Skip to content


European governments block Wall Street from selling government bonds?

For the first time in five years, no big US investment bank appears among the top nine sovereign bond bookrunners in Europe, according to Dealogic data compiled for the Guardian. Only Morgan Stanley ranks at number 10.

Goldman Sachs doesn’t make the table. Goldman made it to number five last year and in 2006, and number eight in 2007, the data shows. JP Morgan was in the top ten last year and in 2007 and 2006 but doesn’t appear this year.

“Governments do not have the confidence that the excessive risk-taking culture of the big Wall Street banks has changed and they still cannot be trusted to put the stability of the financial system before profit,” said Arlene McCarthy, vice chair of the European parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee. “It is no surprise therefore that governments are reluctant to do business with banks that have failed to learn the lesson of the crisis. The banks need to acknowledge the mistakes that were made and behave in an ethical way to regain the trust and confidence of governments.”

A Guardian article.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Economy, Europe, Finance.

Tagged with , , , , , , , .


Anthropology and Economics

Check out this brilliant post by Ryan Anderson, an anthropology grad student.

Posted in Anthropology, economics.


Oumou Sangare – Dugu Kamalemba

She is on the list of artistes I plan to see perform live someday.

Posted in Africa, Music.


The Turai Yar’Adua distraction

Adewale Ajadi writes in NEXT:

Is it not possible that in a heated polity Mrs. Yar’Adua sees herself as isolated and her husband as threatened; viewing each delegation that approached Saudi Arabia with the same cynicism that is abroad across the land and drinking from the same sectional cesspool from which the national psyche is daily watered; she would watch life ebb out of her man, her insecurity and loyalty driving choices that are now the source of criticism? Is it possible that this is a wife fighting for her husband the best way she knows how?

In this aspect the restraint of the Acting President, which is seen in some quarters as slowness and even cowardice, takes the shape of wisdom and humanity, standards that are rarely ever prominent in our win-lose public life. It is possible to see the fingerprint of misogyny all over the glee of the attacks on Mrs. Yar’Adua.

I feel that this is a possible understanding of the situation Mrs Yar’Adua is in, and I said as much in a somewhat rambling post (forgive me, a combination of lack of sleep and too much coffee sometimes takes its toll).

And in relation to the constitionality of how the Acting President was appointed:

As things stand it will be difficult under the provisions of the current Constitution to justify the creative process with which the Senate fashioned an acting president, an action, which was not only laudable and in fact heroic in the context, but also not necessarily constitutional. It is a mark of the institutional progress that even though a president had been missing for three months, there was a process that kept the affairs of state grinding even if slowly. It stands to reason that what we need is a far less ambitious document.

That is also my stance. Indeed, it is a sign of institutional progress that the country has been able to muddle through a very difficult situation and come out of it with something that we all might not agree with, but that somehow works. It is also impressive that the country was run quite well all through the time that there was no president, something that made me write, cynically, that we probably do not need a president.

These are really impressive things that should be highlighted. Agreed, we need to have discussions on recent and ongoing happenings, but reducing things to sensationalism only distracts from the issues that really need focus. Sensationalism sells paper, but does it really serve the public?

See Akin’s blog for a similar take.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Africa, Economy, Nigeria, Thoughts.

Tagged with , .


Swiss animals may get state-funded lawyers

Swiss voters will go to the polls on Sunday to decide on a proposal to appoint state-funded lawyers across the country to represent animals in court.

Supporters of the initiative say such lawyers would help deter cases of animal cruelty and neglect, by making sure that those who did abuse or neglect animals would be properly punished.

BBC

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Europe.

Tagged with , , , , .


Friday links #39

1. The black damsel in dating distress

2. A Berlin cafe establishes a no child section

3. What other countries think of the United States of America

4. A credible scenario for World War III?

Posted in Anthropology, Links.


Afternoon music break – Cheikh Lô

Cheikh Lô’s Set.

Enjoy!

Posted in Music.


Tesco launches a recycled clothing collection line

The clothes are being produced in a “green” factory in Sri Lanka – the first in the world to be awarded a gold rating for environmental responsiblity by LEED, the international green building certification system.

And they are:

made from end of line Tesco stock which would otherwise end up in landfill….

Full article.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Commodity, economics.

Tagged with , , , .


On the career of *Identity*

In a beautifully written piece over at the New York Review of Books blog, Tony Judt discusses what identity means in a cosmopolitan world. H/T Aleksandra Gadzala

For a further discussion/problematisation of the concept see ‘Beyond “Identity”‘, by Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper. Ungated pdf version available here.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Anthropology, Experiences.

Tagged with , , , , , , , .


Sound trade policy recommendation for Nigeria

The president of Rice Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIDAN), Gbadamosi Mufutau,

urged the federal government to harmonize the duty on rice with the neighbouring countries to discourage smuggling. “You observed that any increase in duty, tariff, levies and benchmark always cause increase of importation of such products to Republic Benin and Togo ports with the intention of smuggling such products into Nigeria markets,” he said.

The main reason for his policy advice? He said:

Smugglers have almost driven the importers into extinction because they evade duty and taxes and sell at cheaper prices. You know that the margin on a bag of rice is quite small, a maximum of N150 per bag. For those of us that import into the country through sea ports pay duties, levies and pay wages, one would see that the smugglers are sabotaging the economy.

Read the full article here.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Posted in Africa, Nigeria, Trade.

Tagged with , , , , , , , .