Okay.
I only understand free markets and democracy. But i dont understand demograpic homogeneity and property rights as concerned to dis situation.

IbeOkehie:


There's nothing wrong with a resource dependent economy. Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern kingdoms are very rich with good HDI and are dependent on crude oil and natural gas.

The main factors that determine national prosperity are -

1. Free Markets
2. Demographic homogeneity.
3. Democracy.
4. Property Rights.

I think small size is also part of it but that can go with demographics.

That's it. There's no absolutes in the mix.

The more of these four factors that are present in a nation, the more likely it is to be rich and prosperous and have a high HDI. I'm sure I've told you this many times but you just can't get it. You claim to be a market oriented person but you don't seem to know or care about the basics.

All that Dutch Disease theory is secondary.

Nigeria is poor because out of those four factors, it only has a little bit of democracy. That little good democracy is overwhelmed by other bad things, like extreme diversity AND a Constitution that is ideologically socialist. In fact the Constitution guarantees that Nigeria will remain poor and underdeveloped. Look up the ECONOMIC definition of underdeveloped to understand.

That's it, it's not about resource dependence.

Good Luck to Nigeria.

cc Love800

Love800:
Okay.
I only understand free markets and democracy. But i dont understand demograpic homogeneity and property rights as concerned to dis situation.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/how-are-capitalism-and-private-property-related.asp

Let's take fuel subsidies.

By law, the government owns all crude oil & natural gas in Nigeria. So the PEOPLE are the collective owners. As such, there's a strong sentiment among the PEOPLE that fuel should be free or at least cheap. This is the case in most countries with large endowments of crude oil & natural gas AND public ownership. We own it so we should get it free or cheap. Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on.

In countries where LAND and the associated resources are PRIVATELY owned, there's no PUBLIC SENTIMENT or demand for cheap fuel because it's not PUBLIC PROPERTY. No feeling of entitlement. The private owners sell the fuel at market prices. If the families, villages and towns of the Niger Delta owned the lands & crude oil contained in them, they won't sell it to other Nigerians for cheap. Why would they?

Public attitude to PUBLIC PROPERTY is thus dependent on how diverse a country is. In Nigeria, all crude oil & natural gas have been STOLEN from the Native owners by the government on behalf of the Nigerian PEOPLE. There's basically large and different tribes struggling to get a share of these resources. This leads to general support for subsidies and free stuff. Basically, every tribe wants the public resources to be spent and given away so they can get a share right now. There's no incentive to nurture resources, only a rush to consume.

In countries where there's ONE TRIBE or a dominant tribe, there's more likely to be an understanding for SAVING money because the people feel like a family. Yeah, think about a polygamous family vs a family with just one mother.

In a polygamous family each mother will be struggling to get as much of the father's money and assets. Everyone will make frivolous demands.

In a single wife family everyone is likely to be more understanding of the need to plan well and save money for the future.

Anyway I hope that makes sense. Maybe not.

Good Luck to Nigeria.

Tankz so much.

IbeOkehie:


https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040615/how-are-capitalism-and-private-property-related.asp

Let's take fuel subsidies.

By law, the government owns all crude oil & natural gas in Nigeria. So the PEOPLE are the collective owners. As such, there's a strong sentiment among the PEOPLE that fuel should be free or at least cheap. This is the case in most countries with large endowments of crude oil & natural gas AND public ownership. We own it so we should get it free or cheap. Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on.

In countries where LAND and the associated resources are PRIVATELY owned, there's no PUBLIC SENTIMENT or demand for cheap fuel because it's not PUBLIC PROPERTY. No feeling of entitlement. The private owners sell the fuel at market prices. If the families, villages and towns of the Niger Delta owned the lands & crude oil contained in them, they won't sell it to other Nigerians for cheap. Why would they?

Public attitude to PUBLIC PROPERTY is thus dependent on how diverse a country is. In Nigeria, all crude oil & natural gas have been STOLEN from the Native owners by the government on behalf of the Nigerian PEOPLE. There's basically large and different tribes struggling to get a share of these resources. This leads to general support for subsidies and free stuff. Basically, every tribe wants the public resources to be spent and given away so they can get a share right now. There's no incentive to nurture resources, only a rush to consume.

In countries where there's ONE TRIBE or a dominant tribe, there's more likely to be an understanding for SAVING money because the people feel like a family. Yeah, think about a polygamous family vs a family with just one mother.

In a polygamous family each mother will be struggling to get as much of the father's money and assets. Everyone will make frivolous demands.

In a single wife family everyone is likely to be more understanding of the need to plan well and save money for the future.

Anyway I hope that makes sense. Maybe not.

Good Luck to Nigeria.

IbeOkehie:


There's nothing wrong with a resource dependent economy. Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern kingdoms are very rich with good HDI and are dependent on crude oil and natural gas.

The main factors that determine national prosperity are -

1. Free Markets
2. Demographic homogeneity.
3. Democracy.
4. Property Rights.

I think small size is also part of it but that can go with demographics.

That's it. There's no absolutes in the mix.

The more of these four factors that are present in a nation, the more likely it is to be rich and prosperous and have a high HDI. I'm sure I've told you this many times but you just can't get it. You claim to be a market oriented person but you don't seem to know or care about the basics.

All that Dutch Disease theory is secondary.

Nigeria is poor because out of those four factors, it only has a little bit of democracy. That little good democracy is overwhelmed by other bad things, like extreme diversity AND a Constitution that is ideologically socialist. In fact the Constitution guarantees that Nigeria will remain poor and underdeveloped. Look up the ECONOMIC definition of underdeveloped to understand.

That's it, it's not about resource dependence.

Good Luck to Nigeria.

cc Love800

The problem with resource dependency is simple...when the prices fall, problems start. That's a big part of our problem.

Yes, Saudi and many Arab countries have lots of cash, but the problem is, what happens if oil were to drop below 10 dollars per barrel and stay there for years? They would be as awful as Nigeria within minutes.

The problem with being oil dependent is that at the end of the day, when prices go down, problems start. Plus you cannot make or manufacture anything...because the oil money means ye just import and import and import...plus you then pay for subsides.

As aptly put in the article.Pass the books hold the oil, ultimately being oil rich stifles the basic skills needed for development

Economists have long known about “Dutch disease,” which happens when a country becomes so dependent on exporting natural resources that its currency soars in value and, as a result, its domestic manufacturing gets crushed as cheap imports flood in and exports become too expensive. What the PISA team is revealing is a related disease: societies that get addicted to their natural resources seem to develop parents and young people who lose some of the instincts, habits and incentives for doing homework and honing skills.

By contrast, says Schleicher, “in countries with little in the way of natural resources — Finland, Singapore or Japan — education has strong outcomes and a high status, at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. ... Every parent and child in these countries knows that skills will decide the life chances of the child and nothing else is going to rescue them, so they build a whole culture and education system around it.”

Or as my Indian-American friend K. R. Sridhar, the founder of the Silicon Valley fuel-cell company Bloom Energy, likes to say, “When you don’t have resources, you become resourceful.”

That’s why the foreign countries with the most companies listed on the Nasdaq are Israel, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Singapore — none of which can live off natural resources.

But there is an important message for the industrialized world in this study, too. In these difficult economic times, it is tempting to buttress our own standards of living today by incurring even greater financial liabilities for the future. To be sure, there is a role for stimulus in a prolonged recession, but “the only sustainable way is to grow our way out by giving more people the knowledge and skills to compete, collaborate and connect in a way that drives our countries forward,” argues Schleicher.

In sum, says Schleicher, “knowledge and skills have become the global currency of 21st-century economies, but there is no central bank that prints this currency. Everyone has to decide on their own how much they will print.” Sure, it’s great to have oil, gas and diamonds; they can buy jobs. But they’ll weaken your society in the long run unless they’re used to build schools and a culture of lifelong learning. “The thing that will keep you moving forward,” says Schleicher, is always “what you bring to the table yourself.”

And that is a big part of the problem. At the end, Saudi is heavily dependent on imports from abroad. It can't do its own manufacturing. Iraq too had the same issue...oil money made them feel invincible...until they faced the Americans, and lost.

nairalanda1:


Tinubu is a mess, but we have had bad power long before he came and even if obi won, unless he removed subsides totally on electricity and petroleum, we would still have bad power supply

leave Obi

ariesbull:
leave Obi

Well, let's put politics aside. And for the record, my comment is not attacking any politican. Not everything is politics.

The problem with our power sector is that it is underfunded, due to something called price controls and subsides. And whoever wants improvement in power supply must either allow cost reflective tarrifs for all, and remove subsides, or forget about good power supply

See, people are greedy. We don't have sane investors because under the current arrangement, they won't make a profit. We've already had three disco investors pull out because of the fact they cannot make a profit under the arrangement.

So, we can have obi, we can have tinubu, we can have atiku...if none of them is willing to let the power sector charge cost reflective tarrifs, we will have no power.

That is my point. If you cannot see it, sorry. Not everything is politics. We have lied to ourselves since 1960 that there is something like cheap electricity.

nairalanda1:


The problem with resource dependency is simple...when the prices fall, problems start. That's a big part of our problem.

Yes, Saudi and many Arab countries have lots of cash, but the problem is, what happens if oil were to drop below 10 dollars per barrel and stay there for years? They would be as awful as Nigeria within minutes.

The problem with being oil dependent is that at the end of the day, when prices go down, problems start. Plus you cannot make or manufacture anything...because the oil money means ye just import and import and import...plus you then pay for subsides.

As aptly put in the article.Pass the books hold the oil, ultimately being oil rich stifles the basic skills needed for development



And that is a big part of the problem. At the end, Saudi is heavily dependent on imports from abroad. It can't do its own manufacturing. Iraq too had the same issue...oil money made them feel invincible...until they faced the Americans, and lost.

The biggest problem the Gulf states have his the extremely entitled mentality their citizens have and in addition are lazy.

In addition the monarchies that dominate them only claim to legitimacy is to keep indulging them.

For instance, in Kuwait, about 93% of its citizens that work do so for the government. It's about the 90% region in both Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The easy oil money supports their lifestyle. Their citizens don't want private sector work because it's tasking.

For Saudi Arabia due to its hefty population, can no longer afford to be so generous. The problem is all its efforts in compelling its citizens to work hard in rhe private sector has not been met with much success.

How will they successully diversify when their citizens won't work in the private sector?

nairalanda1:


Well, let's put politics aside. And for the record, my comment is not attacking any politican. Not everything is politics.

The problem with our power sector is that it is underfunded, due to something called price controls and subsides. And whoever wants improvement in power supply must either allow cost reflective tarrifs for all, and remove subsides, or forget about good power supply

See, people are greedy. We don't have sane investors because under the current arrangement, they won't make a profit. We've already had three disco investors pull out because of the fact they cannot make a profit under the arrangement.

So, we can have obi, we can have tinubu, we can have atiku...if none of them is willing to let the power sector charge cost reflective tarrifs, we will have no power.

That is my point. If you cannot see it, sorry. Not everything is politics. We have lied to ourselves since 1960 that there is something like cheap electricity.

Oga there is cheap electricity and it is a pity you so disconnected from reality to this extent.

The problem is greed from like-minded folks as yourself.
Simple arithmetic and some basic elementary science calculation tells us a solar panel array of 1000w that cost less than N300,000 can give you average 5-6 kwhr a day. Now gas generated power is a cheaper alternative that improves with scale of economy.
The problem with folks like you is anything that isn't sold as a commodity that a common man can easily ascertain it's price or value, get inflated and imposed on the helpless masses. That's greed and evil.

Nigerians don't have the buying power to match other countries with stronger economy. power is one of the public infrastructure that must be delivered cost effectively to the masses in order to for Nigerians economy to stand a chance. And I don't mean power for leisurely use but productive things.

CodeTemplar:
Oga there is cheap electricity and it is a pity you so disconnected from reality to this extent.

The problem is greed from like-minded folks as yourself.
Simple arithmetic and some basic elementary science calculation tells us a solar panel array of 1000w that cost less than N300,000 can give you average 5-6 kwhr a day. Now gas generated power is a cheaper alternative that improves with scale of economy.
The problem with folks like you is anything that isn't sold as a commodity that a common man can easily ascertain it's price or value, get inflated and imposed on the helpless masses. That's greed and evil.

Nigerians don't have the buying power to match other countries with stronger economy. power is one of the public infrastructure that must be delivered cost effectively to the masses in order to for Nigerians economy to stand a chance. And I don't mean power for leisurely use but productive things.

Well, for the Nigerian situation, we have a lot to do before we have 24 hour power supply, therefore electricity is not cheap.

Sad, but true. And things don't respect your wallet.

nairalanda1:


Well, for the Nigerian situation, we have a lot to do before we have 24 hour power supply, therefore electricity is not cheap.

Sad, but true. And things don't respect your wallet.

to hell with that 24hr power supply. People need only between 12-18hr a day for productive uses.

CodeTemplar:
to hell with that 24hr power supply. People need only between 12-18hr a day for productive uses.

Okey dokey