, And the Nobel Prize for Economics goes to Jimoh Ibrahim who just propounded that the recession can be turned around if Central Banks simply printed more currency. Hurray!!! The global economic crisis ends today.

Anyway, more seriouly, economists are here and there, on the papers and TV screens, trying to enlighten us on the current global financial crisis. They’re so busy inventing fancy terminologies, catch phrases and euphemism to describe the hot pot we’re in that they all forget to mention one slight detail. The last time the world economy was so bad, it was the Great Depression; and the last time it was the Great Depression, it ended up in World War II. So while we’re all busy credit crunching, bailing out, stimulus planning and rescuing, a war is brewing right under our noses.

The different bailout plans by governments all over the world will come with anti-freetrade conditions, which will try to better them off by making their traditional business partners worse off. Nothing quite different from the “beggar-my-neighbour” policies most European countries employed during the Depression. The bailout will come with a lot of borrowing of which few will be able, if at all willing to pay. The rescue plan will be shrouded in total dubiety that has already seen at least one government being scammed by its own corporations to the tune of $70 billion. A lot of lenders and taxpayers are already getting very pissed to put it mildly.

Massive capital flight will lead to nationalization of foreign firms and producing nations will fight against any stimulus or rescue plan intent on denying them a market for their commodities. Already, the E.U has taken the U.S.A to the W.T.O over clauses in their bailout plan that show bias to firms that will stop importing European raw materials. Then of course, there’s another part of the U.S stimulus plan with dedication towards cutting importation of crude oil and reliance on other fossil fuels. This won’t make Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Iran any happier than we’ve ever seen them.

This issue of seeking alternative energy is one of those reverse engineered failure schemes. Solar works fine but needs some improvements, however, any attempt at large scale production of biofuels equals to food crisis which is the bane of the global recession we’re seeing today. Sometimes we forget to link events, but not long ago, when the biofuel craze was on, Italy complained about less wheat to feed, Nigeria cried for more rice and we realized the world was in food crises. Did we produce more food? No. Households dedicated more revenue to feeding and less on paying their loans and mortgages. So here we are today, no more food crises its economic crises. Why should we go through this again 360 degrees? Because Obama says so?

To me though, the most ridiculous part of the American stimulus plan is the one targeted at import substitution of Chinese goods in order to create jobs and reduce trade deficit. Is this really wise? China gets most of its revenue from exporting finished goods to the U.S.A. This same China has also lent hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S government now the U.S wants to utilize a large chunk of that cash in making sure China has a lesser share of its market in the future thereby drastically reducing revenue to the Chinese government, causing unemployment, poverty and winding down industries. I don’t know if China will get the joke.

At the end of World War I a similar scenario played out when factories in Japan and America went into a massive production frenzy hoping that a Europe just coming out of a devastating war would have to rely on imports. However, when Germany, France, Russia and England preferred to go through with the baptism of fire by getting back on their own feet especially with loans they had obtained mostly from Japan, Switzerland and the U.S.A, it was a complete disaster for the creditors.

The truth is, there’s nothing new under the sun. The history books may teach us that how the Second World War began because Adolph Hitler went psycho, but as events unfold, the entire history will replay. Already, Nicolas “the mouth” Sarkozy declared as E.U president that Europe should pool together a Sovereign-Wealth Fund to save industries all over Europe and Germany has vehemently rejected any such plan, knowing full well who will be responsible for footing most of the bill. So what was is now being.

Today, the two power blocks have already been formed already; the E.U, U.S.A and Australia on the one hand, and the P.R.C, Russia and India on the other. Africa and Latin America will remain neutral as ever but will come out of the crisis none-the-better. At the end of the day, the solution is either war or drastic change. Not the change of throwing money recklessly at a problem that started by throwing money recklessly.

Even Nigerian banks with an interNational Cake mentality are beginning to call for bailout from this world economic crisis, which they claim led to the stock market crash. But really, did defaults on mortgage in the U.S.A cause the NSE to crash? Did subprime lending in America cause Nigerian banks to bloat their share prices? In fact, my own theory is that the crash of the NSE contributed to the global recession. If the American economy was ailing yet the Nigerian Stock market was performing the wonders it did in 2007, businesses would not have pulled out the funds from the NSE. In fact, they would have even pulled out from other economies and lined up to invest in our stock exchange. Nigeria caused its own problems; end of story.

Please somebody, where’s the IMF? I thought this was their area of specialization? Where are they hiding? Don’t they have all their programs and policies and austerity measures anymore? When it comes to Zimbabwe, their expertise will shine through and they will be able to tell a broke government how to spend $500 billion at a 20% compound interest annually for 50 years in order to have a 1% growth. Now that the countries it was initially created to help are back in economic turmoil it’s all silent from the Monetary Fund.

It’s becoming sort of monotonous that I keep going back to China, yet China is the only country that has produced a bailout plan with a backbone. One that focuses on infrastructural development, with enough cash to back it up without having to borrow a dime, a stimulus plan for agriculture, transportation, housing and more power generation. The exact kind of plan that Nigeria needs but will never put together.

Crude oil price is plunging at a period when temperate countries are seeing their worst winter in decades. Summer will bring in worse crude oil revenue, probably unit price per barrel before the year runs out, still there’s absolutely nothing being done. Nothing. No refineries being built, no railroads being constructed, no new ports or jetties, no water purification plants, even the Independent Power Projects built 2006/2007 and already commissioned are yet to generate a Watt. Vision 20-20-20 will forever remain a vision.

So back home, no matter what route the world takes in solving the global recession, everything remains the same here. Nigeria has never survived by planning and strategy, it’s been pure luck; good and bad. So I see no reason why we can’t start our own war over here and hope for the best. By the way, I’m just as glad to see Rilwan Lukman again as the Americans would be to see George Bush back in power come 2012.

When Jimoh made that statement i lost any form of respect i thought i had for him,I couldnt help but look at him just like i would look at a tout.
Its sad indeed that the Chairman of a group of companies which include insurance,aviation,. . . etc could think like that.