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2009-03-17 Africa Subsaharan

Gono: Zim must repay debt, reform economy

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Posted by Fred 2009-03-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Gono began his career as Mugabe's personal banker. Gono and his wife live in Borrowdale Brook, a northern suburb of Harare. They have just completed on construction of a new "castle-like" house, equipped with: 47 en-suite bedrooms; a glass swimming pool with underlights; a gym; mini-theatre; and landscaped gardens. Estimated to have cost USD $5 million, it is equipped with iris-scanning security measures as well as extensive camera coverage aiding perimeter control. It is also, perhaps conveniently, just a short drive away from (and indeed larger than) President Rogert Mugabe's own private residence.

Gono also, like many of Mugagbe's inner circle, own numerous farms which were confiscated from localised white farmers. One is near Norton, which when the seasonal weather is dry, draws clean water through a 25 mile long pipeline linked to a reservoir, which is supposed to supply water for the people of Harare. Gono also owns property in Malaysia, where Mugabe and Grace vacation and hope to retire. If you'd like to catch a glimpse of them, they stay at the Nikko in (KL).

Sound like any bankers or wallstreet traders we know?

Posted by Besoeker 2009-03-17 07:59|| 2009-03-17 07:59|| Front Page Top

#2 Sound like any bankers or wallstreet traders we know?

No, it's not the same. It would be like saying "Gee, another black got dragged behind a pickup or sodomised with a plunger- sound like any pseudo-Afrikaaner ex-NCO we know?"

Knock off the populism. It's stupid and it's trite. Funny thing is, none of you knee-jerks complained when things were going well, did you?

Posted by Pappy 2009-03-17 10:34|| 2009-03-17 10:34|| Front Page Top

#3 So most of us don't have the right to complain about all these assholes like Bernie Madoff and that they were making billions off of regulatory capture (and are making trillions off of it now) because we didn't know them from Adam before the collapse?

Pappy, if those of us on the right can't get a decent strategy to deal with these guys, eventually we'll wind up with a public electorate engaging in a vicious cycle of electing a bigger communist to undo the damage of the crony capitalism engaged in by the last communist.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-03-17 10:58|| 2009-03-17 10:58|| Front Page Top

#4 So most of us don't have the right to complain about all these assholes like Bernie Madoff and that they were making billions off of regulatory capture (and are making trillions off of it now) because we didn't know them from Adam before the collapse?

It's the tarring-all-with-one-brush that annoys me. It's mindless. And it's hypocritical. Nobody complained when times were good and they were getting their 'fair share'. I guess it's the outrage from being the screw-er to becoming the the screw-ee.

Posted by Pappy 2009-03-17 11:05|| 2009-03-17 11:05|| Front Page Top

#5 times really haven't been 'good' for me for several years, and i do not think i have been profiting from any of these various spending programs previously. my real-value income has been declining for the past twelve years or so, year after year.

(gotta run, bbl).

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-03-17 11:14|| 2009-03-17 11:14|| Front Page Top

#6 <<< if those of us on the right can't get a decent strategy to deal with these guys >>>

Respectfully, there is no need. The bond market will do the job and the seeds of dissent are already being sowed. It is just a matter of waiting in out until the MSM and the thundering herd start to notice that the shine is rubbing off. Make the military pay for their own healthcare, tax the healthcare benefits of employees, take money from those paying their mortgages and give and illusory benefit to those that aren't paying their mortgages. One doesn't need to do much except wait, conserve capital and let nature take over. You can't defy gravity forever. The housing market proved that. Now there is a new gravity defying program. A budget built on fictitious numbers which is just a scam. In addition there needs to be a credible alternative. It is too soon for Republican mea culpas to have any weight. Just keep beating the drum of big spending failed big government measures and point to the daily failures like AIG, GM, Chrysler and an opposition will coalesce. But it has to be different. It can't be the same in different clothes. It has to be libertarian. But before that happens, things have got to get a lot worse - which they will. People have to pay attention.

Posted by Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 2009-03-17 11:16|| 2009-03-17 11:16|| Front Page Top

#7 People have started to notice the strings attached to the free gifts from the federal government, and are starting to refuse. Financial businesses refusing or planning to repay TARP funds, state governors noticing the long-term costs attached to fed funding of certain programs short-term... the next township over from mine refused even to apply for stimulus funding for that reason. And the local news media reported on the several thousands who showed up for the Tea Party at Cincinnati's Fountain Square last Sunday. Instapundit has pictures.

President Obama's stimulus package and 2009 budget may not end up costing us nearly as much as he'd hoped, poor man. And his supporters are starting to wonder aloud at the repercussions in 2010.

As for Zimabwe, nothing substantial will happen there until President Mugabe and his party are overthrown. After that, it remains to see whether the country has been so brutalized that the new boss ends up being exactly like the old boss. Given the crowd currently running their neighbor to the south, I'm not sanguine.

Posted by trailing wife 2009-03-17 11:52|| 2009-03-17 11:52|| Front Page Top

#8 It's going to take Zimbabwe two or three decades to recover from Mugabe. That recovery hasn't started yet, and probably won't until after his death and the civil war his death will unleash among his followers. The best thing that the rest of the population could do right now is to begin to form local cooperatives to make sure everyone has enough to eat. That's going to require blacks and whites working together.

As for the US, it's going to take a revolution - hopefully nonviolent, but I'm not taking chances. There are too many entrenched bureaucrats that think they have the RIGHT to rule. There are far too many laws, and three times that many "regulations" - all of which need a scathing review and the elimination of the ones that make things worse instead of better (Community Reenvestment Act, anyone? - there are dozens of others equally as destructive). The government needs to be downsized and horse-collared. That's not going to happen from within.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2009-03-17 14:58|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2009-03-17 14:58|| Front Page Top

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