With Trump having dissed his former Secty of State Mike Pompeo – by taking time out specifically to inform the world that Pompeo WOULDN’T be part of his team in his second coming – your Eyewitness wondered at the latter jetting down to our dear Mudland the very next week.
Most insiders figure that Trump’s diss was due clearly to Pompeo positioning himself for a run at the presidency in 2024, after they had had to demit office in 2020. Part of that positioning was Big Mike’s decision to trim down from his massive 300lbs – and by 2022, he’d shed an incredible NINETY pounds!! Looking at the pic with him and Jagdeo this week, many Guyanese thought the fella was actually Pompeo’s SON!!
So, back to why he was in Guyana. Basically, the same reason why ex-Brit PM Blair and ex-US Pres Clinton had done the same. With all that oil money flowing into our coffers, after wallowing in decades of PNC-induced poverty, they figure we need help spending the money!! A good chunk of which would end up in their pockets – for which we should be grateful, since they’re more au fait with the life of milk and honey, and we can copy them!! “Demonstrator effect”, the economists call it!! Expect some offers from Pompeo a la the Clinton and Blair Foundations!!
There’s been a stream of other official and semi-official visitors – and this would swell into a river!! – who aren’t as high profile, but are even more significant to our future when it comes to our oil wealth. These worthies will be reps. from multilateral, bilateral, and corporate institutions, who’ll come bearing grants and loans to “help” with our development!!
Now, isn’t that rather strange: to be pressed on this front just when we’re hauling in oil earnings?? Well, it ain’t that strange when you think about it. Those who provide grants – which don’t have to be repaid – often as not do so because they want to influence us in some way; not because they’re altruistic!!
And even though it may sound counterintuitive, contrary to what we think about those who provide loans, they’re more interested not only in being repaid, but being repaid the INTEREST!! And those who got money are better bets when it comes to repaying loans.
After sixty years of “aid” and loans, the developing world sent back $185 billion more last year in just principal repayments to the developed world than they disbursed in loans. And imagine the interest that piles up when you can’t repay!!
Back in the day, the PNC debt of US$800 million had ballooned to US$2.1 billion by 1992!! So, where does this leave us?? Just be wary of furriners bearing schemes and loans!!
…Pax Americana
Ever since the end of WWII, America has pushed what its critics have dubbed “Pax Americana”. That is, its commitment to maintain its “rules-based order” through projecting and deploying its superior military might across the globe. Countries like the USSR – now its rump Russia – and China, along with the old Non-Aligned Movement – have long resisted and worked to undermine this American arrogation of its hegemony over the world. But with the election of Trump, there’s a new mood abroad.
After all, Trump has declared that America under his regime would quit spending trillions to be the world policeman. He’s insisting, for instance, that the European nations in NATO foot the bill to counter whatever threats they see from Russia or elsewhere!! This means that the Ukraine war would soon grind to a halt when Trump cuts off the oxygen tank of military supplies!! Out in the Indo-Pacific, expect a military de-escalation against China,
as the MAGA movement tries to rebuild America’s industrial might!!
…on old time cricket
Your Eyewitness is pleased that Alvin “Kalli” Kallicharran released a new autobiography, “Colour Blind: My Life Journey”, in which he demonstrates the wider impact of cricket on our unity as a Caribbean people.
The present crop gotta read this.
