All across Africa, the norm is road blocks where commercial
traffic ponies-up a share of cargo to armed members of police and government
militias. In the Congo, victims include individual travellers. A cynic would
consider it a form of taxation in a region where the money-economy does not
embrace the hinterland.
How then does a ruling clique go about distributing product to
its
members when a veneer of order needs to be displayed in a 'democracy': one
prints currency ! Inflation, a result of shortages or diminished supply is not
then a
concern for the civil service. Priced-out and forced out of the market-place
are the
retired, the sub-employed and the disabled. Our Pay Commissions give the
exercise
the moral coating it so badly lacks.
Now for a comparison of our surreal with the scene in Jim's
country; they call it
'quantitative easing' in the US. Flooded with supplies, they print 'money'
which is turned
over to banks who in turn 'lend' it to you to buy autos, unsold homes
appliances. A broker
lends me this cheap money at 1% and I in turn buy company bonds that pay 6%.
The US supplies forty million citizens with a plastic card
that enables them
to take home a hundred and fifty dollars in groceries every month. No currency
needed.
eric.
