Increasing oil cost - the beginning of the end of globalization

probe

"The cost of shipping a 12m container from Shanghai to the United States has risen to $8,000, compared with $3,000 early in the decade, according to a recent study of transportation costs. Big container ships, the pack mules of the 21st-century economy, have shaved their top speed by nearly 20 percent to save on fuel costs, substantially slowing shipping times."

Air freight costs for "just in time" (JIT) logistics are even more fuel price sensitive. Today's globalization trends will probably be as dated as 1960s junk architecture is today, in a decade or two!

The full article is in today's (Monday's 2008.08.04 International Herald Tribune)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/02/business/03global.php

.probe

brianthebard

Lolz no,sorry,thats not how globalisation works.We are already seeing serious plans drawn up for a europe wide power grid,which indicates more globalisation,not less.These systems do not just collapse like that.

more tea vicar

A 40 foot container from the great lakes, mid west US, over the Atlantic to Dublin was 3,000 euros at the peak of the oil prices, quite affordable and now coming down further.

The weak US dollar rising up to 1.60 euros, has come down to about 1.56, but it was at a shítty 1.20 odd in the last year or so, so now is the time to import from the US.

Now we are about at the end of cheap oil, and in the next few decades, things are going to take an odd turn or two, then it is just best to get into the industries that take advantage of all this change. No point worrying and whingeing being stuck in a job or running a business that suffers because of it all, just change with the times.

Kama

Agree brian that systems don't just collapse, but the recent period we tend to label 'globalization' was/is highly reliant on very cheap energy, especially in relation to transport. Low transport costs from cheap liquid fuels structured the current world economy: there's a very real question on how this will reconfigure in a climate of comparatively more expensive energy.

Power distribution systems are one thing, but probe was mentioning the price sensitivity of transport. Global supply chains, and especially unresilient modes of prodiction like Just-In-Time are highly vulnerable to disruption from spiky prices and a general upward trend. Globalization is unlikely to 'collapse', but in the absence of low transport/energy prices, seems likely to reconstitute significantly.

In the Happy Hippy scenarios, this makes local production more competitive, as the added cost of transport ratchets up. But this is by no means the only scenario.

The only real difference high oil prices will make (edit:in this context), it that the manufacturing of certain bulky items will again be viable within europe.

Alun

probe wrote: »

"The cost of shipping a 12m container from Shanghai to the United States has risen to $8,000, compared with $3,000 early in the decade, according to a recent study of transportation costs.

Surely that's only relevant in the context of the total worth of the contents of said container. An extra $5k spread over a few 10's of thousands of high-cost, low physical volume electronic goods won't make a jot of a difference.

mike65

Wouldn't fancy New Zealands chances in the long term though.

Mike.

bonkey

I note that the article probe links to has a headline about "putting a crimp in globalisation" where Probe's thread title mentioned "the end of globalisation".

The content ultimately says "changing global economic conditions will change the face of globalisation". I'm not sure how this is a surprise to anyone.

Kama

Depends on what type of globalization we are on about tbh, whether globalization is thought of as a recent occurrence, or a much longer term game. The article seems to refer to the first, or the neoliberal globalist project:

But globalization may be losing some of the inexorable economic power it had for much of the past quarter-century, even as it faces fresh challenges as a political ideology.

At least 2 issues here, one being the neoliberal economic project being increasingly unfashionable (Sarkozys quote that 'we should no longer think of 'protectionism' as a dirty word'), the other being structural change in relation to shifts in energy prices reconfiguring the world-economy, shorter supply chains and increasingly localised/'neighbouring' of production. The period of the last 25 years tended to emphasise the opposite, hence 'end of globalization', while a bit of an exaggeration, has an element of truth.

probe

brianthebard wrote: »

Lolz no,sorry,thats not how globalisation works.We are already seeing serious plans drawn up for a europe wide power grid,which indicates more globalisation,not less.These systems do not just collapse like that.

Please don’t confuse regionalisation (eg Europe-wide measures) with globalisation (ie world-wide “initiatives”) on one hand, and electronic networks with the intercontinental centralisation of manufacturing processes.

If anything, high oil prices will encourage electronic networks of all types – eg internet and electricity power grids that span continents. Electricity power grids that span large geographic areas are part of the sustainability equation for green energy sources.

However globalisation of mass production of consumer goods in particular is not sustainable. Brazillian beef is cheaper to produce at the moment, but does that mean that Europe should shut down its beef production and import everything from Brazil to save money? While countries like Brazil and China have labour cost advantages at this point in time, if globalisation is taken to its logical conclusion, payroll costs in Brazil and China will reach European levels, and there will be no labour cost competitive advantage. In the same way as Ireland has lost its labour cost advantage over the past decade. Regional manufacturing capacity in the West will have all but disappeared.

We will end up with expensive goods, made in China etc. using up large amounts of energy transporting them across the planet, and the industrial base of the west decimated. Furthermore people in the “west” won’t be able to afford them! I don’t swallow the “we just move up the value chain” story – because China & Co have internet access are even more capable of setting up high quality education, state of the art factories in 6 months flat, and pushing the technology envelope than many western countries. Example China’s huawei.com is rapidly pushing companies like Ericsson, Alcatel and Nortelnetworks aside in the next generation telecommunications networks arena.

China’s foreign reserves are about to hit $2 trillion, and are increasing at $100 million per hour! Meanwhile it has been holding its currency (CNY) at an artificially low exchange rate against the hard currencies of the west to retain its price competitiveness. This market manipulation is unsustainable. The US can’t continue to run massive trade balance deficits importing goods from China, ad infinitum. The US trade deficit for the last 12 months is running close to $1 trillion.

Globalisation is bad for the environment in so many ways. Witness the high pollution levels in China and elsewhere in Asia. Increasingly when something goes wrong, people tend to “throw it out” and buy a new one – rather than getting it repaired – because it is cheap – which is again unsustainable in a world with limited raw materials – all of which require oil in one form or another to produce. It is cheap because it was produced via manipulated markets that do not fully account for the costs incurred.

I haven’t even mentioned the quality of life of people working in Asian sweat factories – living in dormitories on the company site – unable to go anywhere, working from dawn to midnight, with one day off per month, for a monthly salary of perhaps THB 4,000 per month (EUR 77). By living in dormitories, I mean eating off the floor, and living in 5 high multi-story bunk beds like battery chickens. Working for “sub-contractors” who make, for example shoes, track suits and other sporting apparel for well known global sporting goods brand names. (Look at the “made in Thailand” and similar labels on the merchandise in your local shop). france24.com sent people into these factories and dormitories with hidden cameras over the past few months to record the detail.

This is not a “rant” against China or other Asian countries. I’m attempting to point out the absence of overall direction and planning of the globalisation process. It started off with GATT. Look at the www.gatt.org website. At the moment its home page, for example, has a link to “Coca-Cola enters the world policy stage with its novel approach to thirst” with a link to http://www.coca-cola-corporate.com/. A company that has made billions from selling sugar, water and colourants - typical of the driving forces behind GATT and globalization. While I have no problem with free enterprise, one has to question if that is the way the world should be strategically directed from a global needs perspective?

Caution has been thrown to the wind, and the market has close to 100% control of the process. Without any regard for the environmental costs in developing countries and the rest of the planet, and the finite resources available on this planet. Or quality of life issues.

If you take one of the most nutritious vegetables on the planet – Asparagus – it is at its peak of food value and taste if consumed within 20 minutes of picking it in the garden….. It has only about 10% of its nutrition left if grown in South America, flown to Britain, processed, routed through several distribution centres, trucked to Belfast, and trucked down from there to your local Marks & Spencer store. And probably half that if it is incorporated in a “ready meal” (that has been heavily salted to jack up your BP and cardio-vascular risks) that you pop in the oven for 30 mins.

Globalization is unsustainable, un-environmentally friendly and bad for your health! Unless it is democratically "managed" for the benefit of the planet as a whole.

.probe

BendiBus

probe wrote: »

if globalisation is taken to its logical conclusion, payroll costs in Brazil and China will reach European levels, and there will be no labour cost competitive advantage.

Isn't that the ultimate argument in favour of globalisation? It will result in a fair spread of wealth across the world. Which, when achieved, ends the current attractiveness of globalisation to western corporations.

Globalisation is a process that serves a purpose and then ceases naturally. If it ends prematurely, then global inequality will prevail.

SeanW

You don't need oil to run a fleet of superfreighters. Up until the 1960s, seagoing freighters largely used coal. Oil just became cheaper and in some places legacy ships that were not too old were converted from one power source to the other. Case in point, the (in)famous SS Edmund Fitzgerald, built in 1957 as a coal fired ship for private service on the Great Lakes, converted to Oil-fired motive power in the winter of '71.

In addition, the U.S. uses marine nuclear power to run its aircraft carriers, as these are simply so massive that their oil fuel bills (not to mention the environmental consequences) would be insane.

What has REALLY fired up the process of globalisation is not so much cheap shipping (the era of which is far from over IMO in any case, cheap oil or no cheap oil) as Multi National Corporations and global trade in goods and services existed since the time of Marco Polo. What has distinguished our time in this regard is the advent of super-cheap global telecommunications.

Much as I think its stupid and wasteful to be importing food from Brazil and South Africa, and much as I'd love to buy things that aren't Made In China, in one fom or another, I think globalisation, for good and bad, is here to stay.

SeanW

SeanW wrote: »

You don't need oil to run a fleet of superfreighters. Up until the 1960s, seagoing freighters largely used coal. Oil just became cheaper and in some places legacy ships that were not too old were converted from one power source to the other. Case in point, the (in)famous SS Edmund Fitzgerald, built in 1957 as a coal fired ship for private service on the Great Lakes, converted to Oil-fired motive power in the winter of '71.

.

A former colleague of mine was in the Royal Navy in the 70's, he said that the ships ran on crude (unrefined) oil and if the engine room staff ever got the boilers set incorrectly it used to blow out huge quantities of thick black smoke!

probe

probe wrote: »

We will end up with expensive goods, made in China etc.

<snip>

Meanwhile it has been holding its currency (CNY) at an artificially low exchange rate against the hard currencies of the west to retain its price competitiveness. This market manipulation is unsustainable. .probe

When China decides to let the Yuan float, all hell will break loose!

It'll be a double win for the chinese economy, oil priced in dollars will be much cheaper for the domestic market along with increased revenue from exports.

Most western countries will be screwed as they have lost the ability to manufacture most of the low end goods that china sell here at such low prices.

I would imagine that almost 100% of the stock in the pound shops come from China.

maniac101

BendiBus wrote: »

Isn't that the ultimate argument in favour of globalisation? It will result in a fair spread of wealth across the world. Which, when achieved, ends the current attractiveness of globalisation to western corporations.

Globalisation is a process that serves a purpose and then ceases naturally. If it ends prematurely, then global inequality will prevail.

It may be an argument, but it's a completely bogus one!
A fair spread of wealth across the world isn't possible through globalisation, since resources aren't evenly spread across the world. As globalisation has required an ever-increasing consumption of resources, it has brought about a new wave of neo-colonial resource-grabbing, where stronger countries exploit the resources of the weaker ones, and thereby bring about even greater inequality among people. China exploits the oil resources of Sudan, for instance, while in return, the Sudanese government receives Chinese arms and financial support for an indigenous weapons industry. The argument that global trade might ultimately bring about global equality would be a hard sell in Darfur! In this regard, globalisation simply reinforces the age-old inequalities between rich and poor.

Kama

Probe, you linked to gatt.org, which is a satirical website run by those fine folks the Yes Men.

WTO Announces Formalized Slavery Market For Africa

should have given the game away. They got the gatt.org url back in the day, and have been having fun with it since. I agree on much of the rest of what you said. For instance, I am posting this thanks to a huawei connection.

China has had the foresight, and crucially the power, to be able to buck the market successfully. Tbh they probably just looked at the Asian currency crisis and said 'Screw That Noise!' in well-accented Mandarin.

Liberalised Currency Markets + Speculative Capital = Fire-Sale Take-Over.

Instead their Sovereign Wealth Funds are busily buying up strategic portions of, say, America.


Sean, agree as well on the longue duree view of globalization, along with Immanuel Wallerstein. Tax-dodging multinationals go back at least as far as the Catholic church during the Crusades, for instance.
Taking the telecoms as definitive, we can still be fully globalized in the telecommunicative sense, but less so in travel and transport. As a possible scenario, the virtual disappearance of distance might be accompanied by its physical reappearance.

SeanW wrote:

You don't need oil to run a fleet of superfreighters.

Nope, and you don't need to be crazy to post here...but it helps. Whether we are talking transporting it or btu/volume oil has large advantages. I'm curious on the fungibility of coal for oil in transport, liquefied coal has a lot of money going to it at the moment for this very reason. But refitting the global fleet to run on coal, even before the environmental issues, seems a tall order.

Alun wrote:

Surely that's only relevant in the context of the total worth of the contents of said container. An extra $5k spread over a few 10's of thousands of high-cost, low physical volume electronic goods won't make a jot of a difference.

I think, but I'm no expert, that costs cascading through the production chain are part of the issue here. Those low volume electronics goods tend to have much larger quantities of raw material as inputs. Factor in that increase at every point in the value chain and costs multiply.

bendibus wrote:

Globalisation is a process that serves a purpose and then ceases naturally. If it ends prematurely, then global inequality will prevail.

Not so sure about the teleology here. I'd be curious as to what purpose this 'serves' and how it would 'end naturally'? Do you mean with a leveling of wealth? First you'd need to show it produces said leveling, which given the increase in world inequality during the neoliberal period seems a difficult proposal. If you think that the level of inequality it produces as 'fair', then yes its fair.

The issue probe and I would be making is that it does serve a purpose, and that is the interests of corporate capital, without democratic input from 'We the People' (whoever the hell they are >.<) and without internalising the costs of environmental degradation (free riding).

Me hopes that globalization ends sometime...

probe

Kama wrote: »

Probe, you linked to gatt.org, which is a satirical website run by those fine folks the Yes Men.

Satirical or not – it’s true. Coke is a prime example of globalization, “junk foodization”, a contributor to obesity, etc – and they and their brethren have been busy shaking the trees all over the planet to open up every market for their products. Putting pressure on politicians, EU, UN, anything and anyone who has their hand on a lever of power. At the expense of the customer of the political process – ie the consumer/employee/voter.

.probe is not a Marxist anti-business type – (he had his first business up and running while still a student).

My argument is simple. The powers that be made a balls of the globalization process by abdicating responsibility for its “rollout” (yuk term) leaving it almost entirely to the free market. It has left many Asian countries who weren’t equipped to deal with the sudden rush to exploit their cheap workforce and environment with lots of awful messes to clear up. It has displaced millions of skilled and semi-skilled workers in the West, as their jobs move East. Zillions of TWs of non-renewable energy are being wasted moving these goods half-way across the planet from the point of production or processing to the point of consumption. When it comes to food production and processing, food doesn’t travel well. It quickly loses nutritional value and requires energy intensive air transport to cover long distances. And the food standards outside of the EU and Japan are for the most part poor. Especially in the USA, where they inject hormones into cattle in huge quantities and these hormones pass into the consumers of meat and not surprisingly make them obese too.

The issue could have been avoided if the people who negotiated free trade agreements did so in a professional manner, by incorporating criteria into the tariff reduction agreements which would make exploitation of scarce environmental resources, non compliance with food safety regulations, forcing workers to live in dormitories etc or manipulating foreign exchange rates etc, uneconomic for anyone interested in going down any of these routes. We might then have something closer to a level playing field – which would benefit everybody.

Japan was a very poor Asian country. It didn’t get rich by luring western companies to Japan as a cheap labour joint to assemble products for western markets. It joined the rich club by organising business and education (a process largely organised by MITI - www.meti.go.jp) to manage Japan Inc’s transition into a global industrial power – by specialising in selected markets where it had strengths.

Japan focuses on industries such as small/miniature technologies – the camera business - with Nikon, Canon and Sony as prime examples. The European camera manufacturers - are still kings of the castle when it comes to world class quality - hasselblad.se and leica.de. The European camera manufacturers focus on much higher price points – so there is no real competition between Europe and Japan. And within the European range if you are thinking of spending €50,000 on a Hasselblad + lenses, you are not thinking of a €6,000 Leica, or even a bit less on a Nikon or Canon.

Where are Ireland’s strengths? Two examples:

Food – however Ireland doesn’t have a Nestle with close to $100 billion in revenues. www.nestle.ch - the biggest food company is based in Switzerland, a mountainous country with lots of cows – but I suspect that Ireland has even more cows and has far more land suitable for agriculture than Switzerland. And while Nestle is a global company, it produces close to the consumer.

Green energy – Ireland’s land and coastline has more wind energy potential than Germany – the # 1 on the planet. Germany currently has about 24 GW of wind capacity. Ireland has about 700 MW capacity, and the capacity growth rate is minuscule. 24 GW of wind capacity on Irish territory would generate far more kWh of electricity than in Germany.

Asia couldn’t compete with either of these industries. Just two examples.

.probe

GetGrowing

The cost of shipping is but a tiny part of the problem of increasing oil costs. I highly recommend this book if you're not already familiar with the 'Peak Oil' literature.

Ireland is especially vulnerable being 'at the end of the pipeline'.

probe

GetGrowing wrote: »

The cost of shipping is but a tiny part of the problem of increasing oil costs. I highly recommend this book if you're not already familiar with the 'Peak Oil' literature.

Ireland is especially vulnerable being 'at the end of the pipeline'.

As as aside, the crude oil cost per litre is significant of late (in terms of the retail price):

A barrel of crude on NYMEX (CL) costs $116.40 at the moment - it's up today!

which is €78.14 per BBL in real money.

This antiquated barrel measure contains 158.984 litres
making the cost of a litre of crude = 49.15c (rounded).

If you add to this the cost of transportation, refining costs and losses, evaporation, retailer margin, and government taxes, the pump prices aren't all that bad :-)

Just cut down on your driving, and pile into the awful state controlled public transport non-system state controlled monopoly run by CIE, under multiple brand names, and pump price distress will vanish from your life!

.probe


PS: CIE is an angel compared with the RTE state propaganda agency who has completely switched off its live radio streaming of everything outside IRL - Radio1, LyricFM, even Radio na Gaeltachta - from last Friday until the Olympics are over. The idiots are incapable of pressing a button to stop Olympics sports coverage going out over the internet - so they simply block everything. Fortunately all the Irish commercial radio stations are still available worldwide on the net - including their Olympics coverage. Obviously they don't use RTE's lawyers to negotiate their content rights deals.

derry

Try selling free trade to Africa
lets see

Africa has 1% of all the money that exists in the world

South Africa has 50% of that 1% or 0.5%

So the rest of Africa some fivety countries has to divide between some 1 billion people on that vast contenent the other 0.5%

Now lets see the continent of Africa has vast known resources of metals diamonds gold copper coffee all sorts of stuff and super cheap labour to boot

Typical wages in half of Africa are $1 a day

If you take just one country in Africa lets say Zambia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia

population 12 million
No 170 in the rich list or close to the bottom of the pile and dirt poor
Average income ~E300 Euros a per annum or ~E 1.00 Euro a day
Zambia which has one primary export that earns 90% of the countries money up to year ~2000

Now 2008 it is copper less at ~70% and nickel metal is the rest with some tourism and a food exports

In 1964 the price of copper was ~$1000 a ton
In 1964 the price of copper was ~$3000 a ton

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/copper/240798.pdf

In 2008 the price of copper was peaking this year at ~$7000 a ton but is bombing back toward ~$3000 a ton so halfing the export income rapidly

Now since 1964 to 1998 the price of all world products rose some ~40 to 100 times

But Zambia income rose marginaly and barely doubled in 40 years

The population 4 million in 1964 more than doubled from 1964 to 1998 so the money that was there had to be spread around more thinly

So if your income in Ireland was lets say £5 a week and in 1998 your income was £10 a week and lets see in 2008 was £ 20 a week then you see the story of the jo soaps in Zambia

Would you think Zambia having played ball for ~50 years and jumped through most all the WTO hoops of free trade should look to vote for more of this enslavement policy

WTO somewhere at the top enslaves Zambia and Africa for the next hundred years maybe even a thousand years

Free trade is simple to Zambia and simalar countries in Africa

Europe USA and Japan takes the copper makes it into products and sell it back for 100 to 1000 times price mark up as a finished product

Zambia must with WTO free trade just import that stuff like it or lump it

Zambia as a example can produce food every bit as good as France Ireland Poland USA etc which it could sell to those rich countries to use to buy gods back from rich countries if it was allowed too.

But there are food import barriers to rich countries that basicaly don't allow that with impossible hoops to jump through and with munbo jumbo rules about square tomatoes etc

If Zambia could turn the copper into a finished product they could earn more money from copper

However that big rich countries don't want that as if that happened then what would they sell to Zambia

So credit to build secondary solutions like factories to escape the primary exporting raw materials is denied

Credit to buy clapped out second hand ex EU army stuff no probelms as then Zambia is locked into spare parts at military prices which are steeper than civilian prices

So WTO free trade often means all for rich countries non for poor countries

WTO free trade has done more to enslave more countries and more people world wide and to enrich the rich exponentialy than any other device ever invented

Free trade as we know it is just a licence for the rich countries in the world to enslave the poor countries and grind them down and ensure they never escape the dept cycle

As free trade rachets up it will then turn on the poor within rich counties and improverish them too

You only got to see the Ghettos in USA or Europe and Ireland to see the expanding poverty population (20% in Ireland earn less than 15,000 euros) and see the small elite who get mega richer every year and grind the poor down

So the attitude I am alright jack I am in rich Ireland won't do you any good in twenty years time
Thats when your in the poor peoples ghetto as a out of work building worker replaced with cheaper robots and then they decide to exterminate the poor as costing toooo much money

That the future for jo soaps world wide with free trade

Africa is just at the cutting edge front of the killing machine that is meant to exterminate as much of the population of Africa as possible
When that cycle is complete free trade will turn on the poor of the rest of the world and Exterminate those too

Derry

Macha

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_go_co/oil_speculation

"Speculation by large investors — and not supply and demand for oil — were a primary reason for the surge in oil prices during the first half of the year and the more recent price declines, an independent study concluded Wednesday.

The report by Masters Capital Management said investors poured $60 billion into oil futures markets during the first five months of the year as oil prices soared from $95 a barrel in January to $145 a barrel by July."

Hmmmm...

bonkey

You say this like it is new news...

Macha

You manage to infer a lot from a "hmm.." amazing...

mumhaabu

derry wrote: »

Try selling free trade to Africa.....
.......
Africa is just at the cutting edge front of the killing machine that is meant to exterminate as much of the population of Africa as possible

May I have some of what you are smoking it must be good?

Free trade works, what you are describing is fair trade, I think the current system works good and although some tweaking is needed. I disagree with the subsidies western farmers get when good food could be produced abroad much cheaper and be sent to western markets thus reducing food poverty in Europe and the USA. There is plenty land and Jungle in both Africa and South America which could be converted into farmland was the capital and management provided.

Another issue overlooked is that the vast majority of African Politics is corrupt, Africa can't govern itself properly at all, South Africa is Africa's only gem because of the good infrastructure left in place after the Dutch and Apartheid. Ask any South African today and they will tell you the country is now worse off and the majority of African Countries are in a pretty bad shape. The truth is that some were better off under Colonialism look at Zimbabwe! Had the British remained do you think it would be like the way it is today? I rest my case.

derry

mumhaabu wrote: »

May I have some of what you are smoking it must be good?

Free trade works, what you are describing is fair trade, I think the current system works good and although some tweaking is needed. I disagree with the subsidies western farmers get when good food could be produced abroad much cheaper and be sent to western markets thus reducing food poverty in Europe and the USA. There is plenty land and Jungle in both Africa and South America which could be converted into farmland was the capital and management provided.

Another issue overlooked is that the vast majority of African Politics is corrupt, Africa can't govern itself properly at all, South Africa is Africa's only gem because of the good infrastructure left in place after the Dutch and Apartheid. Ask any South African today and they will tell you the country is now worse off and the majority of African Countries are in a pretty bad shape. The truth is that some were better off under Colonialism look at Zimbabwe! Had the British remained do you think it would be like the way it is today? I rest my case.

Colonialism is great

It kills 2 million in Ireland in the famine to get the cash crops to the market

In 1911 the German south west Africa colony Colonialism decided pre Hitler's time to wipe out 200,000 of the natives as surplus to requirements
This supplied Hitler the machinery to try it out the local Germans later

Colonialism in Belgium Congo pre first world war was simple policy of chop of the arms of the natives that didn't produce enough gold per week to keep the Belgium king happy

Then there was even novo Colonialism with Italy in the second war attacking and taking Ethiopia

I wont bore you with history of Africa and how Colonialism the great contental shaper killed millions to reach this great Ethiopia that you would wish was reintroduced to Africa


Now Zimbabwe is a little bit like what Ireland was like post civil war in 1927 andis starting to reform slowly

At any one time in Africa 99.9% of the population of Africa have enough food to meet daily requirements

The problem is the Economic systems in say countries like Ethiopia have 50% of the country ( that like twenty Ireland's ) growing cash crops in the richest water rich fertile regions
So while the arid regions get no help from central government the multi nationals encourage the regime to kill of tribes from other parts of the country to safe guard the requirement to return land to a growing population which would affect profit and loss returns
To ensure this policy would work they arranged that the central government would get huge credit to buy military equipment which could be used in genocide against the desert peoples

Now as per multi nationals requirement to ramp up the genocide under the cash crops drive just like 1800 Ireland famine model they have ensured huge amounts of military munitions are spread around Africa so that the populations are killed from fighting over the scrappy bits of land the big multinationals haven't taken

Later as robot replace humans in the richer parts of the world just like Hitler borrowed the 1911 ideas the same free trade rules will means poor in richer countries will be surplus o requirement and exterminated
So what's your point that Africa would actually be better with direct Colonialism where we don't even pretend and hide the killing machine or that free trade will ensure we get half of Africa to produce cheap coffee and tea for your morning cuppa wile the surplus to requirement natives starve on the scrappy pieces of arid land that they have been banished to avoid the government elites military killing machines

The corrupt regimes are the result of the large multi nationals requirement for anarchy and chaos and Magawe suits them nicely turning Zimbawe into a begging bowl economy from which the multi nationals when Magabwe is gone will ramp up the killing machine so as to bump up cash crops at rock bottom low prices

Free trade equals simply EXTERMINATION trade they win you lose everything for both rich and poor countries but the poor countries see it effect first

Derry