The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth

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The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other emerging markets have transformed their economies, Africa s resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world s reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world s population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000 at 1 percent.In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African development miracle for the resource states, it s a mirage The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states value And the vagaries of resource dependent economies could pitch Africa s new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it The ground beneath their feet is as precarious as a Congolese mine shaft their prosperity could spill away like crude from a busted pipeline.This catastrophic social disintegration is not merely a continuation of Africa s past as a colonial victim The looting now is accelerating as never before As global demand for Africa s resources rises, a handful of Africans are becoming legitimately rich but the vast majority, like the continent as a whole, is being fleeced Outsiders tend to think of Africa as a great drain of philanthropy But look closely at the resource industry and the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world looks rather different In 2010, fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth 333 billion, than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction But who received the money For every Frenchwoman who dies in childbirth, 100 die in Niger alone, the former French colony whose uranium fuels France s nuclear reactors In petro states like Angola three quarters of government revenue comes from oil The government is not funded by the people, and as result it is not beholden to them A score of African countries whose economies depend on resources are rentier states their people are largely serfs The resource curse is not merely some unfortunate economic phenomenon, the product of an intangible force What is happening in Africa s resource states is systematic looting Like its victims, its beneficiaries have names. Best Download The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth [ Author ] Tom Burgis [ Kindle ePUB or eBook ] – kino-fada.fr Rating 4 of five ReadingIsResistance to the carefully engineered ignorance of the hideous human costs of living the way we do My review is live now PublicAffairs published this excellent modern economic J Accuse and sent me a review copy at my request Thank you I think.Misconceptions abound in the public perception of corruption in Africa Tom Burgis incisive new analysis of corruption on the continent, The Looting Machine, dispels these dangerous myths.For starters, corruption is mistakenly believed to reign supreme in every country on the African continent There are 48 nations in Sub Saharan Africa, with a combined population ofthan 800 million Of course, it s true that some African countries rank very low on Transparency International s Corrupti Misconceptions abound in the public perception of corruption in Africa Tom Burgis incisive new analysis of corruption on the continent, The Looting Machine, dispels these dangerous myths.For starters, corruption is mistakenly believed to reign supreme in every country on the African continent There are 48 nations in Sub Saharan Africa, with a combined population ofthan 800 million Of course, it s true that some African countries rank very low on Transparency International s Corruption Perceptions Index CPI after all, Somalia merits the very lowest score, with Sudan and South Sudan not far above it but only Eritrea and Guinea Bissau rank at all close to them In between them are many other countries Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Caribbean, South Asian And three Sub Saharan African nations rank in the top third of the 175 countries in the CPI Lesotho, Namibia, and Rwanda, with Ghana close behind Ghana scores better than Greece, Italy, and several other E...I m not often impressed by books about Africa Many of them border on banality rife with trite oversimplifications about the continent However, this one charts a reasonably thorough analysis of a complex web of geopolitical and economic interests and the various powers that control the vast majority of Africa s natural resources.The characterization of the entities and individuals involved occasionally borders on Lampoonish and the book is largely silent on s...This is an overview of the widespread corruption on the African continent that keeps it impoverished This book is rather poorly written, concentrating too much upon the specifics of corrupt deals and too little on potential solutions, but it is remarkable in its disclosure of shocking improprieties The author seems to see himself as a whistle blower and, to this end, he has accomplished his objective This book is about why and how abject poverty persists, even though the African nations are i This is an overview of the widespread corruption on the African continent that keeps it impoverished This book is rather poorly written, concentrating too much upon the specifics of corrupt deals and too little on potential solutions, but it is remarkable in its disclosure of shocking improprieties The author seems to see himself as a whistle blower and, to this end, he has accomplished his objective This book is about why and how abject poverty persists, even though th...The legacy of Cecil Rhodes refuses to wither in the destitute yet mineral rich African continent There is little chance for the ordinary people when their governments and ruling cliques are hell bent on enriching themselves Opinions of people do not matter in resource states where their governments economically rely on external corporations and countries for their sustenance The only way for the ordinary is to pay tax to their government so that their voice can be heard Obviously to pay tax The legacy of Cecil Rhodes refuses to wit...The writing was a little dry for my taste, but the content was extremely interestingMagnificent.Develops as its central thesis the economic phenomenon called the Dutch Disease aka the resource curse Why is it that a continent as mineral rich as Africa contains the poorest, most violent countries in the world According to the Dutch Disease, the discovery of an abundance of a key resources oil, coltan, gold, natural gas, etc tends to retard the industrial diversity of a nation the vast majority of economic energy is devoted to the extraction and exportation of said resource For a Develops as its central thesis the economic phenomenon called the Dutch Disease aka the resource curse Why is it that a continent as mineral rich as Africa contains the poorest, most violent countries in the world According to the Dutch Disease, the discovery of an abundance of a key resources oil, coltan, gold, natural gas, etc tends to retard the industrial diversity of a nation the vast majority of economic energy is devoted to the extraction and exportation of said resource For amainstream news prominent example, see Russia s recent tumble due to its reliance on gas oil exports and the cheapening of crude from Saudi over production in order to punish both ISIS s terrorist caliphate and Putin s nationalistic designs In Africa, the preponderance of competing ethnic gro...An extremely engaging and disturbing work of investigative journalism, The Looting Machine tells the tale of the systematic theft of Africa s natural wealth in the post colonial world Burgis is incredibly well researched and thorough in his investigation of the looting machines which make some of the wealthiest nations in the world, the poorest This text is informative but engaging and I ve come away from it not only with an understanding of the mechanism of this corruption, but also a real An extremely engaging and disturbing work of investigative journalism, The Looting Machi...A thoroughly researched piece of work A must read for all Africans It gives context to our lives.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
  • English
  • 16 September 2018
  • Hardcover
  • 352 pages
  • 1610394399
  • Tom Burgis
  • The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth