**spoiler alert** Great book on understanding the demographics, politics and geopolitics of the Horn of Africa , the migrant routes as well as the Red**spoiler alert** Great book on understanding the demographics, politics and geopolitics of the Horn of Africa , the migrant routes as well as the Red Sea.
Eritrea with its strategic location with ports at the Red Sea, was first under the Ottomans, then used by the Italians as springboard for attacking Ethiopia as well as under British.
Eritrea has muslims in the western lowlands bordering Sudan and Christians in the mountains at the east which is also a tension generating factor.
There has always been issues with the border demarcation between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Tigray population is living in both countries. While the Tigray living in Ethiopia historically wanted more autonomy from Addis Abeba, the ones in Eritrea wanted independence. The two actors worked together until they faced off into a bloody war.
Starting with the 70's Eritrea went through a 30 year long war against Ethiopia for independence.
The central figure that emerged was Isaias Afwerki , the soon to become dictator who is still in control to this day , known to many as leading the most repressive regime in the world, a regime so repressive that it exacts a 2% tax from its diaspora all over the world, in order to keep contact with their families or be provided consulate services !
Eritrea is a country locked in a no-war ,no -peace situation where youth are conscripted to the army for indefinite periods , some serving for 20 years. Women are raped and treated as slaves. Every month thousands of Eritreans flee the country , knowing all too well that the border guards have "shoot to kill" orders.
I didn't know that approximately 25% of migrants every year flooding Europe are from Eritrea ! From 157000 illegal migrants arriving in Europe in 2015 , 39000 were Eritreans.
The book does a great job detailing how Eritreans run to Sudan , then cross to Libya , then try to take dingies and get to Greece or Italy. Or they go to Sudan and from there try to get to Sinai and into Israel.
The regime in Eritrea is a destabilizing factor in the horn of Africa , running a covert economy , financing terror groups like Al Shabaab in Somalia in order to destabilize Ethiopia , mingling in interior affairs of Sudan , and even assisting the Emirates and Saudi Arabia against the Houthis.
Despite numerous attempts by USA , Europe and China to lead the country to a better future Isaias keeps a tight leash to this day on his subjects.
1. When a country is in the initial phases of development it must focus on gardening agriculture. That means land has So a few ideas out of this book:
1. When a country is in the initial phases of development it must focus on gardening agriculture. That means land has to be redistributed equally so that all people have a right to compete. Garden agriculture is by a factor of 3 to 6 more efficient than industrialized agriculture output wise. It is not efficient in human hours , but guess what , when you have a poor country manpower is all you have in excess so gonverment must make use of it. Gonverment must start incentivizing people with fertilizers and freebies so that people produce more , food grts cheaper and somewhere along the way you start exporting.
2. Once you have a powerful agriculture then you start building industry. Gonverment must invest in the learning phase of manufacturing , must steal know how. It must be very careful not to join joint ventures with other international brands without stealing their know how. The key thing here is to learn as much as possible and to start having an EXPORT DISCIPLINE. This is the theme of this book. There is no other way a gonverment can know how good a company is then by checking its exports , my seeing how that company behaves in the world market and by setting export expectations for future freebies , if its conpetitive enough. It is a critical part since the entrrepreneur will always go on the easy path of real estate without creating value in the country. it is the duty of the state to incentivize and keep a tight leash on its high performing entrepreneurs. Gov must also start weeding losers and incentivizing winners.Along the years this turns to consolidation of great big firms that have huge leverage of said gonverment , but tat that point the country is already past development stage and does not make the discussion of this book.
3 Financial mechanisms: gov must hold banks so that it can continue funding industry while it is still developing. It knows the learning phase costs and the companies which are helped wont produce dividents for many years injtiailly but it is imperative to continue financing them. If state liberalizes banks , and invites private held funds and stock market , these will run away at first sign of trouble when financing a company in development , or will stop funding due to low yield.
These 3 points are more or less what this book is all about and it describes how countries from North East Asia (South Korea , Taiwan , China and Japan) have implemented these ideas by the book while countries of South East Asia. (Thailand, Malaysia. indonesia , Philippines) have fucked up one way or other despite starting alot better after WW2 both economically and politically wise.
A must read , an eye opening experience.
Now comparing this to my own country Romania to Ceausescu era, it looks like he didnt fuck up because he took loans and built stuff like industry and mangufacturing plants. He fucked up because he didnt focus on EXPORT DISCIPLINE, he didnt try to make the products he was developing better , he didnt focus on perfectioning them and making them sellable on the world market. He produced the same shit all over again along the years....more
**spoiler alert** Este de departe cea mai buna carte de istorie pe care am citit-o in ultimii 3 ani. O capodoera a geopoliticii orientului mijlociu. Bai**spoiler alert** Este de departe cea mai buna carte de istorie pe care am citit-o in ultimii 3 ani. O capodoera a geopoliticii orientului mijlociu. Baiatul asta a intrat atat de adanc in acest conflict armat de m-a dat pe spate. Pagini intregi de descrieri ale luptelor in provinciile iraniene , in muntii Iraqului , in Golful Persic , cu descrieri devastatoare ale efectivelor militare , ale tacticilor, ale armelor folosite , provenienta lor.
Se prezinta lupte terestre , bombardamente , batalii navale, contraspionaj , precum si eforturile sustinute in diplomatie cu marile puteri precum URSS , SUA , tarile golfului,Europa , China si Korea de Nord. Efectiv cartea este una holistica si te trece prin toate , iar proverbul "Dusmanul de azi este prietenul de maine" vine la tanc in acest context.
In ce carte de istorie afli ca Israelul a livrat si sustinut schimburi comerciale militare cu Iranul mult timp dupa radicalizarea sa , odata cu venirea lui Khomeini.
Un alt fact fain: toata tevatura din Liban , cu "lupta" lor de rezistenta impotriva vestului si a Israelului , a fost doar un mod al Iranului de a pune presiune pe tarile europene (cu precadere Franta) in isi opri sustinerea militara a lui Saddam Hussein , folosind astfel cu succes razboiul asimetric (atentate, luare de ostatici).
Franta a fost efectiv cea mai mare tarfa a Europei, ca nu pot sa ii zic altfel , cea care a jucat la ambele capete , care a inchis ochii la atacuri teroriste in propria capitala doar pentru a putea livra mai multe arme.
Un razboi total , unde armele chimice au fost folosite ca bomboanele de catre Irakieni , apoi folosite asupra propriei populatii kurde. In tot acest timp Iranul la randul sau a dus un razboi pe 3 fronturi: intern pe plan politic intre comunisti , fundamentalisti si cei pro vest , regional : minoritatile azere, balochistaneze si kurde facand atentate si bineinteles cel cu Irak-ul lui Saddam Hussein.
Este o carte superba pentru amatorii de istorie si geopolitica , iar faptul ca autorul a stat si a agregat si sintetizat sute de ore de casete audio inregistrate de Saddam Hussein , ar trebui sa fie o dovada clara a calitatii si veridicitatii faptelor prezentate.
**spoiler alert** The amount of knowledge , facts , curiosities and events in this book is maddening.
I didn't know shit about late XIX century america**spoiler alert** The amount of knowledge , facts , curiosities and events in this book is maddening.
I didn't know shit about late XIX century american foreign policy , nor could i have imagined the race to claim islands full of Guano (crystalized bird shit used as fertilizer) , the wars fought on foreign soil with the Spanish and then the Philippines, the continous usage of Puerto Ricans as Guinea Pigs especially in experiments with mustard gas and later chemotherapy or sterilization and planned parenthood.
The book shines on world war 2 , in regards to the massive global transport infrastructure built by USA around the globe (Egypt airbases , Iran , Lebanon) , the continous airbridge over the Himalayas in keeping the chinese resistance strong against the japanesse , the complete bomb and napalm pounding of Manilla in the later stages of the war resulting in millions of deaths.
The book continues with the post war order , the standardization across all industries and domains imposed by the USA , the way it built bases all over the world on areas which were given as 90 year leases , the rapid growth of countries that had these bases withing their local communities
We also get into the dirty stuff of the 90's and 2000 s with Osama Bin Laden , Afghanistan , Iraq , Guantanamo etc.
This guy is terrific , i recommend the book wholeheartedly to any history , geopolitic lover and not only !...more
**spoiler alert** The book is about behaviour economics , why and how we take decisions , how we weight the good vs bad.
Main theme : There are 2 system**spoiler alert** The book is about behaviour economics , why and how we take decisions , how we weight the good vs bad.
Main theme : There are 2 systems at work in our brain: - system 1 : this is the fast , auto-pilot-default , associative one , whenever you are faced with a situation your brain first uses this one and starts fetching a tree-like data structure composed of events , feelings , memories , words and tries to mold them into some sort of mosaic otherwise known as coherence so that it makes sense for you. Thats how you construct a story and you believe it. - system 2 : is the slow , lazy and, deliberate one. This bad boy is used whenever you need to focus a large part of your attention (multiplying numbers , driving...etc)
My favourite part: Whenever you are faced with a hard question , your system 1 answers to another simpler question and mischeviously replaces the answer so that it looks you have answered the original one:
Ex; Bob: i placed 200 k on Ford Stocks Fred: Why did you check their financials ? Bob: I like ford cars and i visited the factory:
Bob is tasked with answering a tough question : does he know how Ford financials look like ? Bob's system 1 answers to a simpler question: Do i like Ford cars ? Yes Bob then sets the answer Yes to the original question even though he answered for the second.
Besides these 2 systems that are explained thoroughly with examples and statistics and case studies ,this book is great because it explains so much more regarding human behaviour in making decisions like : the law of small mumbers , priming , framing , utility and prospect theory , regression , planning fallacy and so much more.
Even though the book is terrific on theory and examples on why things happen the eay they are i rated it with 4/5 because i did feel like i wanted a section dedicated to "how to avoid X or Y "
Loading...
