Re: "Ghana has the hottest exchange in the world"

Yes, Ghana has the world's best performing stock market. That economic equivalent of a "mirage-in-the-desert" and perfect example of "sleight-of-hand" economics, illustrates a point perfectly: The bankruptcy of thought of our country's political class.

They are obsessed with conventional economic thinking - because they are not original thinkers, like Nkrumah was. Against the prevailing Socialist orthodoxy of the time, Nkrumah chose the mixed-economy, private public partnership (PPP) model, long before it became fashionable - with the state actively promoting import substitution projects to provide jobs for ordinary people and improving their quality of life by providing free education, free medical care, and good quality housing at affordable rental rates for those who could not afford to buy their own homes.

Sadly, today's political elite, is totally bereft of original thinking - and is consequently obsessed with GDP growth rates: without ever thinking of what actually constitutes those growth rate figures, and their impact in the real world.

That is what has led to the apparent paradox of a nation with the best-performing stock market (a contradiction in terms, in an illiquid stock exchange, in any case!), but the vast majority of whose ordinary citizens cannot afford the most basic necessities of life.

It has resulted in the intolerable situation and the incredible paradox of a nation experiencing increased GDP growth rates, whiles the quality of life of its citizens plummets steadily, in inverse proportion to the recorded growth of the national economy.

If we moved out of the shadow of conventional economic thinking, and chose to examine what actually constitutes that growth, item by item, we will realise that like growth in all societies that are built on the "selfish-capitalism" model promoted by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, it is growth that benefits only a powerful few in society. They are too blinkered to see that the so-called "trickle-down" theory, does not work in the real economy.

Today, we have all seen how that selfishness has brought the wealthiest capitalist nations to their knees - and the nation-state, has had to organise "bailouts" at taxpayers' expense, for the private entities that were ran to the ground by the greed of the apostles of “selfish-capitalism” - the high-rolling bankers, sundry hedge fund Titans, ruthless derivatives market sharks, and sub-prime market kings: the ultimate masters of the universe!

Their local lackeys here, who also preached the "selfish-capitalism" mantra, as they sold one state-owned asset, after another (every one of them built with the blood, sweat and tears of ordinary Ghanaians), in shady deal after shady deal, which saw those prime national assets pass into the hands of foreign carpetbaggers for a song - with the crumbs going to their local collaborators and the crooks amongst our leaders: as finders' fees and kickbacks, have simply run out of ideas on providing ordinary people with sustainable economic development: which also gives them a better quality of life.

So, today, after those fat-cats have prospered mightily, even as they impoverished our nation and its people yet further (whiles they boasted constantly to us about macro-economic stability and Ghana's impressive GDP growth rates), they have finally succeeded in bringing our nation to its knees - just like their lord and master George "Dubya" Bush has succeeded in bringing the wealthiest and the most powerful nation on the planet Earth, the United States of America, to its knees.

Yes, we certainly have the world's best-performing stock market - which is also illiquid: and of precious use to serious investors worldwide. Why boast about a stock market with the dollar-equivalent of penny shares that stockholders never part with - and disturb the ears of a people struggling to make sure that they are not finally engulfed by the filth that is steadily choking the very life out of their villages, towns and cities: as they struggle to survive, one day at a time?

Is that sad and brutal "fact-on-the-ground" not rather the real indicator of the unpleasant truth that the quality of life of ordinary Ghanaians has steadily deteriorated - whiles the well-connected powerful few, who have benefited from the record GDP growth rates, prospered mightily in the interim - taking their already high personal net worth into the stratosphere, whiles their greed impoverished a whole nation?

Have the politically well-connected crooks amongst our rulers, as well as the tax-dodging and dishonest regime-crony oligarchs, not been the main beneficiaries of our record GDP growth rate figures, if truth be told?

On top of all that, today, ordinary folk, who have dared criticise the greed and selfishness of our ruling elite, have been cheekily labelled "lazy" and "envious" - having salt rubbed into the wounds inflicted on them by those self-same well-connected and powerful few, whose unfathomable greed and amoral ways, apparently knows no bounds: and is fast-destroying the very fabric of Ghanaian society.

Yes, Ghana certainly has the world's "hottest stock exchange" - but its citizens' quality of life is also definitely one of the worst on the surface of the planet Earth! Hmmm, Ghana - enti yeawiaye paa enia? Ayeasem oo: asem ebaba debi anksa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!