Capitalism can restore its balance in the
world market if politicians, its concept salesmen can persuade
the voters about how much of government regulation is enough.
Capitalism retained its balance in modern time with the
introduction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Children
Health Insurance and food stamp programs in the United States.
These were competing ideas between conservatives and liberals
but eventually they got it together as socialism put a human
face on capitalism.
If anyone doubts conservative’s ideology
about too much government, we need to examine our Nigeria to see
how layers of state and local governments consume most of the
revenue legally through the so called Revenue Mobilization
Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), and illegally by
looters. Even helpless Nigerians are alarmed at the salaries and
allowances of these bureaucrats. We would not be surprised to
find more local government councils than real people in some
villages. Since they attract allocations, there are agitation
for more states and local councils. It is nothing short of
government gone wild, which is the fear of authentic
conservatives.
This is why some of us consider the new
anticorruption Czar, Mrs. Forida Waziri’s statement that she is
now going after the banks or the financial houses as too little,
but never too late. The main source of corruption fire in
Nigeria is the Government. She must have seen the Obasanjo-Atiku
movie. Saw how money allocated to the Petroleum Technology
Development Fund (PTDF) and other parastatals went into the
private banks and then into the hands of cronies. If she is
looking for anyone living above his or her means, she needs to
start from President Umaru Yar’Adua’s ex-governor sponsors. No
matter what we thought of Nuhu Ribadu, he went with permission
or not, after known Obasanjo associates. But then, what is the
legacy of anti-corruption Scorpion in South Africa or Githongo
in Kenya? Africa! Africa!
Africa is rich in human and natural resources
and we hate to pay taxes. Anyone who remembers the Agbekoya
crisis in the then Western Region of Nigeria can attest to the
evil of too much tax. Ironically, we had efficient leaders who
gave us "free" education, healthcare, good roads, one of the
tallest buildings in Africa, cooperative boards to exploit
arable land and market our cocoa, the first television station
in Africa, supported two world class universities, a sports
stadium, and teachers’ training colleges in the good old days.
Yet we complained about the "ten per-centers"!
What we had in Western Nigeria then is what
people are calling for in the richest countries in the world
today. No wonder London disappointed us. Those were man oriented
politicians. Voters have to be swayed to take sugar coated
bitter pills from a smart politician, either liberal or
conservative. In Nigeria of today a bag of Shagari rice or beans
will do it for poor folks to see them through the month after an
election. We can also throw in some ethnic biases within the
party of the powerful and mighty that could sink the Country.
But it is not only in Africa that we have suppression of voters,
turning tables on voters-registration activities and misleading
claims.
In the United States of America, there are
folks who as in Africa vote against their own interest. Take the
case of the so called Joe the Plumber who comes from the rust
belt areas of Toledo, Ohio that has been in economic decline for
about a decade, ranking as one of the lowest in jobs creation,
high home foreclosure, with decrease in median household income.
Yet, he rants against Social Security, could not care a hoot for
Joe the taxi driver while dreaming about the day he would make
more than a quarter of a million dollars as a plumber. To make
that kind of money at his level, there has to be a more
progressive tax structure to increase his purchasing power which
he thought is tax grab. This guy is not a Nigerian and does not
live in Africa.
United States is the richest, biggest
producer; and consumers of world resources like Nigeria in
Africa. Before US stock market sneezes, developing countries’
markets catch the cold. China and Japan worry about their US and
European investment stake since they do not want the meltdown.
Unless we want to believe that our market is protected or
insulated from stock market quakes in global economy. For sure,
it has led to decrease in oil demands, the only commodity that
is not solely dictated to us by the buyers. Many poor Africans
cannot scrape a living without the generous support of their
relatives abroad; with these layoffs, migrants will be the first
to go as the last to come in. Some economists now doubt global
unitary management of too much cash in a country.
According to the Paris based Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development: United States amongst its
members has the highest inequality and poverty rates in the OECD
after Mexico and Turkey. This is confirmed by the US Census
Bureau, that the richest 10 per cent earned an average of
$93,000.00 and the poorest 10 per cent earned $5,800.00. The top
tenth of a percent had an average income of $5.6 million and the
top one hundredth of a percent made up of 30,000 people had an
average income of $25.7 m. A regeneration of neo-feudal system
as in Nigeria!
The problem here is that the rate of rising
inequality retards social mobility amongst the poor even by hard
work and sweat, making children fall behind their parents if
they cannot afford the training necessary to move into the
middle class. Children, who dare in the US, are loaded up with
student loans that cut into their discretionary income after
graduation. In Nigeria, our school children hawk and beg on
city-streets. It simply means that the working class moving into
the middle class with the help of Great Society, Fair Deal and
the GI Bill even in US, has regressed.
There are other ways of correcting income
inequality or redistribution by universal healthcare, good
education up to university level for those able and willing
without financial impediment, maybe in return for community or
military services as presented by one of the US presidential
candidates. Others as tax credits for the working poor have been
savagely attacked as welfare, as if these people are not paying
for the same food or other taxes apart from US Federal tax.
Who in his right mind would have expected US
capitalists to lie down and play dead asking for government
regulations in the financial market after opposing the same with
all the vigor they can muster? If it had happened during the
reign of a liberal US President, there could have been cries of
communism. So this is what it takes to get staunch capitalists
to back down? These are trying times when the strongest amongst
us turn to government for solace. There are those of us who
would have sworn: that only poor people seek welfare, not
corporate bums!
Condemnations of greed are coming from the
most conservatives to the liberals. Mr. Greenspan, the former US
Federal Reserve Chairman for about 18 years, claimed he was
"surprised" that the market did not follow his ideologue to
regulate itself in its own interest and "shocked" at the extent
of the crisis. Sir, you were warned but blinded by the same
conservative ideologue. Many warning signs have been coming in
different forms about greed in the stock market.
It is true that some of the critics might
have exaggerated by labelling stock market a casino? But it was
set up as a win-win casino until someone barks at paying more
and more for the same commodity changing hands. Some insured
that same commodity, sold it, while others bet on its downward
value. American stock market created the 1986 Boesky who boasted
that greed was good and the Milken of junk bonds that were sent
to prison as a result of fraudulent practices. The 1989 Keating
Savings and Loan crisis and 2002 Enron "four-one-nine" companies
were enough warnings. Regulation was long overdue.
Voters can elect politicians favouring
compression of inequalities in wages, benefits; and social
services for all; as Canada debated changing baby bonus in the
Trudeau years. Paid the poor spouse and tax it from the rich
spouse in the same family. Conservatives think tax breaks would
solve all problems like tax cuts fall from money trees. Tax
burden must be spread progressively, most paid by those making
most profit from the purchasing power of goods and services of
the middle / working / poor classes. Stock markets all over the
world will continue to rise and fall to the level most of us can
afford. So if you are young and can wait 10 to 20 years to cash
in, buy now.
