Nigeria's iron lady: uprooting kakistocracy

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1540043,00.html>

'I keep my ego in my handbag'

Time magazine called her one of the world's heroes; Gordon Brown
hailed her as 'a brilliant reformer'. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, one of only
two female finance ministers in the world, tells Ann McFerran why she
left her family in the US to rescue Nigeria's ailing economy

Ann McFerran
Monday August 1, 2005
Guardian

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala relishes a good fight. Which is just as well.
Since Nigeria's president persuaded her to sort out the country's
infamously chaotic finances and rein in its notorious corruption she's
been hailed by world leaders and reviled by her fellow countrymen.

"When I became finance minister they called me Okonjo-Wahala - or
Trouble Woman," says the 51-year-old, with a throaty chuckle. "It
means 'I give you hell.' But I don't care what names they call me. I'm
a fighter; I'm very focused on what I'm doing, and relentless in what
I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way you get
kicked."

In 2003 Okonjo-Iweala left her job as World Bank vice-president and
her husband and four children in Washington to work 20-hour days in
Nigeria's capital, Abuja. Her task: nothing less than a total shake-up
of the country ranked the second most corrupt in the world, after
Bangladesh. Her goal: to ensure that more of its oil money (£25bn last

Swans Release: August 1, 2005

http://www.swans.com/
August 1, 2005 -- In this issue:

Note from the Editor: The annual Gallup survey of public confidence
in major institutions was recently released, accurately reflecting where
the power lies in America. Military topped the charts at 74%,
followed by police (63%), organized religion (53%), Mr. Bush
(44%), newspapers and TV (28% each), with Congress and big
business tied at 22%. That the corporate media doesn't fall in the big
business category is a mystery...and it's no wonder the public distrusts
it when, as George Beres laments, journalism schools are now
adopting public relations as a major... Deck Deckert, also in the
media know, explains how he who chooses the language frames the
debate. Case in point, the administration's repackaging of the Global
War On Terror (GWOT) as the GSAVE, the Global Struggle Against
Violent Extremism, since wars require exit strategies and the like. The
war on Yugoslavia was so successfully packaged that it is
impenetrable to criticism, as Gilles d'Aymery has repeatedly
experienced. Read Milo Clark and Philip Greenspan for more on
America's perpetual wars and the devastating generations of weapons
used by our trustworthy military institution.

All this makes for an appropriate time to revisit the simpler life of
Henry David Thoreau, compliments of Michael Brooks. Toss out the
newspaper, turn off the telly and pick up a good book. You can
certainly count on Swans' reviewers for well-crafted analyses -- Louis
Proyect examines Ronald Aronson's "Camus and Sartre," and Charles
Marowitz critiques Ronald and Allis Radosh's "Red Star Over
Hollywood." Finally, enjoy Charles Marowitz's "histoire noire" on the
life and times of Paris Hilton via her 2041 obituary.

Re: Nigeria's iron lady: uprooting kakistocracy

Is this a puff job or does it have some basis in fact?
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Nigeria's iron lady: uprooting kakistocracy

On 7/31/05, Michael Perelman <michael@...> wrote:
> Is this a puff job or does it have some basis in fact?

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Tax Cuts at work

Business Week
AUGUST 1, 2005
Profits Head Homeward, But Where Are The Jobs?
p. 34

When it comes to corporate income taxes, it sure pays to be a
multinational these days. U.S. companies fork over up to 35% of their
domestic income in federal taxes. But for earnings from abroad, the tax
rate is just 5.25% this year, thanks to the American Jobs Creation Act
of 2004. The election-year bill was aimed at spurring the U.S. economy
by encouraging U.S. companies with international operations to bring
home profits they had parked in lower tax countries.

The one-year tax break has clearly opened the floodgates: U.S.-based
companies are on track to repatriate upwards of $520 billion by the end
of December, estimates Henry "Chip" Dickson, chief U.S. equity
strategist at Lehman Brothers Inc. (LEH <javascript: void
showTicker('LEH')> ) The drug industry is far and away ahead of the
pack. Led by Pfizer Inc. (PFE <javascript: void showTicker('PFE')> ),
which is returning $36.9 billion in foreign earnings alone,
pharmaceutical and biotech companies could bring $120.5 billion into
their U.S. coffers at the lower tax rate. High-tech equipment makers
such as IBM (IBM <javascript: void showTicker('IBM')> ) and
Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ <javascript: void showTicker('HPQ')> ) come
next, with an estimated $62.9 billion in repatriated earnings.

But if there's little doubt the money is pouring in, figuring out
exactly where it's going is another matter. Though the bill was promoted
as a job-creation measure, regulations set by the U.S. Treasury leave
companies wide leeway in how they use their repatriated profits. Hiring,

What is wrong with my answer

What was wrong with my earlier question

"Latterday Wobbly Types" and "An Injury to One"

2005 marks the centenary of the Industrial Workers of the World.  The
IWW has many heroes and martyrs who made indelible marks on American
history, and Frank Little, who was murdered on August 1, 1917, is one
of them.  Today, MRZine.org commemorates the spirit of Frank Little
and other Wobblies with articles by two of the finest historians on
the American left today (as well as a still from Travis Wilkerson's
"An Injury to One"):

Paul Buhle, "Latterday Wobbly Types: Remembering Stan Weir," <http://
mrzine.monthlyreview.org/buhle010805.html>

Peter Rachleff, "An Injury to One: A Film by Travis Wilkerson,"
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/rachleff010805.html>

As economy becomes ever more globalized, immigrant workers constitute
an increasing proportion of the workforce in the United States (e.g.,
"In recent years, 20 percent of the workers joining the U.S. labor
force nationwide have been Mexican born" [Richard D. Vogel, "Border
Vigilantes and Mass Migration," <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/
vogel220705.html>]), and US organized labor stands at a crossroads,
we need Wobbliness more than ever.

Peter's article mentions the IWW Centennial Tour <http://
www.wobblyshow.org/>, a traveling IWW exhibit that Paul and Derek
Seidman helped put together.  I included links to wobblyshow.org in
both articles.  Be sure to check it out -- here's the tour schedule:
<http://www.wobblyshow.org/tour.php>.

Peter's article, in addition to discussing Travis Wilkerson's "An
Injury to One," one of the most moving documentaries ever made (and
Brechtian, too), includes text of Naomi Wallace's poem about Frank
LIttle.  I adore her!

The next article by Paul, a review of Richard Bermack's The Front
Lines of Social Change: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" (cf.
<http://www.rb68.com/frontlines/index.htm> and <http://
www.heydaybooks.com/public/books/flsc.html>), should come out shortly.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud-
ahmadinejads-face.html>;  <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez-
congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/
2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>

found on the web

[heavily redacted. from alt.politics.socialism.trotsky]

Question:
Why did the Trotskyist cross the road?

Answer One:
Democratic Centralism.

Winning post gets an all expense paid round-trip visit to Cuba,
courtesy the Socialist Workers Party - U.S., not those poseurs
in other countries trying to build socialism in one country,...

Second-best post gets ... one-way trip, same as above.

[more answers:]

To sell a paper to the chicken.

[more]

1) The Trotskyist DIDN'T cross the road -- those are Stalinists you
see on the other side of the road, and centrists gathering at the curb
and thinking about crossing. No genuine Trotskyist would ever attempt
to cross the yellow class line in the middle of the road.

2) To divert some of the advanced elements of the oncoming traffic in
a leftward direction.

3) Because the masses of pedestrians have illusions in road-crossing
as a means to get to the other side. We must make this journey with
them, but without ever abandoning our perspective that road-crossing
is just another reformist illusion. Only a genuine Trotskyist, armed
with a gas station map and an accurate theatre program, who must be in
place during the road-crossing, can then lead the advanced elements of
now disillusioned road-crossing pedestrians in a successful struggle
against oncoming traffic. Only a genuine Trotskyist pedestrian will be
truly able to expose crossing guards and traffic cops as the lackeys
of the capitalist, racist traffic department, and lead the pedestrians
forward to a pedestrian dictatorship, which will build a carless,
trafficless intersection.

4) Because he's a chicken.

[from another individual]

5) The road to socialism is a difficult one, and there are many
obstacles on the way. Only a genuine Trotskyist can lead the masses of
advanced workers on the correct course around those obstacles, to
proletarian revolution. Only a proletarian revolution can remove those
obstacles and facilitate the construction of a healthy workers srate,
under the guidance of a genuine Trotskyist revolutionary party, which
will build the classless, stateless society of the future. Does that
answer your question?

6) The problem is not why to cross the road -- road-crossing is the
duty of every sincere revolutionary. But a correct analysis of the
traffic can lead to only one conclusion -- you cannot get to the other
side by crossing only one road.

7) Because it has become clear that it is impossible to reform the
knot of pedestrians on this side of the road, and a new pedestrian
vanguard must be forged.

Next question:
"Resolved: You can't teach an old dogma new tricks, yes or no?"

You must first be sure that it can do the old tricks, before you teach 
it tricks of a new type. -- Chairman Mao 
--

-- 
Jim Devine
"I am not a Keynesian." -- John Maynard Keynes

Re: found on the web