Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Shocker

Today, on the BBC, i heard a shocker, shocking enough to get me to post something today, in defiance of my mom's directive to go straight to my home so as to avoid any potential run-ins with vigilantees or the police (shit! an armoured police car just passed outside this cafe, will they be spraying tear gas soon, i wonder! I might be safer with the vigilantees, i could pretend to be one of them), the rate of inflation in Britain last year was 3.1%(ah gasp!). To put things in perspective, inflation is over 2000% in Zimbabwe(an exact figure is hard to find as the rate rises by the second) , and 1000% Peru. Oops, wrong stats - comfort, and propaganda facts for African Presidents. So the perspective once again: Inflation rates, last year, were 1%, 1.2% for Japan and Holland respectively. Britain's own target rate is 2%. You may be wondering what the repercussions of this shameful state of affairs are to the people responsible, the Bank of England big shots. Will they be fired, demoted, tear gased, tried on trumped up rape charges? Glad you asked! None of the above, actually something worse. The big boss has had to suffer the Indignity of writing a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (read that with a british accent - sounds pretty funny!) explaining the dismal inflation rate. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer has his job for reasons other than being the Prime Minister's "best friend", he's got to know that Oil has been about $70 a barrel over tha last year, and that since Britain is not a major producer of oil ...... So the letter is just to humiliate the poor governor - ah, the indignities of being an underling. Well, on the bright side, he can thank his lucky stars that he's not the governor of the Bank of China:L he might have been suspected of corrupt dealings, and shot. Is there a lesson in this for African leaders. Why yes, you guessed it. No silly, it's not that we should shoot people when they fail in their duty, even in the face of uncontrollable forces(greed)! It's that the humiliation of writing a letter with redundant explanations might motivate them to do their jobs better. Ha ha hah hah ha!