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[dsl10]

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I love baseball. I’ve been watching since 1964, when I was seven years old. It’s in my blood as it is for many of my generation. It’s uniquely American. Just like mom and apple pie. And July 4th and fireworks.

Up until I was around ten years old, I was more of a New York Mets fan because we only lived a few minutes away from Shea Stadium in Queens. But I was equally devoted to the Yankees too, and ultimately, ended up rooting for them as I got older. Man, the dilemmas we faced when we were kids.

Back in those days, my father, who worked in New York’s garment center, would get cheap Mets tickets from his mobster bookie, Joe “The Hat.” Joe was like a character from an era gone by, and wore a large, white fedora, earning him the nickname. He was the real deal. Never without a half-smoked cigar jutting out of the corner of his mouth, he owned a tiny, hole in the wall, barber shop on West 39th Street that had one of those old, striped barber poles out in front. From that storefront, “The Hat” took bets on everything from baseball and football to horseracing and boxing. My Dad said he once heard there was a dice game in the back, although he never actually saw it.

One of the great things about growing up in New York was that, because we had two teams here, all the best ballplayers of my generation either played here, or passed through, at some point during their careers. Everyone from Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays to Pete Rose, Roberto Clemente, Roger Maris, Tom Seaver, and Hank Aaron among others. And if they didn’t play for the Mets or Yankees, then they faced them as competitors. And thanks to Joe “The Hat,” I got to see most of them play live.

There must have been a million summer afternoons too, where I’d sprawl out like a giant, gangly octopus on the couch, and watch a game from start to finish on TV. All nine innings. Days seemed to move ever so slowly back then. And baseball was part of the reason why. Sometimes, if you were watching a game on a Saturday or Sunday, it felt like someone flipped the switch and set life to slow motion. A single inning could take fifteen minutes or more. And the three-plus hours it usually took to watch an entire game, seemed like ten. I loved every minute of it.

Today, fifty-three years later, I still love it. And I watch whenever I can, although it’s hard unless I’m home alone. But I got lucky the other day, and caught the Yankees playing the Texas Rangers on television, right from the first pitch. It was a typical hot, Sunday afternoon in late June. Eighty-five or so degrees outside. The Yankee Stadium crowd was quietly buzzing in the background. And it was all sun and blue skies above. It was baseball in New York. And it felt just like it used to when I was a kid. Almost like I was transported back in time. Well, at least for a little while.

But it’s no longer 1964, and life outside is no longer slow. The world is a tense and anxious place now. More than it’s ever been. And it’s all been sped-up to digital-warp speed by technology. My iPhone reminds me of this continually, beeping dozens of toxic CNN headline alerts at me all day long. Trump this and Trump that, North Korea, Iran, Harvey Weinstein, grope-gate, hate-gate, rape-gate, Robert Mueller, sex tapes, race, gender, gay, straight, internet shaming, internet-trolls, fake news, real news, protests, violence…

Enough already. Stop it. I can’t take it anymore!!!

Frankly, I don’t care how many missiles Kim Jong-un just tested. Or what Donald Trump just tweeted about Nancy Pelosi. Or who identifies with what sex. A few weeks ago, it got so bad, I even turned off my iPhone completely a couple of times. But it really didn’t matter because everybody around me still had theirs bleeping and dinging away, and were locked into them like pre-programed iPhone zombies. Now, anything that happens, real or imagined, is flashing away on your iPhone about ten seconds after it occurs. You just can’t get away from it.

Sometimes, when I walk down the street here, people float by me in a trance-like, almost catatonic, state plugged into the broader digital collective, oblivious to most things going on around them. There is now a near constant stream of information and communications being fed into our brains via our iPhones. New York - and the rest of the country for that matter - is rapidly overdosing on the new crack-cocaine epidemic of our time: information overload. It’s now our way of life. It’s who we’ve become. It’s the human race, 2017.

But then, just for a moment, I glanced back at the TV and the Yankee game. I listened to one of the announcer’s marveling over a ball that was just hit deep into the outfield, and how it bounced off the wall, and ricocheted away from the left fielder. And I looked at the perfectly manicured, cross-hatched, green grass on the field reflecting the sunlight. And the shadows from the stadiums upper façade, slowly overtaking the rest of the diamond from the earlier innings. I watched the Yankee’s pitcher go through his pre-pitch routine, nervously spinning the ball in his hand, and then adjusting the brim on his cap so it sat just off to the left of his head. And the batter up at the plate, as he rapped the bat against his cleats a few times to shake loose the dirt that was stuck in the heel. And as I briefly stared at the television, I thought about how much I’ve always loved baseball. What a refuge it is for me. Because it’s completely antithetical to the way life is today. And its antithetical to the never-ending flood of rage and vitriol we’ve come to accept as the new normal.

So, if you feel like you need a place to hide, or if you just don’t want to hear all the screaming and yelling anymore, try to find yourself a baseball game on television. Tune into the Mets or Yankees. Or maybe the Red Sox or Cubs. Stop looking at your iPhone alerts. Turn the phone off. Lower the blinds and turn up the air conditioning. Grab a beer and some chips. Kick back and slow down. Breathe. Take in the game. And get away. What could be better?

Because during a baseball game, there is no Donald Trump or North Korea. There are no Democrats or Republicans either. And no internet shaming or fake news. During a baseball game, there’s just baseball and you. Home runs, double plays, batting averages, curveballs and sinkers.

It’s nice and slow, and easy and safe. And that works just fine for me. Something tells me that, if Joe “The Hat” was still alive today, he would’ve been pretty proud of me.

[dsl10]

Trump's Bitter Pill for Africa. Maybe.

On November 8th, to everyone’s surprise, American voters - and perhaps to a lesser extent, Vladimir Putin - gave Donald Trump the keys to the Kingdom. And as he prepares to assume the throne on January 20th, suffice it to say he’ll have a full plate of foreign policy challenges awaiting him on day one. Friends and foes alike - of which there seems to be little discernable difference much of the time - have got to be more than a little concerned as Trump will be like no other U.S. president before him. And they know it. Iran, Syria, North Korea and ISIS now comprise the 2017 iteration of the “Axis of Evil”, as George W. Bush so aptly coined back in 2002. Then add in our “frenemies” like China and Russia (friends who are really enemies as my teenage daughter calls it) and the group resembles a school of piranhas waiting to strike a gravely injured fish swimming by. Each one poses multidimensional foreign policy nightmares for Trump - everything from armed conflicts at hot spots around the world to trade disagreements, nuclear threats, terrorism, cyber security and state-sponsored hacking, climate change, currency manipulation and energy. Given these ever-amplifying foreign policy challenges that Trump will inherit from Barack Obama, one has to wonder what U.S. policy toward Africa - and other emerging markets - will look like under his administration. If I was the president of an African country right now, Trump’s election would be, shall we say, more than a little disconcerting. Here’s why. The U.S.’s view of the world is changing – and the world’s view of the U.S. is changing too. Simply stated, much of Africa will not be a core strategic interest to the U.S. under Trump. Historically, Africa as a whole has never been a policy priority for the U.S. but did command differing levels of attention and assistance depending on who occupied the White House. Former president Bill Clinton signed AGOA (The African Growth and Opportunity Act) into law in 2000 but that was his primary contribution. Conversely, by far the worst atrocity during his time in office was that close to 1,000,000 Rwandans, mainly Tutsi, were killed in a brutal ethnic cleansing. Although the Clinton Administration and the international community, including the U.N., was aware of the genocide taking place, no action was taken. President George W. Bush’s Africa policy was probably the most robust of any modern-day president. He provided U.S. assistance in helping to end civil wars in Sudan, Congo, Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone even though direct American interests were not at risk. In his second term, he launched development programs in several of these countries to help them recover on an economic and humanitarian level. President Obama, despite his Kenyan roots, has fallen short by most measures. But he continued to fund AIDS programs there increasing the number of people receiving treatment from 1.7 million to 6.7 million which is a notable achievement. And he introduced the much-touted Power Africa to try to address the critical power shortages across the continent although it has not lived up to the hype. But Donald Trump will be markedly different than any of his predecessors. While it is obvious that any country’s foreign policy is ultimately for their own benefit, Trump will take it to the extreme. His foreign policy will be formulated directly around his campaign slogan: “America First”. And he means it literally. Just like a new management team coming into a recently acquired company, Trump and his cabinet of supply-side business leaders and retired Generals will take a wrecking ball to those policies not considered strategically vital – and solidly in America’s interest. Nothing will be off the table. Therein lies the problem for much of Africa. Is it essential to America - in the eyes of Donald Trump - to provide Africa with deep economic, humanitarian and military support that is funded by U.S. taxpayer money? There is little doubt in Washington’s diplomatic circles that Trump’s Africa policies will be a far cry from Barack Obama’s and George W. Bush’s. The first hint at how Africa would be viewed by the incoming Trump administration was gleaned during the presidential campaign. As a candidate, he paid little attention to Africa in his speeches and referred to the continent only in relation to al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and he came under fire for comments related to the large numbers of Somali refugees in Minnesota, a state Hillary Clinton later won. For the record, she never mentioned Africa either. Back in September, I wrote an article that postulated that Africa risked being relegated to the periphery as the strategic interests of many of its key allies begin to change with the gradual weakening of globalization – and the rise of nationalism - in the West. It’s the populist equivalent of the Big Bang. And now, along with the UK and U.S., Italy, France, Spain and Germany are all starting to draw inward and to the ideological and political right. Given that America and Europe are two of Africa’s three largest trading partners - not to mention provide military support and intelligence - this does not bode well for many African nations. Make no mistake, however, while he will focus on U.S. interests at home first, Trump will not disengage the U.S. from the rest of world as the media keeps reminding us. That’s simply not realistic and is a ridiculous notion at best. History will remember it as pure campaign rhetoric. Even Obama himself, in his final press conference on December 16th, said that “all foreign policy should get looked at with a fresh set of eyes” by any new administration. And it will be. Trump has made it quite clear that one of his first orders of business was to rebuild the military ala Ronald Reagan and backed it up by nominating retired 4 Star Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as Defense Secretary. If ever there was a definitive statement that illustrated Trumps intentions, Mattis is it. But rest assured, with respect to his foreign policy, he will judge everything by whether or not it directly benefits the U.S. - and eliminate anything - and anyone - that doesn’t. His campaign slogan should’ve read: “America First. You’re Second”. However, to comprehend how he will approach Africa and other geopolitical interests, one needs to understand what makes Donald Trump who he is. First and foremost, he’s a businessman. A negotiator. A deal maker. A salesman. A closer. A showman. And second, he’s a New Yorker. Brash, in your face and no-holds barred. And he will become indignant if you cross him. As a businessman, Trump sees everything through a single lens - return on investment (ROI). This is what he has based every business decision on for over 40 years. It’s the tape measure in his toolkit. It quantifies what he gets back on his investments. And now, as president, he will apply that same ratio to foreign policy to measure what America gets back from its allies. Simply stated, what is their ROI to the U.S.? It is clear that Trump will run his administration more as a businessman and CEO, and less as a politician. On his desk in the Oval Office should be a nameplate that reads; “Donald J. Trump: President and Deal Maker in Chief.” The difficulty for Africa is that its geopolitical and economic value - as it relates to Trump’s vision for the U.S. - simply won’t land it anywhere near the top of his list of foreign policy priorities. To Trump the businessman, much of Africa has a low ROI - certainly as compared to countries like the U.K., France, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Germany not to mention “frenemies” like Russia and China. There will, of course, continue to be trade between Africa and the U.S. as commodities are always an economic driver irrespective of their current prices. But there is every reason to expect that under a Trump administration the U.S. will be less engaged in Africa especially where it concerns the expenditure of taxpayer money on economic and humanitarian development initiatives. The reality is that the U.S. is a net exporter of financial aid and humanitarian assistance to Africa - net of the commodities and resources that the U.S. imports from it. And because of this, much of the continent will be caught in Trump’s crosshairs ultimately putting many of these important aid programs at risk. So what will be the defining theme with regard to the broader U.S. policy toward Africa under Trump? Simple. Combating terrorism. Outside of oil and other extractive commodities, positioning the U.S. for the fight against terror is Africa’s primary value to Trump. Stated more bluntly: kill ISIS and all its offspring. This is Africa’s ROI. The U.S. faces serious and sustained security challenges across Africa. Terrorism, which not only has the capacity to destabilize key African countries is also a breeding ground for exporting violence to the U.S. and Europe. Hot spots like Libya must build and maintain its government while fighting to eradicate ISIS. And the ISIS-aligned Nigerian militant group Boko Haram continues to wreak havoc as does Al-Qaeda-linked Somali terror group Al-Shabab. As a result, the U.S. will be forced to engage these terror threats emanating from across Africa. But there is a real opportunity to broaden Trump’s limited policy view if African leaders choose to act upon it. The door remains very much open to them to reach out and appeal to Trump the businessman. Trump the deal maker. Trump the negotiator. Trump the salesman. His ego would welcome it. African countries have the opportunity to change their relationship with the U.S. - and take ownership of that process - instead of just waiting to see what Trump does. By acting proactively, it enables Africa to potentially increase its ROI - and change its link to the U.S. from that of “donor-recipient” to one based on mutual benefit. And that’s a deal that Donald Trump the businessman will make every time. But so far, of the 54 nations that comprise Africa, only a handful of African presidents have reached out to congratulate Trump. Like him or not, he is the president of the world’s lone superpower and is reassessing everything. Therein lies the opportunity. The opening is there now. So once Trump - the businessman - assumes the Presidency next month, it would probably be a good idea if the leaders of some of Africa’s other countries reached out to the new president with this message: “We’re open for business. Let’s make a deal”. That’s a message he’ll definitely understand.

[dsl10]

The Divided States of America

Welcome to 2016 in the Divided States of America.  

Who would have ever thought that Donald Trump would be elected president when all this first began back in March of last year? Well, at 2:32AM on November 9, 2016, hell officially froze over and America elected Donald Trump the 45th President of the United States.  

But, every so often, things need to be turned upside down to put them right-side up. So the voters did the political equivalent of using an ideological 2-by-4 to get the country’s attention. And make no mistake, Donald Trump’s victory was a sharp, populist kick to the groin of the liberal establishment that has dominated American mindshare, media and politics for most of the last decade.  

For the purposes of full disclosure, I voted for Hillary Clinton - albeit reluctantly. I think she would’ve made a decent president but would have likely been under political artillery fire around the clock from the Republicans - which would have compromised her effectiveness in office as it did Barack Obama’s.  

But, in hindsight, it really doesn’t surprise me that Donald Trump won the election. Over the months, as I watched the news coverage, it seemed to me that the media was starting to get a little too nervous about him. Could he actually win? Trump was rogue and unpredictable. He was in your face. He was a New Yorker. And he had 15,000,000 Twitter followers. All the while, Hillary was slipping, then recovering and then slipping again in the polls.  

So to help her seal the deal, the media stopped reporting on Hillary - and started selling her to us. But there’s an old adage in sales that goes something like this: “people buy from people they like.” Although Trump, like Clinton, had extremely low favorability ratings, the voters saw her moral deficit as just too large to overcome. And as the campaign dragged on, the never-ending email scandals plaguing her made it very clear that something wasn’t quite right on the Left. No pun intended.  

In the end, thanks to Julian Assange, Hillary Clinton was Wiki-Leaked into political extinction.  

But try the media did. “Just look at the numbers. Trump can’t possibly win” one pundit said a few days before Election Day. “His path to victory is improbable, if not impossible” he continued. And many prominent voices in the media kept implying that the election basically belonged to Hillary anyway. “It’s her turn,” I would hear every day.    

Well, it wasn’t. And when the voting was over, the silent majority had spoken. Actually, the silent majority had screamed. It was Donald J. Trump’s turn.   So now, a rainbow coalition of young millennials - still lost in an ideological fog - are angrily protesting the election results across the country – both in the streets and all over social media as well. And while many of the cell phone videos being released make it seem like there is a never ending flow of enraged demonstrators, it is probably less than 1/20 of 1% of the population – at most.  

Of course, the real irony here is they’re demonstrating because the democratic system actually worked – not because it failed. They just didn’t like the outcome.   Others are now calling for the complete gutting of the Electoral College - which was established as part of America’s Constitution in 1787. Yes, Hillary won the popular vote but she lost the Electoral College. That’s how it works. Those are the rules. It’s like saying that one team beat the other in football because they ran up and down the field more often even though the other team scored more goals. Sorry, you lost. The number of goals you score determines the winner of the game. Nothing else. Of course, had Clinton won the election, the Left would be extolling the virtues of the system and marveling at how well it performed. So, come on kids, get over it. You can’t just change the rules to get the result you want.

So now it’s time for the U.S. to start to heal itself. I’m hopeful we can but, frankly, I’m not convinced we have the national will. We are so divided it’s almost as if we are two countries right now. There’s anger everywhere. I walk all over New York every day and the vibe on the streets reminds me of an angry America in the late 1960’s. The main difference is that Donald Trump is now the new Richard Nixon.  

So Trump needs to lead the country and act decisively to reunite America. He needs to reassure the voters that he is the President of all the people irrespective of gender, religion, race or ideological leaning. But as the recent protests and unrestrained fury on Facebook and Twitter demonstrate, the liberal establishment doesn’t react well to losing. They don’t play well with the other kids in the sandbox especially if they disagree with them. So here’s the bottom line. The results are final and the American people have spoken. President Obama said exactly this in his post-election press conference.  

We now need to give Trump a chance to govern. But watch what he does, not what he says. Campaigns are about words. Presidencies are about actions.

Yes, he will attempt to reverse many of Obama’s policies as well as most of his executive orders. Let’s face it, much of it hasn’t worked. That’s why the voters chose another path and put Trump in office. And if he fails, he’ll be out too. That’s the beauty of democracy. If the president doesn’t do a good job, you can fire him.  

Trump’s mandate from the American people is to fix what ails us. I hope he focuses on creating jobs first. Putting people back to work always acts as a salve on the wound and will spark the economy. He’s claiming he will spend USD 1 trillion on infrastructure projects across the country - although it will likely take a few years for that to have an impact. He will push to reduce taxes which is long overdue. And with a Republican controlled Congress, he could get this done early on in his presidency. He will look to rebuild the military to its former levels just like Ronald Regan did back in the 1980’s. What he does with it, however, is anybody’s guess.

My sense is he will also start to move away from the incendiary rhetoric against Muslims and Mexicans - and he should. He has to. But I don’t think he is anti-Muslim. He is anti-terrorism. And he is not anti-Mexican. He is anti-illegal immigration. There’s a big difference. He is already softening his position on the mass deportation of illegal immigrants saying now that only those with criminal records will be deported. But he will also secure the borders and make it very tough to get into this country illegally – wherever you’re from.  

Perhaps the best illustration of how he might approach the presidency is this. Back in 1986, real estate developer Donald Trump watched New York City try - and repeatedly fail - to build a public skating rink in Central Park. It had already been under construction for 12 years at that point. Legendary New York City mayor, Ed Koch, told Trump he’d give him the project but he needed it finished in 18 months. Trump said he could do it in four. And he finished in three. I think this is the kind of President we could very well get.  

Donald Trump and I are both New Yorkers – actually, we each grew up in Queens which is one of the city’s five boroughs. So here’s one thing I know for sure. He’ll work harder than anyone on the planet. And that’s a trait you want in your president.

So I’ll leave you with this. Stop whining. It benefits all of us to give Donald Trump the opportunity to do his job and allow for the peaceful transition of power to a new administration with different ideas. This is our history and how we have always done it. We gave Barack Obama the chance to govern. We gave George W. Bush the chance to govern. And every president before them too. If Hillary had won, I’d have gotten behind her and cheered her on as well.   But now it’s Trump’s turn. If we render his efforts ineffective through endless protests and violence, blatantly biased media coverage, social media smear campaigns and partisan political obstruction, I am not sure we will ever find our way back to being the United States of America again.  

Rather, we will unfortunately remain as we are today. The Divided States of America. So give him a chance.

[dsl10]

Schools Out

South Africa’s university system is on fire. Literally. Student protests and riots are raging everywhere. Campus building are being set ablaze. And bystanders and the police are in the crosshairs as they clash with demonstrators. Higher education in South Africa is on the verge of collapse as the calls for free tuition have gripped the country and schools have closed for the year in response to the violence. And now, public opinion is starting to turn against the protestors as many of South Africa’s esteemed academic institutions come under attack.

Despite the inequities, real and perceived, South Africa is fortunate to have the education system it does - certainly when you compare it to much of the rest of the continent. And despite the deluge of contentious issues from Wits to the University of Cape Town, it’s still the best system anywhere in Africa.

But like everything else in life, there is a cost for quality. As the saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” And with South Africa’s government already reeling from a prolonged commodity driven economic slump, there are few options available to the ANC to remedy this. What the protesters have to realize is that ultimately, the money has to come from somewhere. Nothing is ever free. It’s just a question of who pays.

The “Fees Must Fall” protesters however need only look upstream into the rest of Africa to see just how lucky they are. From primary school through university, it’s not a pretty picture. So, if the protesters dare to look, here’s what they’d see.

First, let’s consider the bigger picture. By the year 2050, two-thirds of Africa’s population is expected to live in its cities. Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa and Johannesburg, as well as others, are all going to experience significant growth as people move from the countryside - as well as neighboring countries - to these urban areas looking for work. How these countries manage this migration will be critical to the future of the continent.

Africa is urbanizing at a rapid pace. Already, across the continent, the population living in the cities has doubled from 1995 to 472 million in 2015. Here’s the rub though. Africans from all parts of the continent are moving into cities that are not fully ready to receive them. So as Africa’s urban populations explode, there will be a severe lack of services and infrastructure to support their growing numbers. Housing, jobs, power, food, clean water, and basic sanitation will all be areas of heightened concern for local governments as more and more people flow into these major metropolitan areas.

But as daunting as these problems will be, the real crisis facing Africa’s cities are the woefully ill-prepared schools awaiting the massive influx of students that are coming in. In other words, Africa’s future workforce. In no uncertain terms it all starts in the classroom.

As many of the migrants moving to these cities will be children and teens, it is they who will suffer the most. There is simply not enough money in government coffers to provide a quality education for these students and not enough per capita employment income to enable their families to pay for it themselves. So the trend will continue and add to an ever-increasing, under-educated African populace with skills that are built around mining and agriculture - in a world that is increasingly becoming centered on technology and services.

Just look at the numbers as they always tell the real story. Liberia, for instance, has a population of 4.6 million people and a 47% literacy rate. That means 2.4 million Liberians can’t read. Nigeria has a 59.6% literacy rate which means approximately 68 million people there cannot read. And with the country’s population expected to increase to close to 400M+ by 2050, with many of them being children and teens, how will Nigeria’s schools manage this? More glaringly, in Ghana, where the literacy rate is 57%, less than 5% have acquired a higher education. Simply put, that means that formal education ends at high school for most people there. And countries like Gambia, Eritrea and Mali aren’t even in the conversation. Mali, for instance has a literacy rate of just 33.4%.

These countries, as well as many others in Africa, all suffer from a profound lack of basic resources and scholastic materials like books, computers, pencils, paper, desks and chairs. There are excessively large class sizes, insulting levels of gender inequality, poor training for teachers, and little to no access to internet broadband in many areas. To sum it up, Africa currently has more than 40 million children that are not even in school according to UNESCO. Primary school enrollment in Africa is among the lowest in the world. And if they’re not in primary school, they’re not going to be attending university either and will likely never have a job that is not located on a farm or in a mine.  

So, here’s the bottom line. Education is the true differentiator between the haves and have-nots and the correlation between it and a fully functioning, productive society is undeniable. In essence, it is what defines - and divides - great countries from ones that perpetually struggle. And for all the media rhetoric, how can “Africa Rise” if it can’t read or write? In short, if things stay as they are, “Africa Rising” will sadly remain yet another unfulfilled narrative.

I hope the protestors in South Africa soon come to recognize what they actually have there - and that they are only hurting themselves and, in the long run, their country. There are an estimated 1,000,000 students enrolled in South Africa’s universities. The likelihood of free education in a country that is in a protracted economic downturn and mired in painful political scandals is not simply not realistic. This is where the law of unintended consequences comes into play - the so-called ripple effect. By violently demonstrating and shutting down the schools, the demonstrators are potentially depriving South Africa of educated, employable and productive citizens. Citizens that would contribute to the growth of the country. Those who might become accountants, teachers, doctors, factory workers, architects and pharmacists will be compromised and could leave the country altogether to seek a proper education elsewhere. And many of them might not ever return. It’s the quintessential brain drain.

And South Africa simply can’t afford that.

[dsl10]

Donald and Hillary: A Halloween Story

I went to one of those Halloween stores in my neighborhood the other day that sells all kinds of costumes, character masks, fake blood and ghoulish, green make-up among other things. They’ve got it all - from Disney princesses and mermaids to Superman, racy cocktail waitresses, Frankenstein, Dracula, skeletons and Sponge Bob. It’s all there.

As you would probably guess, the two bestselling masks by a wide margin so far this year are none other than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Even Bernie Sanders costumes are still flying off the shelves.

Everybody wants to be President.

I really appreciate the irony of Halloween as a metaphor for our upcoming presidential election. Suffice it to say, the 2016 campaign is proving to be more than just a little scary for most Americans. And the global ripple effect from the outcome should make it scary for you too, wherever you live.

What makes this election especially frightening is that whoever wins will inherit an incredibly polarized and angry nation where everyone is at odds with everyone else for one reason or another. As a country, we’ve never agreed on so little. Gender equality, religion, race relations, healthcare, taxes, politics, policing, job creation, money . . . pick any one of them and somebody, somewhere will be screaming at you about it.

We’re just one flittering spark away from igniting a raging national bonfire that will send everything up in flames.

But fear not. On November 8th, we’re about to be delivered from over a decade and a half of George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s dismal stewardship of America. It’s OK though. Because swooping in to save the day is reality TV star and the fearless foe of liberalism everywhere, Donald Trump - and the scandal ridden, establishment heavyweight contender herself, Hillary Clinton. Our two agonizingly flawed superheroes that everyone loves to hate – and that close to 65% of the voters view negatively.

It’s no wonder though. The mainstream media is having a drunken piñata party beating them both mercilessly around the clock. They’ve called Trump arrogant and impulsive. Inexperienced, misogynistic, racist, unqualified and irrational. And they accuse Hillary of being a liar, manipulative, hypocritical, pandering, unhealthy, unlikable, patronizing, dishonest, careless, and mean-spirited.

And here’s the punch line. Like them or not, one of them will be elected the 45th President of the United States and have their hands on the steering wheel of the free world.

Suffice it to say, we’re at an inhospitable ideological crossroads in America in 2016. The good old days of either moving to the left or the right depending on the mood in the country have been relegated to the dust bin of history. Over the past few years, we’ve actually begun to move to the left and the right simultaneously as the country’s demographics continue to change. The once highly prized “center” of the political spectrum is melting away like an ice cream cone in the summer sun as the Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers age start to pass the figurative torch to a new generation. Our political and social identity as a country is changing.

Now, these new younger Democrats and Republicans are grinding up against each other like tons of twisted steel collapsing under its own weight. And as we continue to shift toward the political fringes, and thanks to social media, every whiner from New York to California has a megaphone in their pocket and wants you to know that they’re mad as hell. Thank you Twitter.

So when you blend all these ingredients together in the giant national mixing bowl, sprinkle in a few terror attacks, add a flat, lifeless economy, mix it all up and then pop it into the oven - out comes Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.  

And they are us.  

But one thing is for sure. Whether it’s Clinton or Trump, this is going to be a watershed election that flips everything you ever knew right on its head – both here in the U.S. and around the world.

Clinton’s Democratic Party is no longer the party of Roosevelt or Kennedy. It’s no longer my parent’s Democratic Party. It’s no longer the Party once dominated by European immigrants whose ancestors started arriving here en masse in the 1850’s. Those democrats were more centrist. They wanted to build, not tear down. They wanted to assimilate. In 2016, the rise of Bernie Sanders signaled a sharp shift to the left in the Party’s underlying philosophies. Dominated by wide a mix of multi-cultural millennials, these democrats are younger and angrier and have brought a highly progressive agenda with them. They’re a broad, colorful mosaic of every disenchanted splinter group out there and Clinton is pandering to them all for their votes.

If elected, she would likely continue where Obama left off and push to grant citizenship to the 11.4 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. Add to that the one million legal immigrants already here that applied for citizenship in 2015 and I think the end game is pretty clear; stack the deck for the Democrats. Not to mention, this year for the first time, the naturalization drive in the U.S. also had backing from the White House which gave $10 million to community groups to get people sworn in as citizens (read: voters) according to the New York Times (September 30, 2016).

The net result is obvious. This would ultimately add millions more future Democrats to the electorate and would almost guarantee the left an absolute hammer lock on the White House for decades to come. Although temporarily stopped by the Supreme Court, the immigration issue will not go away. It’s core to the democratic platform and is a permanent thread that runs through the broader public dialogue. Newly minted citizens almost always vote Democratic as they initially lean on the government for support.

This fact was not lost on Barack Obama which is why he brought the immigration question to the fore. He’s set the table for the left before leaving office using a highly emotional and hotly debated issue. This was his political pincer move as the voter math would doom the Republicans. Essentially, they would simply be outnumbered and not have enough votes to win an election.

It is not inconceivable that you might not see another Republican president for decades – or quite possibly, ever again. The House and the Senate would also be skewed far to the left as well making any attempt at imposing a conservative agenda on immigration - or any other issue - an afterthought.

She would also move the Supreme Court to the left as some of the older justices retire or pass away. The average age of the judges is 69.7 years old and the court is currently split 4 conservatives to 4 liberals. So just one new liberal appointee would push the majority to the left. And assuming Clinton was reelected and lasted an additional four years, she would certainly have more than one opportunity to appoint new justices. A liberal majority on the court would reshape the nation socially for a decades and push all the hot button issues right to the front of the line. Abortion, guns, gender, free speech, race relations, policing and gay marriage would all come sharply into focus.

A prolonged combination of a Democratic White House, a Democratic Congress and a liberal court would ultimately come to be viewed as a tipping point in the country’s history.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are moving in the opposite direction. Once the party of the patrician elites, these new Republicans are conservative, somewhat pro-Isolationist, gun toting, anti-abortion, evangelical, constitutionalist and largely white working class men and women. And they’re pissed off. And there’s a lot of them too. And while many of them didn’t like George W. Bush, they loath Barack Obama and pin the blame for the weakening of the country - both domestically and internationally - squarely on his shoulders.

If Trump wins the country could come apart at the seams - a social breakdown. Riots. Race wars. Immigration conflicts. Police shootings. There would be a sort of Civil War between the haves and have-nots. Between the left and the right. Between religion and everything. Internationally, relations with both our allies and enemies would become strained and the threat of nuclear proliferation under a Trump administration would likely increase. America’s credibility and image in the world would suffer dramatically. And Donald Trump would strike the match that starts it all.

So the end of the election is now in sight and, as a country, we are conflicted and vulnerable. As Hillary said so eloquently said during her campaign; “the next 40 days will determine the next 40 years….” The choice is like picking from a lunch menu with only two items on it, both of which you don’t like; four more years of Barack Obama’s feeble left leaning policies under Hillary Clinton or four years of the political equivalent of Salvador Dali running the United States.

One of the reasons that America has long been viewed as the leader of the free world is because of great stewardship. Visionary leadership. The courage to build and work. JFK and FDR. Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln. Leaders that all exemplified what has made the U.S. great; determination, work ethic, education and the belief in assimilating and contributing to the greater good. This is why for over the past century millions of people fleeing oppressive governments, intolerable living conditions, war and harsh economic conditions have sought sanctuary in America. They’ve come for freedom.

But now the pendulum has begun to swing the other way. There are no more Kennedy’s or Lincoln’s. No more Martin Luther King’s. Instead we’ve had sixteen years of George W. Bush and Barack Obama and now face another four to eight years of either Trump or Clinton. Frankly, if I had a crystal ball and could peer into the future I’m not sure I‘d actually want to.

I remember back when I was in college, one of my political science professors said that “whoever we elect to the White House is a direct reflection of ourselves…” So this Halloween, as we are putting on our Donald and Hillary costumes, we need to ask ourselves this question: What has happened to our country that two such frightening characters are what’s staring back at us from the mirror? Is this really our reflection? Are Donald and Hillary the best we have?

Because if they are, whoever wins, America has already lost.

[dsl10]

Africa, the New World Order and the Politics of Relevance

We’re at the dawning of a new era and it’s flickering right up there on the giant movie screen like a new blockbuster hit - and you’re in it.

Actually, so are all of the other 7.4 billion people on earth.

There is little doubt, as Malcolm Gladwell said, that we’ve reached a tipping point, but this one is on a global and historical scale - and it’s reshuffling the entire card deck of humanity. Jokers and all.

I don’t know about you, but seems obvious to me that we’ve been dealt a pretty lousy hand at the poker table. Let’s face it, to put it simply, things are bad all over. The whole world’s been swept down a raging river by a highly charged emotional current that is just too strong to fight anymore.

And with most of civilization praying with their thumbs to the social media Gods that reside on their smartphones - everyone, everywhere is as mad as hell . . . and they’re broadcasting it live and in color for you to see.

It’s like a worldwide digital riot.

But now our collective fury is revealing itself in our cities in the form of unrelenting, no-holds barred terrorism and mass domestic killings. The daily news cycle usually leads with an unbelievable atrocity where dozens if not hundreds of people are killed in a nightclub bombing or shopping mall attack. In 2015, there were 11,774 terror attacks killing 28,328 people around the world according to the U.S. State Department. And the birth of the “lone wolf terrorist” and the “soft target” has delivered this depravity like a FedEx package right to your front door. Now we’re all just waiting for the big one to hit. And it will.

In all honestly, I just don’t see how we can get the genie back into the bottle anymore.

This is why I am worried for Africa. The world is imploding all around her. One country after the other is struggling to balance a full plate of foreign policy crises in nearly every corner of the planet. National self-interest and self-preservation has hijacked a frightened Western mindshare as governments are trying - and failing - to protect their countries and its citizens. The prospect of getting blown up or caught in a mass shooting while you’re shopping for your dinner is now the “new normal”.

So I have to wonder, if things continue to spin out of control will Africa become an afterthought? A lonely asterisk residing in the footnotes at the bottom of the page? Will she be able to stay relevant within the broader dialogue?

In all honesty, it seems odd to me that African leaders and governments have somehow missed this very relevant subtlety as we sink deeper into this ever expanding quicksand. The world’s balance of power is shifting. And who your allies were, might not be who your allies are 5 or 10 years from now as countries adjust to a new world order and new foreign policy priorities.

We’re all getting new dance partners. And who you hit the dance floor with will all depend on just how valuable you are to them. Or put another way, what do you have that they need?

So just In case you’ve somehow managed to nap through the last 7 or 8 years, let me give you a quick snapshot of the world you are now waking up into why it could ultimately have a dramatic impact on many of the countries in Africa.I suppose the easiest thing to do is just pick a day and look at the newspaper. Unfortunately, it reads more like a Stephen King novel than journalism.

For starters, we’re killing each other in extraordinary numbers around the world over ancient religious beliefs that have been barbarically perverted and distorted. But instead of hardened armies on horseback and catapults launching flaming boulders, our enemies now use sophisticated Internet technology, state of the art fire power and the specter of obtaining black market nuclear weapons, one of which will no doubt slip through the cracks sooner or later.

And make no mistake, folks. That’s the ultimate end game here.

Our weaponry has evolved a hundred fold but is now alarmingly coupled with a violent jihadist fervor straight out of the dark ages. And just for good measure, they’ve upped the ante and brought the battle directly to your neighborhood. The new “front” is your front yard. Your mall. Your movie theater. The corner bistro.

You.

But you need to consider the backdrop to this global theatre of the absurd to fully comprehend the transformation underway. One that will likely relegate Africa to a cheap balcony seat in the back of the audience where all she can do is watch.

Let’s start with the United States. America is undergoing a massive ideological shift that is shaking the country to its core. But it’s not like in the 1960’s. This time it’s different. This is faster, more severe. Sharper. This one is tech-driven and is blinking and beeping at you all day long on your smartphone. And if you can imagine this, the U.S. is so divided politically that we are actually moving to both the left and the right simultaneously. The once highly prized “center” of the political spectrum is dissolving as our demographics undergo a grinding metamorphosis that would make Kafka’s cockroach pale in comparison. Internationally, the U.S. has essentially excused itself from the dinner table under Barack Obama and never quite returned from the restroom. As a result, an emboldened Russia has taken our seat at the dais and is aggressively reasserting itself again on the world stage as it takes advantage of a weakened - and largely disinterested - United States. Putin will no doubt miss Obama.

The Middle East has given birth to a pair of grossly disfigured children named ISIS and Al Qaeda that are in an outright frenzy blowing up and beheading anyone they can find that doesn’t believe what they believe. And I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to just magically end one day.

Angry ideologies don’t stop. They’re immortal.

Then you have Iran; the big, bad pugnacious bully in the classroom that has bamboozled the entire international community largely because most countries are afraid they’ll get beaten up by them one day in the schoolyard.

Meanwhile, while nobody was watching, China began constructing faux-islands in the middle of the Pacific to further solidify their position as the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room. Something tells me that no one wants to pick a fight with the Chinese and their military of 3,500,000 fighters. 

And let’s not forget the most colorful Joker in the deck, Kim Jong-Un of North Korea. “Dear Leader” as he is known, shows his everlasting love to his people by brainwashing the masses, making them live without electricity in much of the country, and burning his generals to death if they disagree with him. Oh, and don’t forget, he has his jittery little finger on the nuke button at all times. Giving him the nuclear launch codes is like giving a dysfunctional alcoholic the keys to the local bar after closing time.

Europe, as we know it today, is flat out disintegrating and it is anyone’s guess as to what crumbs will be left on the bottom of the plate when all is said and done. Bloody terror attacks and an influx of a million-plus migrants from the Middle East has given rise to a surging nationalism not seen since World War II. It’s like if 100 people from another neighborhood showed up at your house one day and wanted to move in and have you feed them and take care of them for the rest of their lives. Oh, and at your expense.

So that’s the world in 2016 (yes, I know there are good things too).

And that brings me to Africa.

Without the massive amounts of foreign aid, infrastructure investment and military support from Europe, the U.S. and China, there is no telling where Africa would end up. Save for commodities and strategic positioning to fight terror, Africa is a giant net importer of assistance from others. In business parlance, it’s a cost center.

Food, medical, humanitarian, and not least of all, military aid are central to Africa’s ability to operate and survive at any level at all. Without it, many of the countries there would essentially malfunction like a car engine with a broken fuel pump. It wouldn’t be able to get out of the driveway.

Just to give you an idea of some of the numbers, in 2014 the U.S. gave Kenya $560 million. Tanzania $588 million. Nigeria $703 million. Uganda $489 million. South Africa $490 million. Mozambique $406 million. Ethiopia $489 million. And the DRC $272 million. And that’s just a partial list.

Watching the news every night reminds me of one of those scary, end-of-the-world movies they play at 3AM on television. The U.S., three quarters of the Middle East and a good chunk of Western Europe are all on ideological fire in one way or another. And we are in yet another strategically unclear military conflict in Syria and Iraq with no absolutely end in sight. It’s hard to defeat an ideology that is thousands of years old with airstrikes and missiles. It just regroups and reconstitutes like a lizard regenerating its tail.  

So as “Rome burns” and the world’s leaders fiddle like Nero, you have to wonder, what will happen to Africa?  With more and more civilians being killed in terror attacks around the world, ISIS fueling the barbarous wars in Syria and Iraq, and the unending waves of refuges settling in Europe and now the U.S., I’m not sure Africa will be a strategic priority for anyone soon. The human race is grinding and shifting like the earths tectonic plates and Africa’s well-being could ultimately take a back seat to everyone else’s. Frankly, I am not sure they will even be in the conversation.

So is it far-fetched to assume that as more and more countries around the world assume inward-looking protectionist postures, will Africa be relegated to just being a global afterthought? Beyond its abundant commodities and natural resources, will the world even care?

So speaking as a friend of Africa, worrying about their well-being is not an area that is going to garner a lot of mindshare from politicians and leaders around the world as powerful world events continue to reshape international alliances, alter foreign policy priorities and forge new strategic alignments.

From its allies, Africa will get policy-driven lip service, maybe. But not much else. China is just picking away at her commodities like a raven would pick at a dead rabbit in the field. And when it is done eating, China will distance itself. It may have already started. In 2015, China’s commodity imports from Africa were down nearly 40%. And when China catches a cold, Africa gets pneumonia. As for the U.S. and the EU, it seems that they are fighting everyone, everywhere on some level while trying to figure out how to protect their own citizens at home.

They’ve all clearly got other concerns.

It’s a tall order for sure, but I am afraid that sooner or later, Africa will have to starting doing more for itself and rely less on others. Because at some point in the near future, she risks losing relevance among her peers as the world becomes more and more tenuous and as Africa offers little to the overall solution.

But maybe there is a silver lining in this after all. Maybe, by being forced to carry more of its own weight, Africa can slowly start to wean itself off its ally’s good graces and, over time, develop functioning, well governed nations that can ultimately provide for their people. I know that’s somewhat of a utopian vision but something needs to happen soon. It cannot sustain its present course indefinitely especially as the world around her changes.

There will always be some level of support needed but Africa’s partners today may be very different in the future given the churning waters that we are adrift in. The next 50 years will be nothing like the last 50 years and the economic and military aid dependent models that were used to help see Africa through post-colonialization will simply no longer be applicable.

As the needs of her allies change, so will their relationships. Africa will not be exempt from this.

It’s kind of like when you drop your child off at college. Soon, there comes that moment when you have to drive away. It’s not goodbye forever. But it’s a meaningful separation as your child will now be on their own and have to do things for themselves that they’ve never had to do before. They always had your help. But now, they’ll have to conduct and manage themselves properly and within the law. They’ll need to feed themselves. They’ll have to manage their money and finances properly. And they may even have to defend themselves at some point. Essentially, they will have to grow up.

I think that is what Africa is going to have to do too. It will need to do for herself. Provide for herself. Take responsibility. Govern and conduct herself with dignity. Grow. And you know what? Just like with your son or daughter going off to college, that’s really not a bad thing at all…

[dsl10]

From New York to Africa: Lessons Learned

I’ve worked with African companies for over a decade and a half now. I’ve raised money for them, invested in them, and provided advisory to their management. I’ve worked in sectors as diverse as transportation, agriculture and financial services to manufacturing, construction and energy. You name it.

I’m an advocate for Africa. I’m one of its cheerleaders. And most importantly, I’m a friend.

But I’ve also learned some painfully exacting lessons along the way as well. Lessons that, when combined, provided me with an education that you simply could not get elsewhere.

Unfortunately though, most of the curriculum was taught at the African chapter of the School of Hard Knocks. And suffice it to say, I graduated with an advanced degree.

I think it’s fair to assert that doing business in the U.S. is antithetical to doing business in countries like Ethiopia or Tanzania. It’s just different. It’s like comparing a Boeing 747 to a Cessna Skyhawk. They’re both planes but one will run out of fuel and fall out of the sky after only a few hundred miles.

When I first started operating in Africa it reminded me of one of those chaotic and disjointed Salvador Dali paintings where everything was warping and melting into each other. The turmoil there wasn’t entirely unexpected though. I had, of course, read all of the negative press over the years; rampant government corruption, alarming levels of poverty, widespread hunger and the multiple, hyper-aggressive tumors that in time would metastasize into al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda.

To my naïve American eye, Africa looked like a giant, dirty mud puddle at the bus stop . . . you didn’t want to stand in front of it.  

And even as someone who grew up on the streets of New York, doing business there scared the hell out of me.

But the allure and upside were just too great. In New York’s finance circles, Africa was categorized as an “exotic” market, erratic and unpredictable with a severely disproportionate risk/reward ratio.

You could win really big if you were smart. And lose even bigger if you were unprepared. And that was the opportunity.

In those days the furthest most U.S. bankers and investors were willing to go would be to look at deals in some of the more popular emerging markets like Brazil, Russia or China. Those were the flavors of the day. The “BRIC” countries, as so aptly named by Goldman Sachs, were all the rage.

But exotic markets like Mozambique or Ethiopia? Botswana or Rwanda? Not a chance. Too precarious. Too unfamiliar. And if Goldman and the other banks on Wall Street didn’t bless them in their morning analyst notes, you didn’t dare deviate for fear of being ridiculed by your colleagues.

���Why would you do a deal in Nigeria when you could’ve invested in India? Are you crazy?”

The reality was that most of the folks on Wall Street could barely name five countries in Africa much less ever envision doing business there. Asking them to find Djibouti on a map was like asking them to find the hair they had on their head 20 years earlier.

  The bottom line was that very few investors in the U.S. were paying any attention to Africa at all.

That’s when I realized that operating there would differentiate me from everyone else in the herd. And the herd, as herds tend to do, all ran in one direction. Surely, I thought to myself, if I could operate in New York I could easily do business in countries like Kenya or South Africa. Right?

Wrong.

In the early days, we just couldn’t get it right. To begin with, we were culturally blind toward Africa. We didn’t have a clue. We didn’t understand the way people from Cameroon viewed contracts or accounting standards. Or how Nigerian’s approached negotiations with foreigners. Or how meticulous South Africans were with respect to process and formality.

And because of this, we were completely unprepared for what was coming our way. Almost every one of our early deals collapsed. Every conversation was misread. Everything we thought would happen, didn’t. Yes meant no. No meant yes. And getting paid by anybody was about as easy as trying to tie your shoes with your teeth.

Basically, we were the Wall Street equivalent of roadkill lying dead on the side of the road.

As time went on though, the clouds finally started to part and we gradually began to make progress on some of our transactions. We congratulated ourselves that we had finally started to figure out the “science” behind doing business in Africa. We had convinced ourselves that we had arrived.

But we hadn’t.

And things still grudgingly dragged on. Deals weren’t closing and new debt and equity transactions were nearly impossible to come by. We still had no credibility in the market and continued to struggle to earn our way into the proverbial club. It was clear that we had only just begun to pay our dues.

It was then that the epiphany occurred.

What we realized was that doing business in Africa was actually not a science at all. You couldn’t neatly articulate it into a course curriculum and teach it like an MBA level financial modeling class at Harvard or Wharton.

What finally dawned on us was that doing business in Africa was, in fact, an art. A specialty filled with inconsistencies, contradictions and irregularities. It was nearly impossible to methodically frame an investment thesis and structure an investment or capital raise like we did in New York. Literally, projecting cash flows and ROI’s were like shooting at a moving target. And in many of the countries there, a company’s balance sheet and income statement had as many versions as a schizophrenic has personalities.

Essentially, what you saw was never what you got.

So the hard-wired, technical rules of investing and doing deals that we brought with us from New York simply didn’t apply there. What became very real, very fast, was that if you wanted to do business in Africa it was more about the people there than the actual business or transaction.

It was about the relationships. It was about trust. And that was the turning point. So, as in sailing, we tacked hard left.  We changed course. We started to adapt our thinking so we were seeing things through the correct lens. An African lens. Not an American one.

Our logic was simple. When in Rome, as they say, do as the Romans do. So that’s what we did, except we did it in Africa. And that’s when things began to change.

When I was younger, my father always told me that in business or sports or anything for that matter, one had to be adaptable. One had to be flexible. In a hurricane, he said, a tree that bends in the wind won’t break. The rigid ones however, will snap in half violently.

Frankly, I didn’t want to be that tree.

So for those of you who are thinking of doing any kind of business in Africa, I don’t want you to be that tree either. It’s an exhausting and costly lesson. And you won’t learn about this in business school. It’s not taught there. I’m also pretty sure there aren’t any books on Amazon.com that cover this either.

Though it may sound counter intuitive, my African education didn’t come from looking at income statements or balance sheets of oil & gas companies in Nigeria. And it didn’t come from conducting due diligence on acquisition targets or structuring equity transactions in South Africa.

In actuality, it really didn’t come from “doing business” there at all. My education in Africa came from dealing with the people there – one on one - and one at a time. But not as corporate executives or managers or board members.

Just as people.

It came from learning their way of doing things. Learning how each of their distinct cultures shaped their personas. Learning their interpretations of right and wrong and good and bad. Learning where their pain came from. Understanding what they had – and what they didn’t have. What they lost and to whom. How they saw the world and their place in it. What scared them. What gave them hope.

And most importantly, I learned how to build a lasting trust with them – as people.

And it is only when you begin to understand and know the people there as people - as individuals - that you can actually begin to do business there - effectively.

But you clearly can’t paint all African’s with a single brush any more than you can paint all Americans or Asians with one. A farmer in Senegal is completely different than a gold miner in South Africa. Ghanaians have little, if anything, in common with Namibians. And Nigerians and Kenyans are about as far apart culturally as the 4900 kilometers that separate them geographically.

So if you are looking to do business on any level in Africa, I urge you to take note of a few of the truths that I have Iearned over the years.

• Understand that in Africa things move slowly. Very slowly. Actually, very, very slowly.

• Recognize that nothing is ever what it seems. Discount everything and then adjust as you go.

• Be ready to negotiate, negotiate again, agree and then negotiate again.

• Understand that relationships matter more than contracts. Contracts count but who you are counts even more.

• Recognize that you are a foreigner and are in their house. The world you come from and how you do things doesn’t matter.

• Remember, Africa was colonized. And you will still be viewed with suspicion as an outsider. Rightfully so.

• Respect their abundant and diverse cultures. Don’t judge or compare. Embrace.

• And understand that trust is everything. Full stop (read that one again).

Africa is a deeply complex and bewildering continent that is filled with idiosyncrasies most westerners could never begin to understand. But should you be bold enough to bring your business there, whether an engineering firm, investment fund, or a food manufacturer, and if you adopt some of the lessons that I had to learn the hard way, you will in the end be the tree that “bends in the wind” and ultimately succeeds. Otherwise, you will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as the ridged, unyielding tree that is fiercely snapped in half by the unpredictable and volatile African winds.

So remember this lesson. When in Africa, do as the Africans do…

[dsl10]

Pay it Forward Africa...

I saw a beautiful, multi-colored map the other day of the “Fifty Most Innovative Economies” in the World. It was really quite impressive. North America, Asia, Western Europe, Russia and Australia were all shaded in a dark, steely blue indicating they were among the world’s top innovators. They all excelled in any number of sectors from manufacturing, medicine, aerospace, and pharmaceuticals to architecture, farming, automobiles, and technology among others… and the list goes on. Then I looked at Africa… It was as if it wasn’t even there. As someone who has worked with African companies every day for nearly two decades I have to tell you this really bothered me. And I suppose, as you are reading this, it probably troubles you too. In relation to the rest of the world, Africa had essentially added nothing with the very minor exceptions of Morocco and Tunisia which were both shaded in a barely perceptible light blue. How can this possibly be? And how can there be no contribution from sub-Saharan Africa which contains 2 of the 3 largest economies on the continent as measured by GDP? So from the standpoint of innovation - and by extension - contribution to the greater global good Africa wasn’t even on the map (pardon the pun). Let’s face it. This speaks volumes. Of course, theories abound with respect to what plagues Africa – and there are plenty to choose from. I know what you’re thinking. Poverty, corruption, electricity, food security, African strongmen, water, sanitation, land, terrorism, etc. . . And you’re all correct. Unfortunately, these rationalizations all contribute to the distasteful reality that Africa is an emerging market that has, well… never quite emerged. It’s stuck in the mud. Let’s look at some of the more popular reasons why: Poverty? It’s at unimaginable levels. 17 of the world's 20 poorest countries are located in Africa. How’s that for starters? Food Shortages? 36 million people face hunger across Southern and Eastern Africa. In Ethiopia alone, over 10 million people require emergency food assistance to meet their basic food needs, and some 458,000 children are estimated to suffer from severe acute malnutrition according to the U.N. Lack of Reliable Power? Well, it’s hard to do things in the dark isn’t it? And you can’t manufacture your products, use your computer, wash your clothes or turn on the TV if nothing actually works because there is no power. The World Bank says that 32 countries there are in an “energy crisis.” How about dictatorships? Strongmen are everywhere in Africa. Like Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Equatorial Guinea’s Mbasogo, and Angola’s dos Santos to name a few. All have been in power for over 30 years. And this one will take a generation – maybe two - to produce a completely different mindset toward politics, power, people and fairness. Unfortunately, Africa is still the world leader in this authoritarian phenomenon. Corruption? A stage 4 cancer that is rampant in many African countries. Nothing gets done unless palms are greased. Food, Water and Land? These are all nothing but trouble. Simply stated, there’s already not enough food there and roughly half of Africa’s land is considered to be “too damaged” for food production. This has sharply diminished agricultural production of most of Africa’s staples like maize and bananas and has increased food prices dramatically. And while we’re at it, we can thank El Niño for leveling Southern and Eastern Africa with the worst drought in 50 years. Big problems that all need to be addressed for sure. And it won’t be easy. There’s not exactly a large margin for error here. So with all that said, I think one very important clarification needs to be made: The above issues are the symptoms. Not the disease. They are the result. But I know what the disease is and I’m pretty sure I know how to treat it. Unfortunately, most of us won’t be around to witness much of this as the cure will likely take a generation or two to bear fruit. So I suppose what I am going to suggest is what they call “paying it forward.” And it is the best gift Africa can give to its children and their children’s children and so on... No, it’s not power or food. Nor is it the ousting of Africa’s corrupt leaders either. All of that has to be resolved too. But what I am suggesting goes much, much deeper and lays the foundation for virtually everything of any value in any truly robust, dynamic society. It’s the “long money” as they say in Las Vegas… And here’s the answer: Education. That’s right. Education. Well, if you’re disappointed in my answer, and to put things in perspective, then consider this statistic. Africa’s under 18 year old population will swell to nearly 1 billion by 2050 according to the Unicef. That’s a lot of children. So here’s the question. What are they all going to do when they grow up? I think it’s time for a new game plan. So here’s the bottom line: Education is the absolute unchallenged, global difference maker and the correlation between it and a fully functioning, innovative society is undeniable. In essence, it’s what defines - and divides - great countries from ones that perpetually struggle. Knowledge underpins and forms the basis for everything. And education is the delivery system. Just look at history if you want proof. Start with the Greeks and their contribution to just about everything from math and science to philosophy, art and architecture. They were pretty ahead of the educational curve for a few centuries wouldn’t you say? And how about the Italians and that wild and carefree period of enlightenment called the Renaissance? The pursuit of knowledge to the Italians was a core societal standard. It’s what you did. It’s all about learning, folks. Without it, all that’s left is hope and a handful of limited options. And that’s just not enough. Africa does, of course, have several pockets of relative success. According to a recent UNESCO report, Sub-Saharan Africa spends 5% of its GDP on education coming in just behind Europe and North America, both at 5.3%. Countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe (despite Mugabe), and Nigeria all have reasonable levels of schooling. But there are 51 other countries on the content - and many of them don’t. Quite frankly, many of them are not even close. Countries like Gambia, Eritrea and Mali suffer from a profound lack of basic resources and scholastic materials like books, computers, pencils, paper, desks and chairs. There are excessively large class sizes, insulting levels of gender inequality, poor training for teachers, and little to no access to internet broadband in many areas. To sum it up, Africa currently has more than 40 million children that are not in school according to UNESCO. Primary school enrollment in Africa is among the lowest in the world. So with this I offer my thesis - as simple as it may be: Without a highly functioning, primary school through university, culturally inclusive, gender equal, technology driven educational system it will be nearly impossible for any country in Africa to develop a legitimately regarded, self-sustaining private sector (that’s a mouthful). One that can create, innovate and contribute to the greater global good. In short, if things stay as they are, “Africa Rising” will sadly remain yet another unfinished narrative. Or, to put it more simply, if my thesis was expressed as an equation it would look something like this: No education = no skills. No skills = no industry. No industry = no jobs. No jobs = no money. You get the idea. So what’s left? Well, mining and farming. Are these important? Absolutely. But after you harvest a few hectares of crops and extract a few tons of copper and gold out of the mines then what happens? So here’s the plan. If things are going to change, Africa needs to begin the slow transition from the manual labor based, agrarian and mining driven ecosystem of today to one largely built around a broadly skilled and educated workforce. So in addition to mining and farming, a more robust economy can begin to develop in sectors like manufacturing, technology, food, clothing, pharmaceuticals, transportation, consumer goods, and retail among others. It simply has to happen. Essentially, educating the broader population is the spark that will ignite a larger flame. And as far as I can see, this is the only way Africa is ever going to “rise”. China did it. They used rigid schooling and skills based training to kick-start their rapid ascension toward becoming an economic superpower. With the beginning of the post-Mao era in 1976, China transformed itself from a largely rural, agrarian, Stalin inspired, centrally-planned, communist state into the world’s 2nd largest economy clocking in at over $10 trillion and they did it all in under 40 years. Wow No excuses now. Someone else just did it. And it’s going to take unbelievably massive amounts of never-ending capital to pull this off. The whole thing may even have to be implemented through a giant, centralized, continent driven initiative delivered through some kind of an African governing body (like the African Union) not dissimilar from how the EU is managed out of Brussels. And here’s a thought. Why not use some of those multi-billions of dollars of state revenues from oil and other natural resources (thank you China, come back soon) to provide the base funding for this? But I’m not going to sit here and suggest exhaustive thesis-driven solutions and complex business models for remedying this. There are many people out there who are much smarter and better suited for this than me. I’m talking about the choice. The catalyst. And if Africa doesn’t make the choice to do this for themselves, who will? It’s the first step. It’s the decision by all Africans - as a people – to begin to think differently than their predecessors did. To make education matter. To make education what you do. To lay the foundation for their children. But this will take at least one generation to achieve this. Maybe two. This is a paradigm shift. And it won’t benefit the people living in Africa today. It’s largely for people who are not even born yet. It’s a gift for future generations of Africans. It’s the proverbial “ticket” out of despair - and into prosperity - for them. They just have to make the choice. Otherwise, it will be another lost era. And Africa can’t afford that. And, please no super-positive, pro-Africa slogans and sayings. No more “Africa Rising”. No more labels. None of that stuff… So just do it. Imagine, plan, cooperate, corroborate, investigate, visualize, question, collaborate, build, create, share, support and fund. Just do it. As one of America’s former presidents and great leaders, Harry Truman, once said; “show me, don’t tell me”. So I’ll leave it at this: A properly educated and skilled workforce is the only thing that can take the African people beyond mining and agriculture to the point at which they can be competitive on the world stage. The direct correlation between educational levels and highly functioning economies is clear. Look at some of the countries who have consistently ranked among the most effective educational systems in the world; Japan, Canada, Hong Kong, the U.S., China, South Korea, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Finland. Then look at the strength of their economies. See the connection? Global leaders in one form or another. All of them. Right now, Africa is dying a “death of a thousand cuts”. As much as I hate to say it, many of them are self-inflicted. But start to treat the actual disease and recognize the symptoms for what they are. Decide to change. Commit to education as the only serious, long term solution truly capable of delivering Africa’s future generations to the developed world - but this time as participants, not dependents. Give the children there the chance to do better than their parent’s generation did - as well as all the generations that came before them. And take comfort in the fact that you are ultimately putting Africa in a much better place than it is today. Pay it forward Africa...you owe it to your children.

[dsl10]

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall . . .

Although I usually write about Africa, I have to tell you, I’m more than just a little nervous about the upcoming election here in the U.S.

This one is a paradigm shift folks. Generations from now when people look back they will see this as a turning point in our history. The quintessential “defining” moment.

This election is either going to take us even further to the left - or start swinging us back to the right. But one thing is for sure. There’s going to be no middle ground, no compromise - it’ll be all or nothing.

We’ve been polarized. We’re changing as a nation. And we’re changing as a people. But this much I know. Whichever side the pendulum ultimately lands on, it will probably remain there for the foreseeable future.

So as it stands now, it’s anybody’s guess who will win this thing. It reminds me of one of those cartoons from my childhood where these dysfunctional, bug-eyed, wacky characters just keep beating each other over the head with a mallet.  

So how did we get here? That question is easy: America is pissed off. Big time. Everyone. Everywhere. Left, right, center, Black, White, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, and Jew....Everyone...

Why? Simply stated, Barack Obama did a bad job. Full stop. And George Bush before him did a bad job too. And you might as well throw in a completely ineffectual and out of touch Congress while you’re at it.

And now America is mad. Really mad. The U.S. has been mismanaged for nearly 16 years across the board. Bad foreign policy, bad domestic policy, bad social policy and really bad execution of all of it - by both administrations.

And because of this, a deep-seated eruption of anger has been loudly and violently belched out of the collective belly of America in the personas of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

And they’re all scary for different reasons.

Trump, a red faced, oddly coiffed, bloviating schoolyard bully who insults and threatens friends and foes alike and only thinks about what he says after he says it. He should be a real natural at foreign relations and diplomacy as he demonstrated early on in the campaign. Well, not exactly...

Then, there’s the 74 year old socialist who has somehow managed to convince millions of 20++ year old millennials that everything should be free and that socialism is the only way to right the social and economic wrongs here in the U.S. (note to Bernie: see Venezuela and Greece). And he just declared today that he would contest the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia on July 25th.

The gloves come off.

And finally, we have the so-called status quo candidate who keeps telling us that she is the most qualified person to run the country with the one exception being that her favorability and trustworthiness ratings are at 38% and that she is likely going to be indicted for lying and violating federal laws.

But the Clinton machine led by First Husband hopeful, Bill, will no doubt swoop into action and deflect any attempts to get at her like a goalie in the World Cup.

So we have a narcissist, a buffoon, and a liar all trying to win our hearts and minds - and the keys to the nuclear codes.

And even if Hillary wins the democratic nomination based on the number of delegates she’s won, as Sanders said today, you can be sure he will still show up at the Democratic Convention in July and make a very loud and raucous play for the nomination based on the sheer number of votes that he has also gotten. He’s in it to win it, folks.

So this is why I’m a little nervous about the election. I have voted in presidential elections since 1976 and all the old rules that I was raised with have been thrown right out the window.

We are entering unchartered territory here in the U.S. and how things will ultimately play out is the great unknown. And I don't like the unknown.

So on November 8th, America is about to determine who - and what - we are going to be.

So here’s the question. Is this the best we can do? Trump, Sanders or Clinton? There are 318,000,000 people living in the United States. Is there is no one else who could do a better job???

It’s like going into a restaurant and when you look at the menu the only choices are three things you don’t like.

I’ll eat later, thank you.

So the American people had best think long and hard about what kind of country we want to be before we vote in November. This one matters folks - more than any other election I can remember.

This is the proverbial fork in the road for us as a nation.    

I can remember in one of my political science classes in college many years ago my professor, Glenn McKnitt, came into the lecture hall on the very first day and said this:  “Just remember that whoever we elect to office in this country is a direct reflection of ourselves…”

Well, if that’s true, what we are seeing in the mirror is not looking too good right now…

[dsl10]

Is America Ready for Africa...?

What most Americans know about Africa you can fit into a small shoe box.  I mean the real Africa. Not the one we see on CNN or read about in the New York Times. That Africa is a largely negative one dominated by stories of poverty, terrorism, disease, hunger and corruption among other things.

Politically, the U.S.’s Africa policy is primarily centered on the fight against terror. Yes, there are economic initiatives and aid packages in place but, for the most part, the fight against terror has dominated U.S. policy there since September 11th.

China however, has a different view of what makes Africa important. With African eyes wide open, the Chinese have blanketed the continent with massive amounts of capital, manpower, and broad technical knowledge in their unending quest for natural resources. Despite the current down cycle in commodities, China has driven the proverbial stake into the ground and are there for the long haul.

Their motives are clear: trading money, infrastructure and manpower for Africa’s abundant natural resources. Some call it Colonization 2.0. Maybe so.

But the average American on the street knows very little, if anything, about Africa. And that includes most of our leading corporations and CEOs too.

Yes, the concept of doing business in Africa sounds good to them.  It is the home to seven out of the top ten fastest growing economies in the world. Check that box. It is a wide open market with a rapidly growing middle class. Check that box too. And don’t forget cheap labor. Numerous studies laced with pages of statistics by one think tank after the other have articulated all the reasons why American business has to be there.

So, many U.S. companies are increasingly discussing Africa as a business strategy citing all the reasons why they need to operate there. Most however, go no further than that. Essentially, American companies are taking out their notebooks - but not their checkbooks.

Yet there are some that have heeded the call. General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, KFC, and Google to name a few.  But the vast majority of U.S. companies still view Africa with a mix of both fascination and trepidation. It remains the great unknown and there are certainly other “safer” markets to sell their products and services in.

But one undeniable fact remains: What makes Africa’s upside so significant is that there is no other market in the world that is both so large and in need of so much.

Africa is a devilish mix of upside and risk. It is a tricky market that plays by a different set of rules in many instances. Yes, there are all the negatives that the New York Times and CNN reports on for sure. But one has to look at both sides of the equation. The risk side is significant. But risk can be managed.  

As for the upside, one word: massive

Simply stated, Africa needs everything. Technology, clothing, education, food, retail, pharmaceuticals, machinery, engineering, agricultural products, construction equipment, etc…in short, everything. KFC took the plunge some years ago in South Africa and now has over 700 locations there and it continues to add to that number. Starbucks, which is new to the continent, is planning 150 stores over the next five years. And GE is bringing cutting edge, state of the art Western technology and knowhow to huge infrastructure projects across the continent.

So the question is, what do these companies know that others don’t? Is it how they see the correlation between upside and risk?

Or maybe it’s a statistic like this: consumer spending in Africa is set to rise from $860 billion in 2008 to $1.4 trillion in 2020, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. And that cuts across every consumer sub-sector you can think of from food to clothing to technology. That’s a pretty nice jump in 12 years. Not to mention that roughly 45% of its population is under 18 years of age and are just beginning to mature as consumers of products and services.

On the industrial side the list seems infinite. Water, power, roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, rail and housing construction are all brimming with opportunities - and U.S. companies are missing the proverbial boat. Smart American CEOs need to bring their state of the art technology, quality driven products and services, best practices and investment capital and compete in what will be a market of 2.4 billion people by the year 2050, according to most estimates.  

So it’s time U.S. companies reexamine the African risk/reward ratio.

Yes, there are many risks. And there are most certainly many safer markets as well. But Africa’s single most important characteristic as a market is its sheer size. And one thing is clear; if you couple Africa’s explosive growth projections with its completely lopsided supply and demand equation, most U.S. CEO’s would be hard pressed to find a reason to not operate there.

So here’s the bottom line: The U.S. leads the world in technology, power, consumer staples and even farming. And Africa needs all of it. Forward thinking American companies should be looking directly to Africa to extend their reach into what some are calling “The Final Frontier”

Is America ready?

[dsl10]

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic...

By the year 2050, two-thirds of Africa’s population is expected to live in its cities. Lagos, Cairo, Kinshasa and Johannesburg, as well as others, are all going to experience significant growth as people move from the countryside to these urban areas looking for work. How Africa manages this migration will be critical to the continent's future development.

Africa remains the second fastest growing economic region after East Asia with the continent's average growth expected to come in at 3.7% in 2016 and grow to 4.5% in 2017 (assuming commodity prices start to recover). It is urbanizing at an incredibly rapid pace. Already, across the continent, the population living in the cities has doubled from 1995 to 472 million in 2015.

Here’s the rub though: Africans from all parts of the continent are moving into cities that are not fully ready to receive them. So as the cities become more and more crowded, there will be a lack of services and infrastructure to support their growing numbers. Housing, jobs, infrastructure, sustainable power, food security, clean water, and basic sanitation are all areas of extreme concern. And the list goes on…

But to me, one of the more significant problems that Africa faces as a whole is education. In no uncertain terms, it all starts here.

As many of the migrants coming to these cities are children, it is they who will suffer the most. And without significant government support and real capital investment the trend will continue and add to an ever-increasing, under-educated populace with skills that are centered on agriculture and mining - in a world that is centered on technology and services. This could take the better part of a generation to remedy.

Education is the key driver to private sector growth in Africa and people there will need skills that are much more relevant than what they have today. But one has to start with the basics. Here are some statistics: Liberia has a 47% literacy rate. Nigeria has a 59.6% literacy rate. That means approximately 70M people there cannot read. And if the country’s population is expected to increase to close to 400M+ by 2050 - with many of them being children - how will Nigeria’s education system handle this? How will people acquire the skills necessary to compete not only in Nigeria, but across the rest of the continent as well? More glaringly, in Ghana, where the literacy rate is at 57%, less than 5% have acquired a higher education. Simply put, schooling ends at high school for most people there.

So the question is, how can “Africa Rise” if it can’t read or write? For all of the media buzz generated over Africa’s growth prospects in the coming years, it seems that not enough focus has be given to laying the groundwork so that future African workers have the skills to compete in the 21st century.

[dsl10]

Oil And Commodities Ripple Effect Sting Africa Hard

The ripple effect that oil is having in Nigeria’s economy is staggering. Businesses are frozen. Banks are frozen. I speak to professional Nigerians every day in the normal course of my business. And for the first time in a long time I’m starting to hear desperation in their voices. There simply aren’t a lot of choices given the country’s dependency on oil for much of the activity in their economy. Not dissimilar from Nigeria is South Africa. The economy is all but stopped in its tracks there. As with Nigeria, the South Africans are motionless. In addition to the commodities slump the government there is embroiled in a major corruption scandal and much of the country and the media is calling for Jacob Zuma’s impeachment. If you want to get a glimpse of what that would look like see what’s going on currently with Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. She’s on her way out the door. For South Africa to recover many things need to occur but two stand out: 1) they will first need the commodity cycle to recover and China to start buying natural resources again - this could take years. 2) And the administration needs to change and no longer be run by what is in effect, a narcissistic criminal in Zuma. The good news is that the private sectors foundation is strong enough to be able to recover if the pieces fall back into place. But commodities underpins it all. As for Nigeria, The oil slow down is hardly their only problem. Buhari must address major issues like terrorism, a weakened banking system, and corruption or nothing will ever change. Easier said than done as he is no doubt learning very quickly…