By Yilma Bekele
We are all aware that the global economy is in not in good shape. Both rich industrialized countries and dirt-poor subsistence economies are in a free fall. No one knows where the bottom is. Governments that are democratic, autocratic, military dictatorship or royal kingdoms are all trying different medicine to heal the ailing economy. Let us look at two doctors that have written prescriptions to make the sick economy better.
The two doctors are President Barack Obama of the US on one side and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia on the other. Both their countries have been suffering from recession for quite a while now. The unemployment figure in the US is about 7% average, inflation is about 4%, and the budget deficit is in the trillions while in Ethiopia the unemployment is about 60%, inflation 65% and no budget so to speak of since the country relies on welfare.
President Obama who has been in office for less than three months started of by saying ‘To understand how we get there, we first need to understand how we got here.’ Thus he gathered elected official, experts in various fields and ordinary citizens trying to identify the root cause of the problem and recommend different options to fix it.
He had his treasury secretary work with the banks to ease the credit crunch, defense department devise a way to cut the bloated budget and recommend a safe and honorable exit from Iraq, congress pass a stimulus package to put people back to work on government projects, his secretary of state go to major capitals to hold hands and soothe nerves while he himself went to all parts of the country to get support for his plan of attack and rally the people so that they have confidence in his leadership.
It is a multifaceted approach to one of the biggest problems encountered by his nation. There was no silver bullet here. The main focus was to try different medicines but with the emphasis being the involvement of the people in the treatment. Without the cooperation and good will of the patient the medicine will not work. All his speeches and actions made it clear that the citizen was part of the solution. Even when most felt depressed and helpless the president was acting like a national cheerleader exalting the population to rise up and devise new ways and new methods to slay the double dragon of recession and unemployment.
He did not try to shift the blame on others. The previous administration was not made a scapegoat nor bankers and industry heads targeted to deflect the issue. The president said all are responsible and there was no need to point fingers. The banks were seen by many as the primary culprits in this fiasco and some shouted ‘off with their heads! Sacking a few and prosecuting some would have been a populist move. Mr. Obama did none and said ‘we believe that preemptive government takeovers are likely to end up costing taxpayers even more in the end, and because it is more likely to undermine than to create confidence. Governments should practice the same principle as doctors: first do no harm.’
The US economy is showing signs of life. It is not out of the woods yet, but many believe the patient is recovering. The people are impressed by the rational approach of the commander in chief. His ‘no hysteria’ calm disposition and cheery attitude is seen as the best medicine. His supporters are proud and the skeptics are slowly being drawn to believe that the doctor is knowledgeable and may be he deserves some respect.
How is our other doctor doing? The patient is in dire straits. Unlike the US Ethiopia’s economic situation is a little bit simpler. Due to the primitive state of industrialization the economy is not integrated to the wider world. Farming which accounts for all economic activity is subsistence level and export of raw unprocessed coffee is the mainstay. So the question is how did the doctor approach the problem?
First please note that ‘this’ doctor has been treating the patient for the last eighteen years. The patient has been denied the right to consult other experts and get a second opinion. The patient has been on life support with intensive care nurses (security forces) on stand by 24/7. The patient is dying.
The PM’s initial reaction was complete denial of the problem. He told his parliament “In general, we don’t expect drastic effects on our economy, our financial structure is not as liberalized as those of affected countries and the economy is not intertwined to Western economies to face a crisis” This was August of 2008.
When asked by Time magazine regarding the problem of famine Ato Meles said “ It’s a mixed bag. When you have an emergency, there is the urge to do whatever it takes to see people get assistance. [But that can mean] the name of the game is [to] include a bit of hyperbole, and that can convey the message that the situation is hopeless when in fact it is not, and that might do some lasting damage, given the fact that all investors take their information and make their assessments on the basis of the 24-hour news cycle. Famine has wreaked havoc in Ethiopia for so long; it would be stupid not to be sensitive to the risk of such things occurring. But there has not been a famine on our watch – emergencies, but no famines.
When it came to foreign currency shortage he decided to solve the problem by confiscating his citizens property. In March of 2008 by order of the Prime Minister Federal police confiscated over 2 million US dollars and thirteen million Ethiopian bir from traders. They were declared illegal and forfeited their right.
A year later he went after coffee exporters and traders. His government confiscated seventeen thousand tons of coffee and suspended the licenses of over eighty traders. He also said six will be prosecuted.
Do you see a pattern here? It is never about looking at the cause. It is all about finding someone to blame for a failed policy. Ato Meles still blames the Derge for current problems. You would think after seventeen years Mengistu is history. Actually his government goes as far back as Menelik to shift responsibility. Does it makes sense when today those fourteen years or under are 46% of the population?
Mr. Obama looked at the cause and he is in the process of writing a new playbook. He is not about looking back. He is focused on the future. He said ‘There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was destroyed as soon as the storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when “…the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.” How true.
Unfortunate for us our leaders are not interested in constructing on solid foundation. They get drunk with their own lies and propaganda. Because they thought it and said it they think it has happened. Thus there is no chance that the medicine they are prescribing to cure the illness will work. It is more likely to put the patient in a coma. One problem two solutions, which doctor would you trust with your life?
In this week of Easter we should remember our dear sister Judge Birtukan Mediksa. We should admire her courage. Deeply be impressed by her determination to sacrifice for our cause. She is a learned person with a law degree. She was a municipal judge. By any standard she is an achiever. But most important our sister is a person of principle. She is a rare individual at this juncture in our ancient history. We have encountered so many fake usurpers that we get disoriented when we meet people like judge Birtukan. She is in solitary confinement like a common criminal. She has been in confinement for 108 days. We hear that she is in good spirits and is very much inspired by the effort her country folks are putting to gain her release. We will not rest till she is free. We love you Birtukan. Happy Easter.
Further information:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1829842,00.html
http://www.galbeed.com/2009/03/26/ethiopia-revokes-coffee-licences/
http://www.demconwatchblog.com/diary/1334/full-text-of-president-obamas-economic-speech
http://nazret.com/blog/index.php?c=1&more=1&pb=1&tb=1&title=financial_crisis_to_have_little_effect_oand
9 thoughts on “One problem, two solutions”
There is absolutely no comparison between a Harvard law professor and a bandit who spent most of his life in the bush or some God forsaken place. Mr. Obama is a highly intelligent politician who won the presidency by a land slide victory and is accountable to the people who elected him. On the contrary our so called leader who called himself prime minister is a former rebel who had to fight his way to the palace with his gun, because no sane citizen will elect a criminal to the highest post of the country as it was evidenced in the May 2005 election, if we have to call that an election.
True on Obama’s leadership,he is working his best with out a single vote from the opposition,GOP, to prevent cllapse of the US economy .
The cause of this crisis is the excesses of the US where every one was living beyond his means thanks to the fact that there was excess global money which emerging markets were afraid to invest at home and it was channelled to the US.
Now that period is over,china and emerging economies are investing at home and their middle class is growing.
The US will be OK but the old time will never come.Aericans will have to work harder for a modest and mean reward like the rest of the world.The competion will be fiercer.
I found the comparison of US and Ethiopia unfair,if you take economic parametres to judge the ethiopian leaders they have done well since they inherited from an economy which was in a negative.
The Ethiopian dictators should be rather held accountable for human right abuse.
Well…actually in this case there seems to be one problem and one solution. If plucked-off of political rhetorics, which btw meles has plenty to answer to, the economic solution barak embarked on looks like it was taken right out of meles’ book and I hasten to add that it is the correct solution. Hmmmm…on this good Friday of atonement, I thought I should give credit when it is due even if it is a little bitter to swallow.
You are trying to compare the head of an elelephant with the head of an ant.
Good Luck
Dear Yilma Bekele:
The problems the two countries facing are more than one and the solutions more than two. Each problem is different from the other problem; so is the solution for each problem.
For example, America has two big problems among many other problems; there are millions of Americans who oppose government spending, the War in Afghanistan, and medical insurance for the 40 million uninsured Americans. These Americans don’t want to send their boys and girls to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. They want America to get out of Afghanistan as quick as possible. They also believe their government has no business to distribute the American tax payers’ money to pay for the uninsured Americans; they fear America is heading to socialism.
Mr. Obama, so far, has not yet found a remedy for the Afghanistan War, has not deterred himself from spending the tax payers’ money and spending it in the form of bailing out the failed American banks, car industries, and he is proposing to insure the 40 uninsured Americans. So, some Americans ask how he is going to pay it without raising taxes.
In America, many Americans know their country is facing, not one, not two, but many problems, yet none of them knows the solutions for each problem. So to say “one problem two solutions” is an ingenuous thinking.
I wish there were only one problem and just two solutions for the problem, and if it were that simple, by now America could have been out of its multifarious problems, and millions of jobless Americans could have been working instead of collecting unemployment benefits from their government.
Comparing Ethiopia’s problems with the America’s problems and the Ethiopia’s Prime Minister with the United States President is like comparing sand with few rocks and candle light with the sun light respectively.
Ethiopia’s problems are like the sand of Kaza or Tekezie River; one cannot count the sand of the Kaza River. There are 82,544,840 people in Ethiopia, and the numbers of the problems are not less than the numbers of the Ethiopian population; therefore, “one problem two solution” does not work here. Most of Ethiopia’s problems are poverty, disease, border and internal conflicts, ethnicity, religion, language, lack of ports, lack of a democratic government. In general, Ethiopia has an unstable government and an unfriendly relationship with its neighbors.
On the other hand, America is a developed and a democratic country with a reliable government and a well-defined Constitution. In America, when a president serves his terms, he transfers the power of the presidency to the other person peacefully and with a great ceremony. In Ethiopia, power is inherited or acquired by force with a lot of bloodshed. Americans have enough food to consume, but many Ethiopians go to bed hungry. Americans can easily or at least try to solve most of their problems by engaging each other and by working hard each day and night. Ethiopians so far have failed to solve the poverty problems they have been facing for some times.
The two doctors: Yes, Barack Obama is a doctor; he earned his B.A. from Columbia University in 1981; then in 1991, he graduated from Harvard University with a Juris doctor (J.D) magna cumlaude. This much I know about Obama’s education, but I never heard that Meles Zenawi has a doctoral degree. If so, from which university and when was that? I know he studied for two years at Haile Selassie I University, and then he quitted or dropped out and, I’m not sure, went to one of the Semen Mountains.
As the sun shines all over the world, Barack Obama’s message of working together has reached almost the whole world. On the other hand, Meles Zenawi’s divide and rule method serves only in Ethiopia and perhaps in some other few countries like Sudan and Burma. In such a way, we cannot compare Meles the dictator with Barack Obama the great educator, senator, and president of the great country that believes in democracy.
The author says that doctor Meles is capable of keeping a patient for 18 years; if this is true, then Meles is a good doctor that has kept his patient from dying for 18 years. And if Meles thinks that there is no problem with his patient, he should then let his patient go home.
In conclusion, Mr. Yilma Bekele’s “one problem two solutions” does not add up to the facts that both Ethiopia and America have plenty of problems and never have enough solutions to each problem.
Jesus died for the learned and the unlearned, for the sinners and for the righteous; therefore, if we want to remember someone who is learned, who has a law degree, and who is an achiever, we should also remember the other innocent Ethiopians who may not have law degrees, but they may have the love of their country. On this particular Easter Day and in all other ordinary days, we love and remember not only Birtukan, but all the Oromos, the Amharas, the Ogadens, and the other tribes who are in Kaliti Jail and in some other unknown locations.
Correction:there is no official unemployment figure in Ethiopia because most workers are in the informal sectoe and don’t pay tax unlike in the US where every laborer is taxed.So if you consider that the unemployment figure you put is wrong.
The current US official unemployment is 8.5 and is expected to rise to 12.5 by the end of this year .
But the writer is comparing two different economies here one has been socialist oriented for four decades,FDRE,and the other is just following suit,USA.
I am impressed. What a writer! God job Ato Yilma. Keep the good work up.
A very intresting comparision.What the writer did was that Meles led the economy or the country for that matter,without knowledgeable economic advisors.In addition,the nurses of the patient-the economy have been the security rather than true nurses.This led the country to an economic chaos which reached the stage now-60%unemployment,65%inflation.It’s a correct depiction of the reality.
The analogy made on shifting the blame is also correct.Meles still harps on the “misdeeds” of Menelik rather than focussing on his performance and achievements.
Happy Easter Yilma,Birtukan and the rest political prisoners.
well written article. We thank you !!