Hamjatta, your presentations are just understood by yourself perhaps with
you intellectual friend KB. You see the purpose of education is not to be
too clever because you achieve the very opposite of what you intend, at the
moment all you do is just take huge text books and remove chunks of non
relevant material manipulate it and dump it in the Gambia-L, that was why I
took the liberty to expose you not as a moron but as some one suffering
cyber neurotic syndrome. You are so carried away by this internet you
believe that you are addressing the world. Youy live in a false world in as
much as you have potentials you are wasting it by regurgitating philosophers
that are not relivant to our economic reality. After all all you narrate
here is just understood by people of you intellectual level, very advanced.
People like me who are morons cannot decipher the sense of you high
intellectual masturbation. I hope you will from now on try to deal with
reality and spare us you superlatives and velvety adjectives, afterall, all
we want to know is how does The Gambia redress it chronic syndrome of trade
and budget deficits. If you can come up with a strategy and spare us the
archaic philosophers, the you will earn my respect otherwise I will just
treat what you say with a pinch of salt.

>From: Hamjatta Kanteh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Some Policy Recommendations For The Alliance
>Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 16:03:41 EDT
>
>Timeless verities don't come very often with economics; especially when it
>comes to translating intellectual advancements into policy recommendations
>that will renew and resuscitate dilapidated economic structures and
>outlooks.
>Certainly, this philosophical shackle was what greatly hindered the
>creeping
>revival of a reformulated, rethought and exciting but cautious Keynesianism
>-
>or the economics of QWERTY as it is popularly referred to - in America's
>academia in the mid- to late 1980s. Partly, this obstacle to translate this
>Keynesian intellectual advancement into policy application is a reflection
>of
>the dangers involved with the reckless translation of intellectual
>developments into brash policies that have resulted in not only policy
>disaster but also intellectual cul-de-sacs. As Paul Krugman commented on
>this
>intellectual dilemma:
>
>"The rise of the economics of QWERTY felt like an intellectual revolution
>to
>those who participated in it; phrases like "paradigm shift" were used
>routinely. Yet when it came to actual policy applications, the professors
>were cautious. There were at least three reasons for that caution. One is
>that while an acknowledgment of the importance of QWERTY refutes the
>near-religious faith of conservatives in free markets, it is not all easy
>to
>decide which direction the government should pursue. We've already seen how
>subtle the issue of strategic trade policy becomes once one tries to deal
>with real-world complications. So unlike, say, the rational expectations
>school, the new economic theorists did not find that their theory
>translated
>readily into policy recommendations. That does not devalue the significance
>of the theory: it is unreasonable to expect each intellectual advance to be
>ready for immediate policy consumption. Nonetheless, the failure of QWERTY
>to
>yield easy policy conclusions has been a real disappointment." [Paul
>Krugman,
>Peddling Prosperity, pp 243-4, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1995]
>
>We need not despair like Krugman but we mustn't be brash about the
>intellectual arguments that prove our case vis-a-vis the current state of
>the
>Gambian economy. Indeed, in translating what amounts to the intellectual
>advances we have made thus far in the struggle to rescue the Gambia from
>the
>economic freefall she is inevitably doomed to teeter precariously in the
>event of another Jammeh maladministration there is a need for caution.
>Therewith, the watch word in every policy recommendation for the revival of
>the Gambian economy is that of caution and the avoidance of what Krugman
>called "near-religious faith" policy recommendations and or applications.
>That concession is not to say that with the intellectual advancement we've
>made thus far, there are no timeless economic verities with which the
>Gambian
>economy can be resuscitated with. Rather, we mustn't act injudiciously and
>brashly in policy recommendations and or applications. But, above all, we
>must be exercise restraint and tread very cautiously in what policy we
>ultimately recommend and apply to the resuscitation of the Gambian economy.
>
>To the extent that this is true, i will in my policy recommendations
>exercise
>caution and recommend conditionals and transitional phases in cases that
>require some degree of eventual shelving out. If the Alliance believes, as
>i
>certainly do, in liberal and bourgeois economics, then the ultimate task of
>the Alliance is to begin an initially cautious but eventually a radically
>liberalising of all economic structures of the Gambian polity. Should this
>be
>the case, then here i shall briefly enumerate some key policy
>recommendations
>for the Alliance:
>
>1. An Independent Central Bank of the Gambia: The Alliance should
>reformulate
>the current Central Bank from its current anachronistic and politically
>malleable structures to one of independence from the meddling of the
>political class ala the Federal Reserve, the Bundesbank et al. The legal
>remit of the Independent Central Bank should be one of a constitutional
>guaranteeing of the independence of the Bank to carry out its mandate
>without
>the interference of politicians. The economic remit should be one of  a
>monetarist thrust that religiously adheres to stated inflationary targets
>and
>any such liberal economics that aids monetary stability. There should be a
>modicum of democratic values in some of the deliberations of the Bank
>especially its Open Market Committee or Monetary Policy Committee which
>shall
>be responsible for setting of interest rates and monitoring of inflationary
>trends of the economy. Such democratic values should help in offsetting
>some
>of the dangers associated with discretionary nature of the deliberations of
>independent central bankers. The three recommended democratic values are
>relative transparency, probity and accountability as and when they are
>appropriate and when they will not the efficacy of the Bank.
>
>2. Fiscal Conservatism: By fiscal conservatism, we refer to it to mean
>fiscal
>discipline which reflects responsibility and caution in government
>expenditure and borrowing. Unsustainable and profligate fiscal imprudencies
>shouldn't be tolerated and expenditure and borrowing - be it domestic or
>external ones - should primordially reflect stated and sustainable fiscal
>targets.
>
>3.  Free Enterprise, Market And Trade: The economic philosophy of the
>Alliance should be one that grants as much economic freedom as is
>economically feasible. The Alliance should promote an economic milieu that
>aids free enterprise and trade and where undergirds its economic
>liberalisation programme, privatise those public corporations and
>parastatals
>that have been empirically determined as economically feasible for
>privatisation. Free trade should attempt to free the economy of
>un-necessary,
>inimical and nefarious government activities or interventions as in cases
>like the dubious attempts at distorting the free market operation of
>foreign
>exchange markets.
>
>4. Less And Less Foreign Loans, More And More Foreign Investment: Although
>the originator of this economic mantra in the region, the Liberal gov't of
>Wade has, as of yet, to show signs of actuality in the pursuit of a gradual
>shelving of loans, aid and grants for inward foreign and domestic
>investment.
>It certainly remains the case that as a long term economic plan and with
>the
>current unsustainable nature of the Gambia's debt portfolio, the Alliance
>is
>better off critically studying the modalities of such a policy that seeks
>to
>shelve out dependency on grants, aid and loans as means to economic
>development. This should overall reflect an intent on the part of the
>Alliance to introduce an economic philosophy of economic and freedom
>independence.
>
>5. A Free Market For Agriculture: The Alliance must help our poor farmers.
>As
>an interim measure, the Alliance must guarantee our poor farmers that
>before
>the structural problems associated with the marketing of agricultural
>yields
>are sorted out, their yields will not lie around idly whilst they are in
>need. The Alliance must intervene with a pro- poor marketing programme that
>will guarantee the sale of agricultural yields. Where it is vital to rural
>economics and life, agriculture ought to be subsidised to help in its
>revitalisation. This is by no means a declaration for long-term statist and
>collectivist agricultural economics. This is but a transition phase which
>will eventually be shelved as soon modalities exist that support a free
>market for agriculture.
>
>6. A Council Of Economic Advisers: Because of the disastrous nature of the
>economy the Alliance is going to inherit, they are definitely going to need
>a
>lot of technical and seasoned economic advice on how to sort out the
>nation's
>finances, policy applications and the diagnosis of potential economic
>pitfalls. The Council of Economic Advisers should be constitutionally
>legislated to offer independent advise, recommendations and diagnosis of
>the
>economy for the president; and their deliberations should at an appropriate
>period be made available to the public. A modicum of democratic values like
>accountability, transparency and probity should be incorporated to the
>Council's deliberations where appropriate and be expected of the Council
>and
>members of the Council.
>
>These recommendations are by no means exhaustive and most certainly not a
>panacea for all of the Gambia's economic woes. I strongly believe that with
>caution, clarity and, above all, commitment these policy recommendations
>will
>greatly enhance the efforts of the Alliance to build a Gambia of liberal
>tolerance, decency and progress.
>
>Hamjatta Kanteh
>
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