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How often is investment consumption insensitive to interest rates in Nigeria?

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Business | Key Insight  Nigeria's monetary policy falls short in addressing loan access challenges. Despite a 48.3% YoY surge in money supply to N107.7 trillion, interest rates remain unsustainable for many Nigerians, fueling economic inequities. The insensitivity of investment consumption to interest rates in Nigeria has surpassed the term 'alarming.' The Vanguard newspaper, on December 12, 2024, in its business outlet, drew attention to the fact that Nigeria’s broad Money Supply (M²) increased by 48.3 percent year-on-year (YoY) to N107.7 trillion in October 2024, from N72.6 trillion in the corresponding period of 2023. Yet, numerous Nigerians still face challenges in accessing loans and other credit facilities at sustainable interest rates. Nigeria’s inflation rate surged to 33.88% in October 2024, up from 32.70% in September, according to the Consumer Product Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics, sourced from The Punch newspaper report o...

What is the Paradox of Thrift

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✓✓ What is the Paradox of Thrift? The Paradox of Thrift is the theory that increased savings in the short term can reduce savings, or rather the ability to save, in the long term. The Paradox of Thrift arises out of the Keynesian notion of an aggregate demand-driven economy. An increase in the rate of saving reduces consumption in the economy which, in turn, reduces total output (via Keynesian consumption). According to British economist John Maynard Keynes, when people save during a recession, the level of consumer spending decreases, which eventually slows down economic growth. ✓✓ Criticisms of the Paradox of Thrift The Paradox of Thrift, while practical in its reasoning, attracted numerous criticisms from neo-classical economists. The neo-classical economists argue that a consumer saving is viewed by the market as a signal of supply-side inefficiency. A consumer saving sends the signal that the consumer DOES NOT WANT to consume any of the goods in the market at the prevailing market...

The Taliban have launched an impressive new war on drugs

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Before the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the illicit trade in opium, a gum produced from poppies, helped pay for their insurgency. The mullahs encouraged farmers to plant poppies and taxed the trade. But drugs are deemed haram (prohibited) under Islamic law. Shortly after taking power the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, banned narcotics. And stunning recent evidence from across the Country's opium belt in the south and east suggests he meant it. According to satellite imagery from Alcis, a British firm, poppy cultivation in the southern province of Helmand, where most of the crop is groWn, fell from over 120,000 hectares in April 2022 to less than 1,oo0 hectares a year later. Anti-poppy units are patrolling the province, meting out the treatment Mr Mohammad received. The results in Nangarhar province, another big producer, are similar. Only 865 hectares are under poppies now, compared with over 7,000 hectares in 2022. It will be harder to eli...

Reforming rape-trial laws in Britain

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In recent years, there has been a precipitous drop in the number of cases making it to court and this has suggested fresh failures in the criminal justice system. In the year to March 2016 there were 3,910 charges for rape; in the year to March 2022 there were 2,223.  It is not clear why charges have fallen so far. Some reckon that changes to the way the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides whether or not to bring a case to court have played a part. Prosecutors have also become increasingly likely to ask to see everything on a complainant's phone, "making an already distressing process feel even more intrusive", according to one government report. Reports of rape have increased exponentially, perhaps because the #MeToo movement has changed people's understanding of it: police recorded 69,905 cases of rape in the year to March 2022 compared with 36,334 sİx years earlier. Overstretched officers seem less likely to conduct thorough investigations. A big backlog of cas...

Henry Kissinger says the U.S. and China are in a ‘classic pre-World War I situation’ that could lead to conflict, but A.I. makes this ‘not a normal circumstance

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The U.S. and China represent the “greatest dangers to peace right now” if their animosities escalate to a military confrontation, Kissinger said in  an interview  with  The Economist  published Wednesday. The two countries are heading toward a major confrontation, he said, as both nations have “convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger.” Tensions over Taiwan are likely to be a major flashpoint for future conflict, as President Joe Biden has signaled the U.S.  would aid the island nation  if China invades to reconquer what it considers a breakaway state. But much like with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, the world is now perfecting a new technology—A.I.—that may be too dangerous to even consider deploying militarily. “[China and America] are two powers of the type where, historically, a military confrontation was inevitable. But this is not a normal circumstance, because of mutually assured destruction and artificial ...

CAN THE PRICE OF ELECTRICITY (POWER) BECOME NEGATIVE?

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QUESTION CAN THE PRICE OF ELECTRICITY (POWER)  BECOME NEGATIVE? YES IT CAN Electrical industry had had to regularly deal with negative pricing as the proliferation of renewable energy has grown. With wind and solar energy present, there is more and more energy. The market for electricity occasionally becomes oversupplied dipping prices into negative. Remember, as supply of electricity outweighs demand, price go negative,  owners of traditional energy production plants (coal or gas plants) have to turn off production. In  this case, price is a signal to owners that their energy isn't needed, leading to plant shutdown.

DOES DEVALUATION REALLY HELP THE ECONOMY

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QUESTION AND ANSWER ✓ Firstly, what is currency devaluation? Currency devaluation involves taking measures to strategically lower purchasing power of a nation's own currency or we can say Devaluation is the decision to reduce the value of a currency in a fixed exchange rate thereby making domestic resident find imports and foreign travel more expensive while domestic export more cheaper. ✓ From the question asked "does devaluation really help the economy" We can say that it has its own advantage and disadvantage Countries pursue this strategy "currency devaluation" to gain competitive edge in global trade and reduce sovereign debt burdens. However, it doesn't happen without some negative consequence which will be treated below shortly. Note that the government issuing the currency decides to devalue the currency unlike depreciation, it is not the result of non-governmental activities. A country may choose to devalue it's currency in other to combat trade...