Greetings

A few things.....

In this e-blast

1. Economic Recovery...Don't Bank it!!
2. A few words on Egypt
3. What can you do to help the Afrikan Team?
4. Ifayomi Watch
5. Website Development

1. Economic Recovery... Don't Bank on it!!

There has been a lot of talk about economic recovery, in the UK and US and much of this is based on a couple of propositions:
(i) That you have faith in government statistics, and
(ii) That you believe in the concept of a jobless recovery.

I am going to spend a little time setting out why you should be wary of both and understand the implications of both for Afrikans.

Lies, Damned Lies and Government Statistics

In an article entitled '9% Unemployment Rate is a Statistical Lie' which appeared in  "USAWatchdog"  on 7th February 2011, Greg Hunter noted that "The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the latest unemployment figures last Friday.  There was a stunning drop to 9% from 9.4%.  How did that happen?  Is the economy really getting better or is the government up to its old statistical tricks.  According to the mainstream media, the economy is getting better and the so-called recovery is alive and well.  Here’s how the Associated Press reported the story, “The unemployment rate is suddenly sinking at the fastest pace in a half-century, falling to 9 percent from 9.8 percent in just two months — the most encouraging sign for the job market since the recession ended.  More than half a million people found work in January. A government survey found weak hiring by big companies. But more people appear to be working for themselves or finding jobs at small businesses.”  (Click here for the complete AP story.)

“More than half a million people found work in January.”  How?  The BLS reported there was only a tiny gain of 36,000 workers to the payrolls, and even that number is a statistical lie, according to economist John Williams of http://www.shadowstats.com .  In his latest report (last Friday), Williams said, “Incredibly, despite ongoing regular overstatement of payrolls by the BLS, the BLS appears to have upped, not lowered, the excessive biases in its latest rendition.  Without the higher bias, the reported January 2011 payroll gain of 36,000 would have been a decline of 52,000.” 

As for the big drop in the unemployment number down to 9%, you can credit that with something the BLS calls “seasonal adjustments.”   The government takes into consideration things like cold weather and snow when it puts together unemployment figures.  Williams thinks these seasonal adjustments have been distorted by the dismal economy during the past few years.  Williams says, “. . . the extraordinary severity and duration of the economic duress in the United States during the last three to four years has destabilized traditional seasonal-factor adjustments and the related monthly reporting of certain economic series.  The unemployment rate rose in January 2011, not seasonally adjusted.  The 0.4% decline reported in the headline January unemployment rate appears to be a seasonal-factor issue.”  In other words, seasonal adjustment jobs are created out of thin air and are not really there for people.  In reality, unemployment increased slightly.  It did not decrease. 

While we are on the subject of reality, after one year, the unemployed are no longer counted in government statistics.  If unemployment was computed the way BLS did it prior to 1994, the true unemployment rate (according to Shadowstats.com) would be 22.2%.  I wonder why the mainstream media feels compelled to only do stories that support government statistics.  There is bona fide analysis that can show government numbers are rigged to make things look better than reality."
http://usawatchdog.com/9-unemployment-rate-is-a-statistical-lie/#more-3749

So there you have it. Don't believe the government hype and government statistics. Those of you who have purchased a copy of my book 'Buy now Pay Later' will know that i did a big write up on the manipulation of US government economic statistics (not just unemployment, but also GDP, inflation etc.) which has been going on since the early 1980s. As with so much else, the Obama administration has not introduced these corrupt practices, they have merely continued them. As I have told you repeatedly, it's business as usual. If the true unemployment rate in the US is 22.2% then what is the unemployment rate for Afrikans in the US? Probably 35-40%.

Meanwhile back in the world of economic reality we see that the US housing market is barely registering a pulse.

In an article entitled 'Negative Home Equity Surges, Weighing on Housing Recovery' published on 9th February 2011, Diane Olick, CNBC Real Estate Reporter, tells us:

"The number of borrowers who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth took a huge leap in the fourth quarter of 2010. A full 27 percent of borrowers are now “underwater” on their mortgages, up from 23 percent in the previous quarter, according to a new report from Zillow. Foreclosure moratoriums and falling home prices are to blame. Adding to a slew of negative reports on home prices, Zillow found home values posted their largest quarter-over-quarter decline, 2.6 percent, since the beginning of 2009.  The home buyer tax credit, which inflated home prices artificially in the first half of the year, resulted in a Fall hangover. Home prices plunged 5.9 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2009." www.cnbc.com/id/41483676  

So over a quarter of US mortgage holders are in negative equity, and remember interest rates are at historically low levels! What will happen when interest rates go up and the money people have at the moment to save, spend or reduce debt has to be used to service debt interest?  Doesn't sound like much of a recovery to me.

Meanwhile back in the UK
•-0.5% fall in UK GDP in last quarter (Oct-Dec 2010)
•VAT rise yet to affect GDP figures
•Inflation heading towards 5% (much more for items like food)
•On average there has been a 12% fall in wages in real terms over the past 3 years in the UK
•It is estimated that there will be 6 years of stagnant wages in the UK (which will be the longest period since the 1920s)
•Recent government talks with banks to create £200bn of bank loans for small businesses broke down
•Unemployment rose by 49,000 in December (Does not take into account the 2.5 million people not officially unemployed but who would like jobs)
•Public sector cuts will really kick in from April 2011 
•N.B. Black people are over-represented in public sector employment (42% compared to 28% across whole population) 
 
Also yesterday (Friday 11th) Birmingham City Council announced 7,000 job cuts. The latest in a long line of local authorities announcing planned redundancies.
This is what the recovery is going to look like in the bastions of neo-liberal economics, stagnant suppressed wages, increasing unemployment, depressed housing market and
wait for it....

'Rich Get Richer When Governments Tout Austerity'. In this article published on 8 Feb 2011 12:00 AM GMT  Matthew Lynn on the Bloomberg website Lynn tells us that:

"U.K. data suggest the gap between the wealthy and the poor has widened. We can give up any idea that it is going to close by itself. The government usually bails out the rich; the wages that the highly skilled can command are rising all the time; and globalization means the well-off increasingly occupy a whole different economy than the rest of the country they live in.

While the U.K. economy as a whole may be struggling, people at the top end of the income range are doing surprisingly well.

A report last week by HSBC Holdings Plc, drawing on a YouGov Plc survey, concluded that the richest British households -- defined as those earning 100,000 pounds ($161,000) a year or more -- planned to increase their spending by 7.8 percent this year, even though some of that will be financed by saving less. Not much sign of austerity there.

The ordinary British family isn’t doing so well. The median pay increase was 2.2 percent in the last three months, less than inflation, which is running at 3.7 percent. In effect, the average person is getting poorer in real terms -- but those at the top are doing fine." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-08/rich-get-richer-as-governments-tout-austerity-commentary-by-matthew-lynn.html

There is no such thing as a jobless recovery unless you consider that economics is only about numbers and not people. The primary purpose of an economy is to create an environment in which people are able to take care of themselves and families and build stable communities where people not only survive but flourish.

Those of you in the UK of a certain age will remember the housing market crash in the UK of the late 1980s/early 1990s. However even during this period no more than around 10% of mortgage holders were facing negative equity.

2. A few words on Egypt

The ongoing tumultuous events in Egypt can teach us a few  pointed lessons about the world as it is. I don't want to go into a commentary regarding the possible future outcomes of the political uprising in Egypt, rather I want to touch on a couple of tangential, but nevertheless important, lessons that those with ears to hear should have learned from these events.

(i) Egypt..Out of Afrika - Listen to the news commentary on the events of the past three weeks and you may well have noticed the constant reference to Egypt as being in the Middle East. Linked to this you may well have noticed that both Egyptian and non-Egyptians kept on referring to the importance of the uprising to the 'Arab World'. I have yet to hear anyone outside of the world of the Afrikan-centred email world referring to the implications for the 'Afrikan World'. Why is this?  Well let's read the words of our great ancestor and former President of Tanzania Julius Nyerere in his last statement on Pan-Africanism in December 1997. The full transcript can be found on my website in the Neo-Garveyism section (see link at the end of the quotation). The renowned Nigerian scholar Chinweizu in commenting on this speech tells us that,    

"Below is Nyerere’s last statement on Pan-Africanism. It is a public speech in which he makes the case for a Sub-Sahara Pan-Africanism and also repudiates socialism. Since he had spent his career championing both Continentalism and African socialism,--he spent18 years (1967-1985), the bulk of his tenure as President of Tanzania, building African socialism (Ujamaa) there -- his change of position on both should be the mandatory starting point for any serious discussion to chart a way forward for Africa and Pan-Africanism in the 21st century." (Page 1)

In his speech Nyerere reflected upon the geo-political orientation and allegiance of North Afrika and the relative isolation of Afrika south of the Sahara.

"What I want to do is to share with you some thoughts on two issues concerning Africa. One, an obvious one; when I speak you will realise how obvious it is. Another one, less obvious, and I'll spend a little more time on the less obvious one, because I think those will put Africa in what is going to be Africa's context in the 21st century. And the new leadership of Africa will have to concern itself with the situation in which it finds itself in the world of tomorrow —in the world of the 21st century. And the Africa I'm going to be talking about, is Africa south of the Sahara, Sub-Sahara Africa..............................Europe's Second Mexico is North Africa. North Africa is to Europe what Mexico is to the United States. North Africans who have no jobs will not go to Nigeria, they'll be thinking of Europe or the Middle East, because of the imperatives of geography and history and religion and language. North Africa is part of Europe and the Middle East.
Nasser was a great leader and a great African leader. I got on extremely well with him. Once he sent me a Minister, and I had a long discussion with his Minister at State House here, and in the course of the discussion, the Minister says to me, "Mr. President this is my first visit to Africa". North Africa, because of the pull of the Mediterranean and I say history and culture, and religion, North Africa is pulled towards the North. When North Africans look for jobs they go to Western Europe and Southern Western Europe, or they go to the Middle East. And Europe has a specific policy for North Africa, specific policy for North Africa. It's not only about development, it's also about security. Because if you don't do something about North Africa, they'll come.

Africa South of the Sahara is isolated. That is the first point I want to make. Africa South of the Sahara is totally isolated in terms of that configuration of developing power in the world of the 21st Century — on its own. There is no centre of power in whose self interest it's important to develop Africa, no centre. Not North America, not Japan, not Western Europe. There's no self-interest to bother about Africa South of the Sahara. Africa South of the Sahara is different, totally different. (pages 4-6)
http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk/site/documents/neoGarveyismCorner/Nyerere,%20Reflections--Dec.%201997.pdf

In 1997 Julius Nyerere asserted what I and others since have been telling those willing to listen, namely that the Continentalist version of Pan-Africanism is based upon a false premise, namely that geography alone is sufficient to unite very different people. Egyptians are just as Arab as Iraqis, the fact that they live in Africa is an irrelevant circumstance of history. Their civilisation identity is as Arabs and Muslims. Arabs form the ethnic core and occupy the top of the ladder of the Muslim world, hence why the Egyptians who are revolting speak of the Arab world and not the North Afrikan world  let alone the Afrikan world. Similarly, you find that the USA is part of Western civilisation and is most closely allied to their ethno-cultural brethren of Western Europe (plus Canada and Australia).  Geography is insignificant. Culture is the key!!

(ii) When does a government become a regime? - You may noticed that somewhere early in the course of the corporate media's coverage of the Egyptian uprising ex-President Hosni Mubarak's government became a regime. Language is important, as they provide conditioning cues to shape your thinking. Hosni Mubarak had been in power for 30 years, complete with US approved; detention without trial, torture and imprisonment of a rival Presidential candidate. None of this caused the 'Western powers' and their partners in the corporate media (including the BBC) any problem, however within a few days of the uprising they all regained their memory and a government became a regime!

3. What can you do to help the Afrikan team?

I hope the above commentary on Egypt has helped focus your mind on the fact that there is an ongoing 'Clash of Civilisations' (I would recommend the book of that name by Samuel P. Huntington) taking place in the world and the only major population group who seem confused about, firstly; that this battle is taking place, and secondly; which team they should be on, are Afrikans. If you don't recognise the reality of this battle fee free to skip this short section and go on to item 4. The great ancestor Amos Wilson reveals the delusions and escapism of some cultural nationalists which are almost as damaging as the complicity of the assimilationists.

"There are people who scrape their monies together, give it to the airlines, give it to the Arabs, jump out the plane, bow, scrape and kiss the earth, just to salve their own wounded egos. But when asked for that $1,500 toward the feeding of our children, toward the educating of our children, toward the creation of jobs for our people, toward the gaining of control over real estate and the gaining control over our wealth, somehow they're not able to make those sacrifices. They're willing to worship the pyramids of 4,000 years ago but will not build pyramids in the present so their children may see what they left behind as well. We have then a leadership who rallies the people to look at past glories but leave their own children neglected; who will make great analytical and oratorical dissertations on the inadequacies of Eurocentric education and yet will not contribute one penny of their monies and their time to the construction of their own schools; who year after year will spend millions and give it away to the others, but will not give it to their young. That is pseudo nationalism.

...the true nationalist...not only complains about the nature of the education of Black children [but] does something about it. He builds the schools and universities and constructs and instructs as part of his nationalist mission."

Amos N. Wilson
Afrikan-Centered Consciousness Versus The New World Order



If you want to fight for Team Afrika there follow a few suggestions. Even if you do not consider yourself particularly 'conscious' or Pan-Afrikanist, if you love Black people just do a bit more and it will help. With 10,000 small nudges we can begin to turn this ship around.
  • Psychologically commit yourself to supporting the Afrikan (Black) team
  • Teach your children and younger family members to be loyal to the Afrikan team and what this means
  • De-prioritise sport and entertainment for the children/young people you have influence over and promote; intellectual excellence, business development and wealth creation
  • Seek love with another Afrikan and work hard to make your relationship stick
  • Increase the proportion of your spend that you give to Afrikan-owned businesses
  • Engage in some form of Afrikan co-operative economic initiative, be it pardner, investment group etc. see http://www.abdf.co.uk
  • Boycott Christmas spending (see my previous posting on this)
  • Plan to live close-by to other like-minded Afrikans (we need to recolonise territory)
  • Support or set up Supplementary schools
  • Support or set up Rites of Passage programmes
  • Watch/listen to less corporate media and support positive Afrikan owned media
  • Read more serious books
  • Support Afrikan charities or charitable endeavours 
  • Reduce the time you spend in the company of negative people
  • Stop being so ideologically rigid. As long as it is ethical our mantra needs to be we do 'What works'.
  • Use Afrikan holy days such as Afrikan Liberation Day for strategising and practical action planning, not just speech making, remembrance and celebration (although these have their place)
There are many other things we can all do, but hopefully the above gives you some ideas.

4. Ifayomi Watch

You can catch up with me in the following ways:

Sunday 13th February at 9.00pm GMT. I will be a guest on the 'talkback show' on Kemet FM 97.5FM http://www.975kemetfm.co.uk   We will be discussing David Cameron's speech attacking multi-culturalism.
Monday 14th February at 8.00pm GMT. I will be a guest on Voice of Africa Radio 94.3FM http://www.voiceofafricaradio.com ;  on the 'Afrika Speaks' show hosted by the Alkebulan-Revivalist Movement. We will be discussing Male/Female Relationships.
Sunday 20th February at 1.00pm GMT. I will be a guest on the 'Shoot the Messenger' show hosted by Henry Bonsu on Vox Africa TV http://www.voxafrica.co.uk  
Saturday 5th March - I would like to run a course on this date, so if you want to work with me to organise a course in your local community get in touch.
Saturday 19th March - I will be running the 'Grand in Your Hand' course during the day and a free 'Beat the recession' seminar in the evening. Time and venue details to be confirmed.

About the Grand in your Hand course:
"The course was quite relaxed and went at a good pace providing people with the opportunity to ask questions.
The instructions were easy to follow and having the booklet with me provided me with a quick reminder of each step needed to secure the money. 
It took me roughly 2 weeks to make over £1500.Since then I have followed the same process for all my family at home and I'm now taking a few days off work to make some money for my friends and others.
The course is definitely good value for money I can't think of many other things where you can get 10 times the amount you invested."

Adeola

5. Website Developments

I am switching website hosts so the website will be down for 1-2 weeks.  The house of knowledge website will be back; better than ever as we continuously strive to deliver the best quality service within our means.

That's it. It's been long, but hopefully useful. Remember, if you like what we do support what we do, because those that don't won't. One non-financial way of supporting this work is simply to spread the word. The bigger the mailing; list the more people get this information and the more nudges towards liberation we can co-ordinate.

Ifayomi
The only answer is Afrikan Power
http://www.houseofknowledge.org.uk
Afritips!