On the 16th December 2021, I had a fascinating chat with Shuaibu Idris, a Nigerian development economist and MD of Time-Line Consult, a Lagos-based financial consultancy and management firm, about the state of infrastructure spending and general investment levels on the continent for an article for the weekday South African media outlet, Business Day.
Debt
Why the stay-at-home rate amongst the 20-34 year old age group may be the missing link in explaining the record number of job vacancies and labour shortages in the developed world – especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. And the long-run consequences could be dire:
Both in economic terms – Labour shortages may be far more…
While all eyes are focused on inflation, the real underlying problem is the total debt – both public and private combined – that advanced economies have accumulated since 1945 and has gone into overdrive since the GFC in 2008.
A shorter version of this article appeared in Business Day, South Africa on 23rd March 2020
Last month President Ramaphosa in his SONA heralded the forthcoming construction of a new 5G-ready smart city around Lanseria Airport in the next decade. With it, South Africa was belatedly thrust to the front of a Continent-wide rush to establish so-called smart and eco-friendly cities, seen as a means of jump-starting the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution powered by digital technology.