In highlighting the precarious economic situation faced by the heavily indebted and slow growing wealthy advanced nations of the West, now struggling against great odds, to rebalance public finances thrown out of kilter by huge budget deficits, and teetering ever closer to a double-dip recession, the article below, which I have culled from the Daily Telegraph's online version, entitled:
"David Cameron: world on brink of new economic crisis" (written by the paper's Jon Swaine and James Kirkup - and posted at 11:01PM BST on 22nd September, 2011), amplify perfectly, the burdens placed on the National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime of President Mills, by the huge budget deficit left behind by the profligate New Patriotic Party (NPP) regime of President Kufuor.
Juxtaposed against the situation faced by Ghana, when the Mills administration came into office in January 2009, the gloomy picture painted by the Telegraph article, illustrates perfectly, just how unfair the mostly-economic-illiterate Ghanaian journalists and self-seeking politicians now spearheading the NPP "Enkoyie" propaganda, have been to the ordinary people of Ghana, who they have been deliberately misleading about the ghastly legacy of the NPP.
From day one of the Mills administration's tenure, they have intentionally refused to acknowledge the dismal state of the national economy the new government faced on assuming office, and ignored the valiant efforts made by the NDC regime of President Mills to stabilise the Ghanaian economy, and at the same time succeeding in inducing some growth in the economy: whiles dealing with the dreadful hydra-headed economic monstrosity left behind by the perfidious NPP regime of Kufuor & Co.
To understand the true measure and real significance of what the Mills administration - which faced exactly the same problems that appear to be overwhelming the Western democracies when it came to power - has been able to achieve thus far, every fair-minded and discerning Ghanaian nationalist and patriot, needs to read the aforementioned Telegraph article, which I reproduce below. Please read on:
"David Cameron: world on brink of new economic crisis
The world stands on the brink of a new economic crisis that would leave countries like Britain “staring down the barrel”, David Cameron has warned.
The Prime Minister said that the failure of leaders in the US and Europe to tackle government deficits now "threatens the stability of the world economy".
Mr Cameron spoke as stock markets around the world fell sharply again, with the FTSE–100 suffering its biggest drop for more than two years.
Politicians, central bankers and investors are increasingly worried that the world's biggest economies are sliding back into a recession, dragged down by government debts.
More gloomy economic data yesterday led one of the world's leading economists to say that Britain, the US and the eurozone are all already in recession, and warn of a second financial crisis worse than that of 2008–9. The Prime Minister spoke in Canada after delivering a blunt warning to President Barack Obama and eurozone leaders about the need to follow Britain's example and curb their deficits.
In a speech in Ottawa, Mr Cameron said that Western politicians must show more "leadership" and warned that political indecision would only worsen the crisis.
"We're not quite staring down the barrel, but the pattern is clear," he said "Growth in Europe has stalled, growth in America has stalled."
Earlier, Mr Cameron put himself at the head of a new bloc of countries from the G20 group of leading economies to tell US and European leaders that their failure to take action on budgets threatened the world economy. "Barriers to action are now political as much as economic," Mr Cameron wrote in an open letter. "We must send a clear signal that we are ready to take the actions necessary to maintain growth and stability for all for the future."
In the letter, signed by leaders from Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea, Mr Cameron implicitly criticised US and eurozone governments for not doing more to reduce budget deficits. The US "needs to overcome the remaining hurdles towards restoring medium–term fiscal sustainability," said the letter.
Eurozone governments must "act swiftly" to restore markets' confidence in the single currency and struggling countries such as Greece. All European economies "must confront the debt overhang to prevent contagion to the wider global economy".
Mr Cameron's warning was echoed in Washington at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund.
"The current economic situation is entering a dangerous phase," said Christine Lagarde, the fund's managing director.
Robert Zoellick of the World Bank also said that the world economy was now "in the danger zone".
Both warned that the world was facing a prolonged crisis unless leaders could find the "political determination" to set the recovery back on track.
In London, the FTSE–100 index of leading shares closed at 5,041 last night, down 4.7 per cent – the biggest one–day fall in the market since March 2009. Amid continuing fears of a new credit crunch, banks were among the hardest hit. Lloyds Banking Group dropped 10 per cent and Barclays was down nine per cent.
French and German stock markets saw even bigger losses, dropping five per cent. In New York the Dow Jones index dropped 3.5 per cent to end 391 points down, on 10,733.
Fears of a double–dip recession were intensified by new economic data. The CBI Industrial Trends survey – which tracks UK factory orders – fell more quickly than economists had forecast.
A European survey of manufacturing and services firms' activity also fell sharply, leading to warnings that the eurozone economies were already shrinking again.
Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economist who predicted the last financial crisis, said: "The US, eurozone and UK are effectively in a recession now."
A global recession was now all but certain he said, adding: "Will it be a mild G7 recession or a severe recession plus global financial crisis as bad or even worse than the 2008–09 one?" Such fears are driving investors to sell shares and bonds despite increasing efforts by central banks to inject more money into struggling economies.
The US Federal Reserve this week announced a plan to inject $400billion into the struggling US economy.
And the Bank of England is expected to launch a new round of quantitative easing, printing new money, as soon as next month.
Jurgen Stark, the chief economist at the European Central Bank, who announced his resignation earlier this month, said the situation was "dire" and threatened the euro's sustainability.
A new financial crisis and a British recession would pose the most serious test yet for the Coalition.
But some Conservatives think that it could alter Britain's relationship with the EU, allowing ministers to renegotiate or simply ignore some EU economic rules.
Sir Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, has sparked controversy by missing a meeting a key meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington this week.
Despite the economic crisis, Sir Mervyn sent his deputy, Charlie Bean, to meet the world's most senior financiers. "
End of culled article from the online version of the UK paper, The Daily Telegraph.
Well, there it is, dear reader. From the doom and gloom faced by the wealthy nations of the West, clearly, the Mills regime performed a miracle, in keeping our country from grinding to a halt, when it first came to power in January 2009 - and met empty government coffers, and a gargantuan budget deficit, which even the neo-liberal think tank IMANI's Franklin Cudjoe, once admitted, during a current affairs programme on Radio Gold, was even bigger than Greece's, when measured as a proportion of GDP: and we all know the woes of the Greeks and their nation, as they struggle to stave off the economic equivalent of Armageddon.
The ordinary people of Ghana, deserve to be told the truth about the achievements of the Mills regime's managers of our nation's economy.
That Ghana is today one of the fastest growing economies in the world, attests to their astuteness and skill in successfully putting Ghana on a path of sustained growth again. They certainly deserve to have the good people of Ghana saying "Ayeekoo" to all of them. Ditto the whole of the Mills administration. As a government, they may have many faults, but they have been exemplary in their stewardship of our nation's finances.
Those hapless geniuses who speak for the Mills regime, must always point out the difficulties faced by the world's wealthy nations, now struggling to reduce massive budget deficits and faced with slow growth and its attendant difficulties, when defending the record of the Mills administration in managing our economy - to put what their regime has achieved in its proper perspective - and expose the terrible deception that the NPP's "Enkoyie" propaganda represents.
They must constantly point it out to ordinary Ghanaians (to use local parlance!), that: "Massa, nowhere cool!" The last thing ordinary people and Nkrumah's Ghana need, is another golden age of business for yet another set of powerful tribal-supremacist family clans of NPP rulers repeating the greed-filled years-of-plenty for a well-connected few - ruthlessly exploiting our national economy for private gain: at society's expense and sending their personal net worth into the stratosphere, in the process.
The next lot of NPP super-clever blackguards to win power again in December 2012, will make the light-fingered and sly Castle-kickback-Kufuor (now busy working like the true hustler he is, to gain international respectability, by lobbying for every award he can inveigle others into handing out to him - to make him look good!), his family clan and his regime's crooked tax-evading crony-capitalists, look like angels. Ghanaians must not swallow their sugar-coated words - for, they do so at their collective peril: and that of the Ghanaian nation-state!
We must stick to the honest, humble and disciplined President Mills and his NDC party - who have shown themselves to be far better and more responsible managers of Ghana's economy, than the profligate Kufuor & Co. and their NPP ever were, in the eight long years they lorded it over ordinary people.
Who has forgotten that many of those smooth-talking ace-hypocrites, adeptly influence-peddled and insider-dealt their way to super-wealth, during that sunny period of their charmed and pampered lives - whiles millions of honest, hard-up every day folk across the country, struggled to survive? A word to the wise...
Tel (Powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
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