₦airaland Forum

You are one of those who think that wealth creation is a zero sum game. That some EU states implement restrictions which have no economic logic, merely done to sate the public's bigoted instincts, is no justification for doing same in the UK. The UK has lower unemployment rates than those EU states you talk of.

Of course, unrestricted immigration can have damaging consequences for social cohesion and nation security which override the economic benefits. To that end, restricting immigration from non-EU states, which is already done, makes sense but restricting immigration by Eastern Europeans will amount to Britain shooting itself in the foot.

ElRazur:
Good luck to him. It takes nothing or add anything to my life.

Who ever occupies the White House has an impact on your life, therefore, any scandal which may have a bearing on the 2012 election could ultimately impact your life.

ElRazur:
What exactly makes her a bigot? The fact that she raises a legitimate concern or the fact that she is contemplating voting another party - her fundamental human right.

Please educate me.

It seems to me that anyone who discusses immigration gets a bad reception in the UK and on nairaland.

Eastern Europeans, as EU citizens, have a right to move to the UK so her ''legitimate concerns'' are arguably prejudiced. Eastern European migration to the UK boosts the UK economy as it keeps wage inflation down and their productivity is excellent.

Again, if she had swapped ''Eastern Europeans'' for blacks or Asians, she would have been accused of racism. It's not far fetched to assume that a white woman who has 'concerns' about Eastern Europeans would have even more concerns about immigration from Africa/Asia. She chooses not to voice it but mentions Eastern Europeans which is a proxy for immigrants in general.

The National Enquirer has again posted a controversial issue, this time the article is about the Obama cheating scandal.

The National Enquirer publishes that Pres. Barack Obama is having an affair with a woman named Vera Baker (photo shown). The two were allegedly caught in a Washington, DC Hotel.

The Obama scandal says: “a confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions.”

The ENQUIRER has also learned that on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence.

Hope this is not true. I'm not an Obama fan but don't wouldn't want the first black US President to be involved in this kind of rubbish.

http://www.news-linked.com/20100501/obama-cheating-scandal-affair-claims-with-vera-baker/155/

Mace Group's International Development Unit (IDU) team has been appointed by the Nigerian Ministry of Commerce and Industry as project manager for the preparation of a masterplan for a new $600m international airport in Lagos.

Nice little copy and paste by Sky Blue. I thought you are arguing that this could be entirely financed by the private sector, even though you seem to be unable to provide evidence of who these private sector investors are and how much they are willing to bring to the table. This project was mooted by the Govt since at least 2008, we are currently in 2010 and no evidence of private sector funding yet.

If there are willing investors who are prepared to finance an airport, it's not the Govt who should be suggesting how much the airport will cost or paying Mace Group to prepare a masterplan( since Mace Group are not working for free, so much for no Govt funding). If the private sector is going to fund it, they will determine the size of the project and how much it will cost , not Govt mandarins.

KnowAll:
[size=16pt]Sanusi's Policy -Throwing the Baby out with the bath water[/size]

[size=16pt]
Soludo's Policy - Look the other way, which policy is better, surely this is a classical case of being caught between the devil and deep blue sea[/size]

You captured it perfectly. The 2 are damaging in their own ways although a lot of the criticism of Sanusi is amplified by people's inability to distinguish between the damage he has done and what he actually inherited.

Soludo was clearly lax in supervising the banks but Sanusi has been ham-fisted in sorting out the problems he inherited, thereby, making the whole process of restoring the banks to sound financial health longer and more tortuous. Still think there are many Nigerians better qualified to be CBN Governor.

Am I the only non-Eastern European in England who thinks the woman's moaning about Eastern Europeans reeks of bigotry. If she had said something like, ''all these black Africans, where are they coming from''?, the reaction would have been different.

I don't think the problem of age cheating is as pervasive in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa as it is in Nigeria, Cameroun, Ghana and Sierra Leone.

It doesn't seem like the Southern and Eastern Afican regions engage in it as much. Some countries in West Africa like Ivory Coast seem relatively honest.

Sky Blue:
I simply asked a question, what percentage of the funding is coming from government? The truth is I doubt you know the answer to that question. How much out of the 43.3 billion of the money is government going to pay? It does say the government is still shopping for investors, doesn't it?

I don't know what percentage will come from the Govt. I do know for a fact that PPPs by definition involve public funding and have absolutely no reason to believe that this project will be an exception. If, however, you beg to differ, please tell us the funding details.

Sky Blue:
You are yet to answer a simple question (and I bet its because you have absolutely no clue what the answer is). What percentage of the money is coming from Government? Do you see how that question potentially throws out that essay you typed above?

What percentage is coming from the private sector? If a project is a public-private partnership, by definition, it is funded by both the public and the private sector. If you disagree, please tell us the source of the finance.

@SkyBlue

I haven't claimed that all the project's funding is sourced from the Govt but it seems clear that the Govt will pony up a substantial amount of the capital in partnership with the private sector. If this is the case, this a typical example of Govt revenue being used in a way that is inconsistent with achieving maximum impact for the populace.

What you get in Nigeria is that Govt revenue is spent on projects that affects a tiny part of the population and not on projects that will have the widest impact.

If there is a business case for a Lekki airport, the Govt can provide incentives and let the private sector get on with it. The Govt should concentrate instead on providing water, education and housing for Lagos' teeming population.

@Tmoni

Good points, but rather than taking money from our ''excess crude reserves'', we can simply spend less to run a surplus. The reserves is our buffer against a potential fall in oil prices, our key revenue source. If you don't accumulate reserves like we did in the 70s, you are making a one way bet that oil prices will always go up.

Also, the argument that the scope for borrowing is limited by Aganga's tenure in office fails to take into consideration the fact that Govts must at all times engage in long term planning and investment.

brauneyes:
Today, Standard and Poors have downgraded Greece to JUNK status. Iceland was first, now Greece, who knows the next country in Europe that will default. Nigerians in diaspora should start looking towards home.

Firstly, Greece hasn't defaulted and if there is a wave of sovereign defaults across Europe, Nigeria is the last place you want to be.

PS: S&P rated Nigeria BB- (worse than Greece's BB+) and Fitch also rates us as BB- : http://www.alacrastore.com/research/fitch-ratings-Nigeria_Credit_Trends_A_Mixed_Bag-496188_report_frame

Sagamite:
Where do you work?

What qualifications do you have?

It seems you know more about fiscal policies than Aganga, Sanusi  and Babalola put together despite their achievements.

Please let us know how you qualify to know how we should generate capital. Feel free to lecture us on what need you see.

This is flawed reasoning. A bit like saying only footballers should criticise footballers. If there is any field in which 'expertise' is deceptive, it is economics. It's not a science so there is really not much consensus on which policy measure is effective.

World Bank loans are at low interest. You are not going to get rates any lower than you will get with a World Bank loan.

It's the quality of spending that matters most. Nigeria's debt to GDP ratio is quite low so we have ample opportunity to borrow, as oil revenues are insufficient in themselves, to make capital investments.

There is a further issue Nigerians don't understand. It's not the IMF/World Bank loans that damaged Nigeria in the 80s, it was private sector loans to Nigeria. The IMF only comes in when a country is no longer able to obtain loans from the credit market or even if they could, such loans are only available at outrageous rates. In return for an IMF bailout, the IMF will demand that the borrowing country undergoes structural reforms to put the country on a sustainable path to growth. We can debate whether the structural reforms demanded by the IMF is based on sound economics but that is an issue for another day.

illusion2:
I know its a different society,but its kinda scary to have him so

Any more scary than our thieving leaders who never fail to declare their belief in God?

BigB1, why have you got your tongue glued to IBB's backside, are you one of his rent boys?

From the little I've heard, it's a bad law. How will they identify the illegal immigrants without racial profiling?

I still don't know why they can't build a proper fence across the border with Mexico since this has proven one of the most effective methods for stopping border crossings.

Nigeria is not kind on humans, never mind rams.

Ribery and his wife look like siblings.

[quote author=~Sauron~ link=topic=374223.msg5942295#msg5942295 date=1272039771]Ribery's WIFE. . . . .Would their kids be classified as HUMAN?

https://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7804/01022005ribery09vf1phixwa3.jpg[/quote]Are you sure Dayokanu is not their offspring?

Ibime did not even read the link he posted. The article in the link was written by Razia Khan of Standard Chartered.

Prior to regulatory intervention, the early days of the banking crisis were marked by significant liquidity hoarding, competitive bidding for deposits, and – despite monetary easing by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – higher loan and deposit rates. By June 2009, credit growth had decelerated sharply to 6.2% y/y from the cycle peak of over 90%.

Note the key point. Credit growth was decelerating rapidly even before Sanusi announced his intervention in August '09 so the problem pre-dates Sanusi's appointment as CBN Governor.

http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9991:getting-to-grips-with-nigeria-gdp-&catid=117:news&Itemid=349

I know where he's coming from. I've sometimes felt a quake upon sighting some well proportioned bouncing b-oobs.

The contraction in credit to the private sector is as a result of banks rebuilding their balance sheet which was severely damaged during the faux boom of the Soludo era. Because the contraction followed Sanusi's actions, people automatically assume that he is responsible for it. I guess it's the kind of reasoning that led people to associate sunshine with malaria.

Ibime:
It is difficult to enact a single monetary policy for different economies who have different budgets, different levels of debt and consequently, different needs. . . . this is perhaps an unprecedented problem being faced by the Eurozone right now.

You're absolutely right. It's not as if these problems were not foreseen but the prevailing thought was that monetary union will lead to a convergence of the various economies. The present crises does suggest that monetary union, if necessary, should only come after a harmonisation of policies and economic convergence across Europe. If the Europeans had stuck strictly to their eligibility criteria for the adoption of the Euro, a lot of these problems will not arise. Perhaps the solution will be for a lot of the ill-disciplined European nations to be booted out and Euroland shrunk to a more manageable union.

tundewoods:
It is so sad but the fact still remains that the prisons have to decongested one way or the other.

See warped thinking. Of all reasons to take human lives, it's that our prisons are overcrowded. If politicians like those Governors who approved this were not always stealing, we would probably have enough money to fund our public infrastructure, including prisons.

The topical issue for the EU is how to deal with the PIIGS' - Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - sovereign debt crisis.

Greece, in particular, is struggling to pay its debt and has to borrow money at ever higher interest just to repay the interest on existing debts. Greece's options are to cut spending and raise taxes, effectively, a structural adjustment. The fear is that there isn't sufficient political will to do this or even where there is, such cuts will further contract the economy thereby worsening the problem as the ratio of debt to GDP increases.

In the absence of currency union, Greece could have, where the above options proved insufficient, exercised the option of devaluing its currency as a way of managing its debt. It works this way; if Nigeria's Govt's annual budget is 150bn Naira which converts to $1bn and this includes debt interest payment of $100m(15bn Naira) per annum; by devaluing to say 300Naira to 1USD, we will, all things being equal, need only $450m to meet the remainder of our budgetary needs whilst leaving spare cash to pay back the foreign denominated debt. Greece doesn't have this option as it's stuck in the Euro which it has no power to devalue. At some point, countries like Greece and the other PIIGS will have to decide whether their interests are best served by remaining in the Euro. This, more than anything, is the key problem facing the Euro.

hackney:
Some people want to be the man's accountant o! na wa!.
IBB who stole over $20bn is warming up to rule again and
some people are bothering themselves about how a businessman spends
his money.

The money is too much to the common man who would instinctively want to benefit
from the splash but that's not how it works.

Apparently the money is not too much for him and i'm sure he doesnt sees how it concerns anybody.
Afterall a lot of you have laptops and iphones while some people in your villages havent eaten.
So where do you draw the line? ? ? ? ?

You haven't yet figured out that Adenuga is merely a front for IBB's business interest?

[quote author=mama-gee link=topic=66248.msg5921044#msg5921044 date=1271723851][color=deeppink]Looks like a good player.[/color][/quote]Almost 3 years after . . . it's about time you were banned.

Her chest can absorb the impact of the tires.