Two additional glass-filling-up views of Africa

ARTICLE: "Consumer Continent: Millions rise to the middle class," by Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 8-14 September 2008, p. 18.

ARTICLE: "The Allure of Africa: Foreign investors see opportunity," by Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 8-14 September 2008, p. 24.

Okay, so it's the same journalist (who clearly had more material than she could cram into one article).

Bit I like in the first one:

Vijay Mahajan, a business professor at the University of Texas in Austin, recently coined the phrase "Africa 2s" to describe people who are neither desperately poor (Africa 3s) nor obnoxiously rich (Africa 1s), and says the middle group is one of the most important drivers of economic growth in Africa.

"I'm convinced that Africa is going to be built by Africa 2s," says Mahajan, who has written a book, "Africa Rising," on the subject. "These are the people sending their kids to school ... who are the most optimistic, the most forward-thinking.

Kenyan economist James Shikwati suggests that middle-income consumers are also a driving force for political change.

"It's empowering," he said. "If you give people a sense of freedom in the economic sector, then you deny it in the political sector, you have a problem.

This matches up nicely with what economist George Ayittey calls, in generational terms, the difference between "cheetahs" (new) and "hippos" (old). Find his TED talk here.

Best bit from the second:

Middle Eastern firms flush with oil money are increasingly looking to Africa, as are investors searching for the next India.

Another reason to stop decrying the "largest wealth transfer in human history" a la Boone Pickens ("Damn straight! Keep all the money here and that's how we'll prosper over the long haul!").

Also another reason to deny the BS that says we only fund both sides of the war on terrorism by buying Middle Eastern oil--so not true on too many levels to mention, not the least of being that we don't buy much Middle Eastern oil.

Every bit of churn in globalization allows for somebody to take advantage. Merrill Lynch tanks and guess what? Bankers are cheap to hire right now.

Processing crisis is the key, not preventing crisis. In an increasingly recursive environment (more feedback loops) fostered by globalization (Taleb's term), resilience is adaptation because preventing "black swans" (low probability, high impact events) is a chimera.

Comments

[stuart abrams]

I don't understand why people who think of themselves as free traders don't see the contradiction when they get all in a tizzy about "energy independence". Suppose you heard some politician (or Boone Pickens) say this: America has an addiction to foreign coffee. Even though there are not many places in America where the climate and soil conditions are suitable to growing coffee, I propose that we embark on a crash program to use every inch of those places to maximize the production of American coffee so that we can end our dependence on foreign coffee. Obviously, you'd think that politician is nuts. Yet we take politicians and people like Pickens seriously when they talk about "drill baby drill" and crash programs to achieve independence from foreign oil.

[Sean Meade]

'addiction to foreign coffee'. really nice, stuart!