently be transforming a quite harmless virus into an uncontrollable monster. I’ve never been that serious about a statement I made.
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We are at peak vaccine euphoria
Law & Politics
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A highly transmissible variant accelerates the pace of the epidemic in Brazil and poses a threat to neighboring countries, as well as to the rest of the world. @obscovid19br
Misc.
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I expect th P.1 Lineage to be dominant worldwide in 8-12 weeks My Thesis is based on the ultra hyperconnectedness of the c21st World
Misc.
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Faria and collaborators estimated a transmissibility rate in the range of 1.4–2.2 times higher and 25–61% (check Fig A below) evasion of protective immunity related to the P.1 variant. @obscovid19br
Misc.
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Faria and collaborators integrated mortality and genomic data and, using a semi-mechanistic Bayesian model, estimated a transmissibility rate in the range of 1.4–2.2 times higher and 25–61% (check Fig A below) evasion of protective immunity related to the P.1 variant.
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International Markets
World Of Finance
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Currency Markets at a Glance WSJ
World Currencies
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Euro 1.1857
Dollar Index 92.344
Japan Yen 109.14
Swiss Franc 0.9357
Pound 1.3834
Aussie 0.7651
India Rupee 73.1525
South Korea Won 1140.78
Brazil Real 5.8758
Egypt Pound 15.7101
South Africa Rand 15.4799
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Dollar Index Chart INO 92.344
World Currencies
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Euro versus the Dollar Chart 1.1859
World Currencies
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The Yen has lost 4% against the dollar in a week and a half. @coloradotravis 109.14
World Currencies
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Commodity Markets at a Glance WSJ
Commodities
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Crude Oil Chart INO 64.96
Commodities
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Yesterday, there were 8,395 new cases and 230 new deaths. @BeautifyData
Africa
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317,794 Active COVID-19 Cases in Africa @BeautifyData
Africa
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-38.88% % below 520,000 record high from January 2021
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Active #Covid19 cases record 520,000 was in January 2021 @NKCAfrica
Africa
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Africa is currently reporting a million new infections about every 58 days and has reported more than 3,993,000 since the pandemic began @ReutersGraphics
Africa
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Togo 96% Ivory Coast 95% Botswana 94%
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We all know by now ''viruses exhibit non-linear and exponential characteristics'
Africa
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Drinking The Kool Aid
Africa
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Key to Resolving Covid’s Global Debt Crunch: Transparency Ceyla Pazarbasioglu & @carmenmreinhart @BloombergQuint
Africa
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Many low-income countries have suffered a severe economic contraction that has derailed budgets and created urgent financing needs.
This has exacerbated debt-sustainability concerns, which were already high on the eve of the pandemic.
Today, more than half of low-income countries eligible for relief under the Group of 20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative are either in debt distress or at high risk, doubling in the last decade.
The growing focus on transparency in finance, debt statistics and contracts is a case in point.
Global leaders, as well as G-7 and G-20 communiques, stress transparency as a priority.
In connection with the DSSI, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have taken important steps to disclose more data on the creditor composition of each country.
In the private sector and civil society, the call for greater transparency has also escalated, as highlighted by a recent Group of 30 report.
The Institute for International Finance finally agreed on voluntary principles for debt transparency, although it remains to be seen whether there will be effective implementation by private creditors.
Transparency can, however, play a critical role in mitigating the severity of these cycles, helping to avoid setbacks in poverty reduction and other development objectives. Covid-19 constitutes a major setback:
The World Bank estimates that the global poverty rate has increased in 2020 for the first time since 1998.
Inadequate debt disclosure undermines debt-sustainability analyses and poses serious challenges for macroeconomic surveillance work.
As some low-income countries, such as Zambia, began to issue Eurobonds, investors underpriced risk in nations with opaque debt structures — contributing to the unsustainable buildup of debt.
Since early detection of possible problems is the cornerstone for pre-emptive policy action, transparency is critical.
During the period of high global commodity prices and relative prosperity that lasted until around 2014, many low-income countries accumulated significant debts to a number creditors from outside the Paris Club, including China, and relatively new in this marketplace.
A substantial share of these debts went unrecorded in major databases and was not on the radar screen of credit-rating firms.
External borrowing by state-owned (or guaranteed) enterprises, which have very uneven reporting standards, also escalated.
Public domestic debt, which was a minor issue in the 1980s debt crisis in developing countries, is much larger now, and data availability lags its external counterpart (particularly on ownership).
Now that a growing share of countries has entered the bust phase of the cycle, the need for transparency has become urgent.
The DSSI has played an important role in freeing up resources from debt service, so governments gain fiscal capacity to cope with the pandemic; by design it is a temporary measure.
The Common Framework for Debt Treatments, endorsed by the G-20 late last year, recognized that short-term measures alone are not able to address unsustainable debt.
The framework seeks comparable treatment from all official bilateral creditors, both Paris Club and non-Paris Club, and private creditors.
Three countries have applied for debt relief under it (Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia), and the resolution of these test cases will probably shape future restructurings.
The common framework faces (at least) three major challenges.
The first has been around since time immemorial: Creditors — governments, commercial banks and bondholders alike — have often been reluctant to offer significant debt relief quickly.
This helps explain why debt-restructuring cases stretched out over a decade during the 1980s (and also during the 1930s).
Second, the resolution of past debt crises has often been delayed by uncertainty about the willingness or ability of debtor governments to commit to a credible multiyear action plan.
Third, an obstacle of more modern vintage is that many developing countries (including some of the applicants to the framework) face a more complex and varied group of creditors than the Paris Club and commercial banks of the 1980s.
This can complicate a coordinated response.
All this will take time and requires a coordinated effort. Transparency is a global public good.
The IMF and the World Bank will continue to support this important agenda through their functions such as surveillance and through their policies to support debtors and creditors in achieving greater debt transparency.
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Turning to Africa The real challenge is the Economic Emergency.
Africa
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14-OCT-2019 ::The Canary in the Coal Mine is Zambia
Africa
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A war is coming between Ethiopia and Sudan. Eritrea and Egypt almost certain to join in. Ethiopia massing troops and hardware. Conflict likely before July. @RAbdiAnalyst
Africa
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I know I have been alarmist and right every time. I hope and pray on this one I am wrong.
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Sudan Claims Ethiopia supporting Blue Nile rebels, may just give Khartoum excuse to openly back insurgency in Tigray, open supply route. @RAbdiAnalyst
Africa
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Sudan is an adept player at poxy conflicts. Has the longest experience in the Horn. You don't mess with such a power. Claims Ethiopia supporting Blue Nile rebels, may just give Khartoum excuse to openly back insurgency in Tigray, open supply route.
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‘The genie out of the bottle’ @AfricanBizMag
Africa
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Addis and Khartoum are at each other's throat. Addis is meanwhile forced to content with insurrections in Oromia and Tigray. @SeweS_
Africa
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Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Africa
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The question now is whether the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front can sustain a prolonged guerrilla war @TheEconomist
Africa
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Or alternatively @TheEconomist whether @PMEthiopia can sustain an occupation given that one suspects there are equally restive regions
Africa
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Democratic recession: only 5 African countries are now considered “free” in the 2021 map and rankings from @freedomhouse H/T @CelestinMonga
Africa
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Turning to Africa the Spinning Top
Africa
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Democracy from Tanzania to Zimbabwe to Cameroon has been shredded.
We are getting closer and closer to the Virilian Tipping Point
“The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street''
Political leadership in most cases completely gerontocratic will use violence to cling onto Power but any Early Warning System would be warning a Tsunami is coming
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#FreeSenegal protests in #Senegal are about far more than Ousmane Sonko now: they are a general reaction by youth against President Sall. Overall political risk is trending negative. @NKCAfrica
Africa
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Algeria's Forex Reserves at~$43 billion At this rate, Algeria will run out in ~2 years 2013: Algeria had about $200 billion in reserves @michaeltanchum
Africa
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.@MoodysInvSvc downgraded the Government of Mauritius’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer rating to Baa2 from Baa1 & maintained the negative outlook.
Africa
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The downgrade to Baa2 reflects the weakening in fiscal and economic strength as a result of the shock brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Another ship runs aground off the coast of #Mauritius, causing panic among citizens as it comes only eight months after the devastating MV Wakashio oil spill. @NKCAfrica
Africa
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Breaking: the ship that crashed off the coast of Pointe O'Sables (the Lurong Luang Yu) may very well be leaking oil. @Ariel_Saramandi
Africa
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Booms have been deployed, and traces of oil sheen have been found on the shore. 130 tonnes of heavy fuel are onboard.
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1,000 tonnes estimated amount of oil spilled when the MV Wakashio, an oil tanker, ran aground off the coast of Mauritius last July. @thecontinent_
Africa
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Higher oil prices help #kwanza to reach best level versus #USD in five months. @NKCAfrica
Africa
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South Sudan Economic Update: "Oil exports, which were estimated at $1.55bn in 2019 and $1.54bn in 2018, accounted for 96% of total exports in 2019 and 90% in 2018'' @RichardHumphri1
Africa
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South Africa All Share Bloomberg
Africa
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Dollar versus Rand Chart INO 15.4922
Africa
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I'd had enough of Cairo so headed out into the desert solo for some peace.... Unrolled a bedroll and crashed out under the stars. Next morning was beautiful :) April 2012 @SamWatson__
Africa
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Peaceful morning. I'd had enough of Cairo so headed out into the desert solo for some peace.... Unrolled a bedroll on the lee side of the Landy and crashed out under the stars. Next morning was beautiful :) April 2012
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Egypt Pound versus The Dollar Chart INO 15.73
Africa
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Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index Bloomberg
Africa
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As of Dec 2020, the number of tourists that arrived in Africa from overseas added up to around 1.2 million, contrary to the over 6.3 million international tourists who arrived in the continent in Dec 2019. Statista @jmollel
Africa
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As of Dec 2020, the number of tourists that arrived in Africa from overseas added up to around 1.2 million, contrary to the over 6.3 million international tourists who arrived in the continent in Dec 2019. This showed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism ~Statista
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The stand-Off! In your @StandardKenya @iGaddo
Africa
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Inter'l visitor arrivals in Kenya declined sharply to 471 thousand from January to October 2020. @jmollel
Africa
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The fall was an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019 over two million people visited Kenya, earnings accumulated 163.6 billion Kenyan shillings (roughly $ 1.5 billion) ~Statista
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10-MAY-2020 :: For example Tourism – I believe it is stopped out through Q4 2021 [even with a Vaccine]
Africa
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Kenya Shilling versus The Dollar Live ForexPros 109.65
World Currencies
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Nairobi All Share Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Nairobi ^NSE20 Bloomberg
N.S.E General
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Every Listed Share Can Be Interrogated Here
N.S.E General
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