The Mortgage Loan 419

.. and Gold for Toilets

In reality, the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis can be described as a clever 419 scheme engineered by mortgage lenders, brokers and highwaymen, which would not have been possible without support from major wall street banks. The losses run into billion of dollars. Northern Rock in the UK and Bear Stearns in the USA collapsed and needed emergency assistance from government through the central banks. The crisis also affected banks in Indian banks which had invested in the USA. ICICI, India's second largest bank, has reported mark-to-market loss of $263 million in its loans and investment exposures. Other Asian central banks which invested in mortgage securities have lost money in the hundreds of millions of dollars

Loans were made to people who clearly could not pay based on their income but under the expectation of the property increasing in value and the opportunity to refinance the loan. Possible income or stated income became what was placed on applications instead of actual income. People could write whatever they liked on application forms without any checking and were even encouraged by some unscrupulous loan officers or lenders to do so. The loans were then packaged as Mortgage securities and sold to large Wall Street firms as investments. If your Pension Fund or 401K happened to invest in any of these mortgage securities, wa bor loss big time.

This is the real 419. Not some silly email purported to come from West Africa claiming someone has embezzled some money, or inflated a contract or inherited gold and is looking for a bank account to transfer the money to. In exchange, the email promises you half of the money. Fools gold! I am surprised the caliber of people who fall for this scam. On NBC’s dateline, it included a Cardiologist. There are three main reasons why these scams succeed.

1) The greed of the “victim”. If someone has stolen some money and you send him or her money as an advance to help him dispose of the loot, what are you? Not just greedy but a petty criminal yourself. Yet, these people are portrayed on the press as victims of West African scammers, when they should actually be arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to commit fraud against an African country
2) The greed of the “victim”
3) The greed and stupidity of the victim

Here is a good rule to follow; if you cannot place a country on a map of the world, don’t go investing there! The victims do not realize that their preconceived ideas about Africa as a land of corruption and Africans as an ignorant lot actually enable the scam to work on them. On receiving such an email, here is how I think their thought processes work. “Yeah, guess what! Here is someone from the Dark Continent who has stolen a lot of money and I can exploit him and take it away from him because he is probably dumb anyway” Then when the dumb man bites them for a couple of hundreds or a few thousands, they immediately scream, I am a victim. Victim of what?

Victim of conspiracy to steal the little money small countries in West Africa have in collusion with a criminal citizen of that country. But don’t hold your breath; these victims will never be prosecuted. No wonder a lot of this 419 crime is alleged to be unreported. They are too embarrassed to admit they have been hoodwinked in this way. Let us wait and see what eventually comes out of the Mortgage credit 419 schemes like you read about here . You can get a detailed history of the evolution of the credit crisis here.

In the meantime spare a thought for the people of the Asutifi District in Ghana who are being seriiously 419ed by Newmont in collusion with our Chamber of Mines. They take our gold and they build us toilets. Sane po! If we had been diligent in our development we would have built such basic amenities by now 50 years after independence. We have to hand over our gold at 1000 dollars an ounce and be grateful for toilets in returb. If that ain’t 419, tell me what is. - gbetor@kpetoe

The Age of Grace

The Pastor and the Fetish Priest.

A Fetish Priest reported to be very powerful is getting a lot of media time in Ghana and some Pastor challenged him to a spiritual contest and then reported chickened out. You can read about it here , here and here

In the Old Testament of the Bible, God chose the nation of Israel including their direct descendants in West Africa who live in the land east of the Volta Lake and river in Ghana as His people. He chose them to demonstrate how he intended to deal with mankind after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. All the events surrounding the Israelites in the Old Testament should therefore be viewed in the context of the coming Messiah, Yesu Christo.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a New Covenant between God and man came into place. This is the covenant of GRACE or unmerited favour. God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It is no longer a physical inheritance but rather a spiritual one, whosoever believes in Him has everlasting life and is part of the New Israel. Grace defines the life of the true believer and follower of Christ.

This is the reason why Rev Yiadom should never have challenged Kwaku Bonsam to a contest unless God specifically told him to do it. In which case he should have gone directly to dismantle Kwaku Bonsam’s shrine just like the late Akukalia did to a neighbour’s god in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God and he should be ready to pay the consequences with his life if unsuccessful- just like Akukalia. Simply challenging Kwaku Bonsam to a public contest is putting the Lord, your God to the test. God has nothing to prove to anyone. The heavens declare the glory of God!

I think Rev. Yiadom has probably realized this now and is now engaging himself in damage limitation. Kwaku Bonsam is not the first or the last in a long line of sorcerers and diviners that Ghana has produced. They make their mark for a season and then are gone and forgotten, but the Word of God abides forever. True believers in Christ must concentrate on their calling to preach the Word of God and even more important, to live as children of the Light in a dark world and exhibit the character of Christ to the world, rather than challenge fetish priests to contests. Grace says, “but for Christ did for me, I would also be serving other gods”- gods that come in all forms. God is able to take care of His Kingdom when challenged, and when He does, it will be clear for all to see.

It is not "by might or by power but by the Spirit of the Living God". Here is Grace in simple terms. Christ has died (for our sins), Christ is risen and Christ will come again.
- gbetor@kpetoe

GHANA’S OIL RESERVES. Time to get in!

If you can't beat them, join them! Many people are pessimistic about the effect of the recent reported massive oil discoveries in Ghana. The reasoning is that if we are not benefiting much as a people from the mining of other natural resources like gold, how can we expect any different with oil? Many point to the example in neighboring Nigeria.

But you can't sit by and do nothing. There is one way to guarantee you also get a piece of the national oil cake. Ghanaians living in London should buy shares in Tullow Oil . It is on the London Stock exchange the current price is hovering around 9 Pounds Sterling or $18. You have nothing to lose. Oil prices are predicted to rise to 200 dollars a barrel in the next two years. If the shares fall, well you lost some money. If they keep rising and you did not follow my advice, you will be very angry with yourself. The oil is coming from our country and the profits will end up with the investors (and probably with a few corrupt officials). Get in now! You can see how the Oil company bosses are smiling in this photo. You could be smiling too.


The Ghanaian Government should itself be thinking of buying a major stake in the Oil Companies that are going to be doing the drilling in Ghana; that is proper stake holding. But who is listening to me….eh?
- gbetor@kpetoe.

Stranded Ghanaians back home from Barbados

WELCOME BACK, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
At long last our Ghanaian ( and a few Nigerian) brothers who went on an adventure to Barbados (and Trinidad) have arrived back home in Ghana- at least most of them any way. About 7 of them are still missing in action and will be declared fugitive illegal immigrants soon if they do not give themselves up. It looks like some Bajan brothers are hiding the few guys left but it remains to be seen how long one can hide on an island which is smaller than the size of Kpetoe.

The Barbados Nation newspaper reports their departure here and the some of the statements attributed to the Barbados Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Senator Maxine McClean, are a bit amusing.

According to McClean, the ones who left on the flight last night have not been deported, and their status has been regularised and that will be reflected in their travel documents.
She said that should any of them wish to re-enter Barbados, they could, once the requirements of the Immigration Department were met upon arrival

Someone is in denial here or someone hasn't learnt their lesson from the fiasco because almost everyone realizes now that these "visitors" were promised jobs in Bardados and other countries and were most probably victims of an illegal immigration scam perpetuated by someone or a group of people who played the Barbados authorities with talk of a "cultural exchange". Maybe the Minister is just speaking diplomatically. Judging from the photograph of the departing visitors above, they appear very happy and are smiling and laughing. It looks like they were treated well and Ghanaians will remember that if a group of Bajans happen to be stranded in West Africa in the future.

As a frequent visitor to the Barbados Free Press blog, I could not help noticing that what many of the Barbadian commenters there were most scared of was the possibility that the visitors would impregnate their Bajan women. I thought they ought to have given their women more credit than that. Whatever happenned to courtship and marriage, before children? Other Barbadians were scared of the West Africans bringing diseases like Yellow Fever and AIDS to their island! That threat is gone now and those Bajans can now sleep peacefully at night; the sterile island bubble is still free of disease pathogens! A few others were scared about increased crime; I can assure them that these "tourists" were looking for jobs and a better life and therefore were very unlikely to become petty criminals

The Ghana News Agency reports their arrival story here and of note is the fact that the 19 Nigerians refused to give any interviews on arrival. Many commenters on Ghanaweb are displacing some of their anger onto the Nigerians and demanding that we send some of the bill for the repatriation to the Nigerian government. The total amount is reported to be 300,000 US dollars equally shared between the Barbados government and Ghana. By my calculation, we should send a bill for 43,467 US dollars to the Nigerian government. It is small change for Nigeria with the price of OIL currently a 125 dollars a barrel and then we can have some peace.

It is dog eat dog season and everyone is looking for someone to hate and vent their displeasure at. Some Bajans did it to the Ghanaian visitors and some Ghanaians are venting on the Nigerians who were on the flight. It is all misplaced anger. Not long after the visitors leave, the angry Barbadians will turn their anger back to other things, maybe resume their attention on the Guyanese and soon after the Nigerians leave Ghana, the angry Ghanaians will resume hating each other like we do daily on the Ghanaweb forum SAY-IT-LOUD

Can anything good come out this fiasco? I doubt it but all reports indicate that initially, many Barbadians were extremely happy to see the visitors. Now they have been left with a sour or sour taste in the mouth because of what they perceive as a threat of illegal immigration from "African scammers". Time will tell. In the meantime, a warm welcome home to my Ghanaian adventurers. I hope you acquitted yourselves well in your short time in Barbados society. Now let us turn our attention to finding out the culprits behind this scheme. We can start at the office of the Travel agent in Ghana and we should not rest till we catch the possible frontman on the either side in Barbados. -mailto:-gbetor@kpetoe

Pope Benedict XVI campaigning for Obama?

From REUTERS, Pope Benedict XVI speaking in Washington DC lamented the "clear signs of a disturbing breakdown in the very foundations of society: signs of alienation, anger and polarization on the part of many of our contemporaries; increased violence; a weakening of the moral sense; a coarsening of social relations and a growing forgetfulness of God."

Is the Pope campaigning for Obama or what? Obama said something last week about alienation, anger and polarization and the self-righteous pundits will not let anyone hear the last of it. It was like he had made some kind or rivers of blood speech and even nice Hilary is now running an ad in Pennsylvania showing the man and woman in the street saying how offended they are and how out of touch the posh Harvard educated Obama is with ordinary Americans.

So what do you say about Pope Benedict then. Here he is echoing the words of Obama in talking about “alienation, anger and polarization” and I am sure the talk on Talk Radio in the coming days will be about how we don’t need no European coming to tell us anything about ourselves. Who does he think he is coming here and telling us about Native Americans having had a bad deal? Tune in to your local Talk Radio over the next few days and see variations of Godwin’s law at work. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

gbetor@kpetoe

AIRLINE INDUSTRY TROUBLES

How the GIA and others can survive.


In the past 10 days ATA Airlines, Skybus, Aloha Airgroup and now Frontier Airlines have all filed for bankruptcy. These are not airlines that were mismanaged and turned into private tro-tros like our good Ghana Airways. Even if the Ghana government had continued to susidize Ghana Airways, there is no doubt that it would have collapsed by now.

So how come Ghana International Airlines (GIA) is still flying even after their part in the Barbados Chartar fiasco? The key is to look at the routes. The most lucrative routes in the airline industry are in Africa. Airfares from Europe and the USA to Africa have been at cut throat prices since 1973 and travelling Africans have in some way subsidized the cheap travel Westerners enjoy. Even though Wall Street does not acknowledge this, Delta Airlines was rescued from bankruptcy after they started on the lucrative New York- ACCRA route, now four times a week.

If GIA get their act together, they will be still be flying long after Alitalia, American Airlines, SouthWest, etc., file for bankruptcy. After the demise of the old Ghana Airways and until Delta Airlines came on the New York- West African route, it was monopolized by a small airline called North American Airlines (NAA) and this monopoly kept them in the business. Many Ghanaian travellers complained bitterly about the kind of service they provided, but we learnt to grin and bear it because there was no alternative.

Once Delta Airlines arrived and started out with a far more superior service and at similar prices, we defected en masse and it was not long before NAA realized they were flying empty planes to Accra. As fuel prices went out of control it became a loss making trip for the airline and about six weeks ago, NAA threw in the towel and reportedly are now going to concentrate on operating Charter flights.

That should serve as a warning to Delta Airlines to treat their West African passengers with the same level of customer service they provide everywhere. It is only a matter of time before other major airlines like American, Continental, North West and even newer companies like Jet Blue Airways get wind of the West African cash cow. Recent developments, particularly the discovery of oil in Ghana, will result in increased air travel between Ghana and the USA. When that happens, customer loyalty will become very important and now is the time to court and establish it.- gbetor@kpetoe

COMING BACK SOON

After an absence of almost two years, I intend to revive this blog and post here more frequently. What has caused this change of heart? I think there is still a lot to be said about what is going in Ghana and the world at large which is not being written anywhere I have looked. I intend to build up the pace slowly so I urge my two readers to be patient and keep returning to the site.

It has been interesting to read the news about Ghanaians “airlifted” to Barbados purported to be on a ground-breaking tourist trip which is now unraveling as a an immigration scam. You can read here about how some Barbadians feel about it and amuse yourself with some of the comments. I actually thought Yellow fever had been almost eradicated but this is the disease someone fears most on the island with the arrival of the West African visitors.

I will write more on that ill-fated trip by Ghana International Airlines to Barbados, after the story reaches its conclusion with the departure of the stranded visitors. I take this opportunity to thank the people of Barbados who have been generous in taking care of the needs of these Ghanaians, while they await a swift removal which cannot come too soon for many people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Ghanaians will do well to remember this kindness in the unlikely event that global warming causes the oceans to rise and the island of Barbados happens to be evacuated.