I'm in utter danger of exposing my ignorance about economics but a wise man once said, "it is better to not know and ask then to not know and stay quiet." Okay, a few weeks ago the Kenyan budget was read and of course the usual suspects liqour and cigarettes were taxed a little more. The Minister also said that some taxes on certain commodities wouldn't change, I'm not going to summarise the speech here. But is it me or does everything go up after the budget irregardless of even if the Minister says they are taking tax ABC of certain things, are those cases because of corporate greed or because the companies/ industries had already been absorbing certain other taxes without passing them onto the customer and now since that burden has been taken off them they don't lower their prices to recoup their losses? Given the high inflation rate in Kenya and the fact that the economy isn't growing as fast are price controls a viable option? Bankelele and company please help a brother out?
So as not to sound crass, first of all I must express my shock about the continued beheadings by the Mungiki that seem to continue unabated. But when The East African Standard covered this issue they as usual could not pass up an opportunity to put their collective foot in their mouth.
I am sure they did not have this movie in mind when the Editor let this line make it to press, "Kinyanjui was a matatu while Kamau was a taxi driver."
Anyway I'm running out of time, but I'm going to give you a preview of what I am working on for my next post. There was this Mario Puzo book called the Last Don, if I remember correctly. Part of the book was about a movie the mafia family in it had invested in and how during the premiere, many of the high rollers there went buck wild and ended up hooking up with people they normally would never be seen with ie the staff. The book referred to it as "f*cking below the line," in the book of course this was a one night arrangement and it ended there. But in real life when we f*ck below the line (hereafter referred to as settling) for a short time, what happens is that the other party may realise that this is their chance to be with someone they ordinarily would never have a chance to be with and they decide to hang on for dear life. What happens is that you now have on your hands what Archer once called an unflushable, I'll tell you all how I ended up with one a few months back and how it took a herculean effort to get rid of her.
ps: Lest you all think I have an ego and a half, there is someone out there who thinks of me and you as examples of "f*cking below the line" that is the nature of life. There is always someone out there higher on the ladder than you..........
Press Freedoms Under Threat In Kenya
5 years ago
12 comments:
The number of typos and grammatical mistakes present in the dailies could fill a book! Wachana nayo...now to the crux...i am waiting for that post with bated breath yaani...angusha! Heheheh!!
who proof reads at that newspaper?
LOL at your qualifier ain't that the cold ass truth.
and there was spell check. now now you cannot expect everyone to think well of you since i dont either.
Waiting for the next installment.
How you be though? Long time!
@ aegeus
Sad but true, too many typos in our dailies! Post itakuja!
@ msanii
I wonder the same, I would understand if it was nation but now even Standard!
@ Gish
You don't think well of me? And the way I thought we were pals? :-(
@ mocha!
I am chipping out here on the grind I tell you! I'll try not to stay so lost basi!
And I dare! You do have a bad a** ego and a mouth to match! Makes for interesting reading.
The Last Don's name was a mouthful, Cricufiso Clericuzzio..........The Last Don has to be one of the best books ever. Here I was thinking you were going to do a review!
Acolyte: the is no way a company can absorb taxes without passing them on to the consumer. they usually pass it on to the consumer immediately and usually in more than propotionately i.e. a Ksh.3 tax will be passed on as Ksh10 or even Ksh.15. Sorry for poor kenyans when the taxes are reduced no company in its right mind will reduce the prices. the only thing they can do is keep the prices stable/fixed. in a retional economic sense, prices and wages are only adjustable upwards and not downwards. unless competition is becoming too stiff and there is room to move downwards, may be due to economies of scale or something.
@ gal africana
I shall be sure to do the part 2 soonest!
@ tweety
Yes I do remember that name was a mouthful! I will make sure I do a review of that book soon for all those who havent read it!
@ ka investor
Thank you for clearing that up for me because I do know what we are told and what goes on are two different things at the end of the day. At times price controls look so attractive when you look at the inflation rate in Kenya.
On the economics question
Price control at this juncture would be like the proverbial trying to carry water in a basket!
When the government pumps all this money into the economy, the result is inflation i.e. more demand than supply = prices going up.
As prices go up, the demand goes down..so on and so forth until demand and supply balance out ( this is called an equillibruim )
If you try to control price, what you get is called rationing.
see also http://kenyanomics.blogspot.com/2007/06/if-inflation-was-good-what-about.html
PS
The traditional way to control inflation is by reducing money supply.
The traditional way to reduce money supply in the developed world is to increase interest rates. (Remember Greenspan?)
When the rates go up, banks mop up money (supply) in the form of savings
And also banks "create" less money because business/people borrow less
lol@Fucking below the line.
I never thought of it that way, but I do believe that there are some people out there that are only good for "one thing", LOL!
L
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