Protectionism vis-a-vis Globalization

Until the the second half of 2008, the global economy was purring along with little or no bumps.
For a period of about three decades, the fortunes of many nations and societies have irrevocably changed for the better. Countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and many others in the South East Asian sub-continent were able to modernise their economies by developing competitive advantages in modern technologies and other industries. Around the same time the old iron curtain of the Soviet bloc was crumbling which led to a groundswell of democratic awakening in eastern Europe, a factor responsible for the spike in the demand for the goods and services of the rapidly developing nations of Asia and the developed west.
The foundation of this unprecedented economic growth and rapid transformation in many countries was laid in the seventies. And there is no doubt that the driving force behind global economics was globalization.
China, India, Brazil and Russia ( BRIC) were the next wave of nations to fire up globalization.
The wave of rapid development having bypassed the continent of Africa in the nineties, the fortunes of many nations on the continent were beginning to point north when sadly the inflated balloon was poked. (Read this post for more information on how the global economy went belly up.)
For the three decades that nations embraced the concept of globalization and free trade, their human development indices improved dramatically. That is why recent moves by the developed north to curtail globalization must be a worry for all of us.
Today many of the nations that ardently preached the doctrine of globalization are themselves retreating into protectionism. The "Buy American" clause in the Obama administration's stimulus package recently passed in the US capitol, the comments by UK premier, Gordon Brown, that British jobs should be for British people and many other recent attempts by western nations to enact emergency anti-globalization measures as means to preserve their economies must surely be keeping many nations wondering what the future has in store for global trade.
For the sake of Africa's future, I really pray and hope that the doors of global trade are not slammed shut.
We cannot miss the golden opportunity at our doorstep.

The Fleece Market

The free market as we know it is no more!

One of the central pillars of economic theory is the expectation that people and economic entities will always take reasonable decisions and make sound choices.
Oh boy, how wrong we have been all along!! It would have been better to have assumed that, as a matter of fact, all humans are incorrigible morrons and on that premises we could have put together the necessary safeguards in our economic theories to minimize the risks.
The unfolding economic quadmire the whole world is wallowing in, makes a mockery of the much-heralded assumption of reasonableness. We are all witnessing the consequences of the untested and laissez-faire decisions that have been made over the years by greedy and callous men and women in charge of many branded financial institutions.
Let me express a very critical fact that many seem to forget so easily:
designing very complex financial derivatives and other instruments and simply passing them through the system for implementation by people who have no idea of what they are dealing with coupled with the total disregard for checks and balances will always sink the ship!

Greed, deregulation and irresponsibilty are essentially the hallmarks of the present contagion.
As it was with Nick Leeson so it has been with these clueless managers of our financial resources. Only this time the scale has been massive, brutal and catastrophic!
Global brands are collapsing like dominoes before our eyes every day. The Securities Markets have lost trillions of dollars in a matter of weeks. This is unprecedented! It will take years for the markets to get back to where they were. I wonder if any lessons would have been learnt by the time it is all over.