₦airaland Forum

Politics and economics are my current obsessions. Tommorrow I may be excited about psychology or showbiz. I spend a lot of time every day on google.com and en.wikipedia.org reading a lot. It's good that I didn't go back for a degree; in order to learn all the things I've learnt so far I will need 10 degrees. Better to learn on my own.

Anyway, that is my life. I find girls with ambition and brains very exciting, and I find most girls unbearably boring.

Feminism is about some women wanting equality and being punished by those women who enjoy the status quo.

Thank your lucky stars you didn't buy the phones. It's a scam. We don't make phones in Nigeria; we export oil.

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I think we need to legalize murder and rape. Any suggestion on how this can work?

Now this is a question for the class:

In what type of government can this be achievable?
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My point is that even though it's theoretically possible for that to happen, it never happens in real life. In the same way coercive monopolies and oligopolies are theoretically possible in a free market, but in real life the government always has a hand in their creation. Without the government's help, nobody has succeeded in escaping competition.

Afeni, I would like them to show up in your apartment.

Tell me about it. Her new single is "promiscous"

I am now an igbo as well as yoruba.

Afeni, if you are an atheist you should value your life and that of others.

Older members are lovely. Especially the women. As for the men, I reserve my comments!

This is a good step to protect defenceless children from their ignorant parents. Children are not properties.

If there's a plastic surgeon who can surgically remove tribal marks, such a surgeon will make a lot of money.

I'm concerned about the specific details of the law, but we already know that it'll not be efficiently enforced.

I agree with diddy4. She's ok. More importantly, we need more contests that judge women on their brains.

Why should we help you with a new Nigerian forum when this one is ok?

Well I tried it with Amazon.com, and I failed miserably. I have never managed to make an affiliate sale! I tried to use Adwords to advertise on the google network on Amazon.com, and merely I wasted several dollars.

Closer is supposed to be a mature movie about a complicated web of relationships, and I'm the kind of person who thinks Hallmark movies are exciting.

Natalie Portman is only the icing on the cake. And oh, what a petite, pretty movie icing she is!

Old Glory: webcam video from a movie cinema.

Welcome to Nairaland!

It would be informative which is what this forum should be.

From my2cent's link:
The new Miss Mundial 2006, Edwige Madze Badakou of Togo, celebrates after winning the beauty pageant.

BBC:
Togo has won the World Cup - albeit just the pre-tournament beauty contest.

Student Edwige Madze Badakou, 24, beat representatives of the 31 other finalists to be crowned Miss World Cup.

Contestants paraded in swimwear and evening gowns for a jury which included footballers. It is not clear whether their football knowledge was tested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5040656.stm

Igbos, hausas, whatever. I hereby renounce my Yoruba-ness. Happy now?

isn't it very foolish of me to be defending a woman who doesn't know I exist? Celebrity worship is folly!

Please leave the poor lady alone. She did her best and she had fun!

Ok, here are some questions to guage your 'personality':
- What do you think about libertarianism?
- What weakness can you identify in Ngozi Okonjo Iweala?
- As a US president, what would you do to bring peace to the middle east?

Nobody watches Naruto fillers anymore. They are disgusting! Bleach is better:
http://www.bleachtv.com/media/rmvb+episodes.html

Nice one. Thanks for the pictures!

nferyn: No it doesn't. This does not protect people's investments in case of an outright market crash. I know for certain that my money on a Belgian bank is safe, which is not the case for e.g. the US or (probably) Nigeria.

How are your investments in Belgium protected from an outright market crash? Deposit Insurance? We have deposit insurance in Nigeria too - to the tune of 50,000 naira. What if you have more than 50,000 naira - or whatever the bank insurer in your country guarantees - in your account? Then you lose a lot of money!

But do you know that federal deposit insurers don't actually keeps enough funds in reserve to pay off everyone in the case of a market crash? They can only achieve that if a small bank crashes; if a large bank is at risk of crashing the central bank simply creates and lends them enough money to survive. That is usually cheaper than allowing the bank to fail and then attempting to pay everybody off.

The deposit insurance is there just to make you feel that your money is safe. The modern banking system works because people think their money is safe in 'insured' banks. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any modern bank will fail if enough people lose confidence in it.

If a particular bank can't pay off it's debts, the next step is to get a stronger bank to acquire the bank's customers, assets, and liabilities. Perhaps that's what Soludo was trying to achieve indirectly by imposing the new minimum capitalization requirement, but he could have achieved that by threatening to liquidate heavily indebted banks, instead of eliminating all small banks. That is like trying to fight 419 scammers by forbidding all Nigerians from using the Internet. (a government official that doesn't use the Internet might actually consider such a law)

(I think we ought to put this banking discussion on a different thread)

Could you tell me what in a completely free market prohibits the formation of coercive monopolies or oligopolies? Do I have to accept that on faith alone, maybe?

Can you tell me what in a free democracy prevents the masses from legalizing murder? In both cases, it's theoretically possible for those outcomes to materialize but for some reason they just don't happen. Without government intervention or the use of force, monopolies simply are unable to escape competition. Even if you own all the oil fields in the world, someone else will figure out how to generate ethanol from sugar and power cars with it - if it's legal.

Is it possible to win this kind of competition without having a picture available for the judges to judge?

Basically, a monopoly that is free of competition or potential competition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly says,
"a coercive monopoly is a form of monopoly where a firm is able to make pricing and production decisions independent of competitive forces because all potential competition is effectively barred from entering the market. Almost all those who employ the term to label such a state of affairs maintain that it can only be achieved by government intervention, though some note that a merchant can itself engage in coercion to secure a monopoly position. Some use the alternative definition that a coercive monopoly is any monopoly maintained by coercion."

A coercive monopoly is not merely a sole supplier of a particular kind of good or service (a monopoly), but it is a monopoly where there is no opportunity to compete through means such as price competition, technological or product innovation, or marketing; entry into the field is closed. As a coercive monopoly is securely shielded from possibility of competition, it is able to make pricing and production decisions with the assurance that no competition will arise.

In other words, a monopoly that cannot be challenged by competition in the free market. A monopoly that doesn't have to constantly be on its toes to outperform the competition by satisfying customers better.

The article is long, I agree. I'm going to shorten it now so people who want to read the full article can go to the source.

He can go ahead and live with his in-laws if they are:
1) White
2) Educated abroad
3) Phd Holders
4) Liberals

If not, then there will definitely be problems. You cannot have two arrogant African gorrillas in the same territory!

Women - in movies - have known to 'forget' their menstrual pills when they want more children.

How can I follow it online? Is the match being broadcast on any Nigerian tV station? Thanks!