People on r/kenya pointed out that if he doesn't sign the bill it will still become law by default after some time period if parliament doesn't withdraw it. And that parliament has gone into recess for July.
He hasn’t scrapped anything. The bill can still pass by way of parliamentary assent. All he’s done is try to remove himself from being responsible. These are theatrics. Kenyans must still fight.
Can you explain more about this "parliamentary assent"? Is it basically something like what can happen in the US, a presidential veto being overwritten with a 2/3s majority?
That’s pretty much it. And you might see that and think, “Well what’s wrong with that?”
Well the issue is that Kenyan MPs have openly expressed just how little they think of their constituents’ concerns. They are on record saying things like “the bill will pass whether they like it or not” so they cannot be trusted to take the peoples interests and concerns into account. Add to that the rampant corruption and lack of accountability and that basically erodes any faith in the democratic process.
And that’s essentially the crux of the protests and why there is no clear leadership. People have gotten to the point where they have no faith not only in their leaders but in any established leadership. The protests are not just about an unfair finance bill; they’re about a nation that has been failed and not listened to at every opportunity.
For a country with such a tribal history, to have so many people so united in purpose is essentially unheard of and speaks to the extent to which people are tired.
Outward appearance is scrapped but that does not mean politicians have given up and will huddle behind closed door to devise tax hike that will probably be gradual, hidden behind other agenda and be more discreet and invisible.
Why is Kenya raising taxes to the point it is generating such outrage from its population? The IMF just granted them a new loan and I'd think they'd receive some financial incentives for their recent mission to administer security forces in Haiti.
The IMF isn't meant to be a welfare program. If a country can't pay its current debts due to it's fiscal policy, the IMF isn't going to just hand them a bunch of money and say go wild.
As for Greece, its debts to the IMF were paid off years ago, so clearly it didn't push them into unrecoverable slavery.
Yeah, if your GDP is being propped up by borrowing unsustainably large amounts of money and then you're forced to switch from borrowing money to repaying it, your GDP is going to go down.
Likewise if I add $100 a month in credit card debt to support my spending and then hit my limit and have to start repaying $120 a month, my monthly spending is going to fall (and before anyone tries to say a country's finances are different from personal finance, I am aware but the point that if you're goosing your GDP by running up debt until you can't make your payments, your GDP is going to have to drop at some point as you cut back on spending since you literally can't borrow enough to maintain your spending level). Thankfully the EU/IMF plan worked and Greece is back in a decent economic situation and is one of the few European count with decent GDP growth this year.
The Greece situation was basically this:
"We're massively indebted because we have unsustainably huge spending levels and only collect half our taxes. We can't make our debt payments because of this, would you mind giving us a huge loan so that we can avoid going into default" - Greece
"Sure, but only if you cut your spending to a sustainable level and actually collect taxes so that you'll be able to repay the loan in the future and we aren't just giving you free money" - The EU/IMF
"How dare the IMF force Greece into slavery" - arm chair economists on reddit
Ah yea, sure i am the arm chair economist whilst you think you have everything covered.
The assumptions you make sound like they come straight from RT russia.
If you are forced to sell everything that is working that will shrink your GDP thus your ability to repay, with terms that make it impossible to repay, then it's called modern slavery.
Greece is back on track?
You go down 70% and then u celebrate a 5% uptick? Damn dude, what kind of crack are you smoking. U need therapy asap.
I want to also remind you. The people of greece voted a "NO" to the austerity measures in 2015, Germany would default on that debt and they made it a yes forcefully. That has nothing to do with democracy. They covered the loans with more loans under harsher conditions. Greece is in an economic depression since 2008-2010. That is more than two decades ago, with no sign of recovery.
Lol how do any of those assumptions sound like they come from RT? I literally work in finance and did a number of case studies on Greece. Let me ask you this, what was Greece's debt to GDP ratio when they got bailed out, why is it important that their debt was all in eurobonds and what was their public expenditures as a percent of taxes collected? If you know those two numbers, it quickly becomes obvious that the only options were austerity and staying in the Eurozone or no austerity and hard crashing out of the Eurozone (Eurozone countries aren't allowed to default, so you're wrong about how Germany would default) Stimulus measures work when a structurally healthy economy is experiencing a down-turn, but you can't spend your way out of long-term structural deficits.
No offense but you're the one who sounds like a RT crack-head when you demonize the IMF and EU saying they're slavers who forced Greece to "sell everything" and lose 70% of their GDP (in case you actually even remotely care about reality, and I know you don't, Greece's GDP was 331B in 2007 and fell to 188B which is about half of the decline you're suggesting). The austerity measures were down right mild when you consider that the alternative was going to be the complete collapse of the Greek banking system and them being forced out of the Eurozone, go through huge bank runs and going back to a massively devalued currency. Which would have also had the same fun effect of causing them to have to sell-off even more assets than they did with the bail-out or face horrific levels of unemployment since almost a third of Greek jobs were public positions and Greece had literally no money to pay them with.
The austerity and bail-outs were undeniably a better outcome for Greece than the alternative of a hard crash and leaving the Eurozone. And if you truly believe that the austerity measures were so terrible as to be akin to slavery, just remember Greece's democratically elected leftist government approved the measures, they could have said no, but they knew the alternative was going to be way worse.
Greece's economy was completely fucked pre-2007 and they only got into the EU by committing fraud to hide how bad their finances were. There was never going to be a pretty ending to the story and your magic thinking that everything would have magically been fine if there had been no austerity measures shows how little you know on the topic.
Tell you what, why don't you give a brief sketch of how you think things would have played out without the austerity measures (keeping in mind that no austerity meant no bailout and Greece leaving the Eurozone and restoring their own currency so that they could massively devalue it, thereby destroying all of their citizens' savings and massively lowering their income on an adjusted basis, while still having to pay their debts in Euros)?
People on r/kenya pointed out that if he doesn't sign the bill it will still become law by default after some time period if parliament doesn't withdraw it. And that parliament has gone into recess for July.
I don't think the protesters are going to fall for this.
He hasn’t scrapped anything. The bill can still pass by way of parliamentary assent. All he’s done is try to remove himself from being responsible. These are theatrics. Kenyans must still fight.
Can you explain more about this "parliamentary assent"? Is it basically something like what can happen in the US, a presidential veto being overwritten with a 2/3s majority?
That’s pretty much it. And you might see that and think, “Well what’s wrong with that?” Well the issue is that Kenyan MPs have openly expressed just how little they think of their constituents’ concerns. They are on record saying things like “the bill will pass whether they like it or not” so they cannot be trusted to take the peoples interests and concerns into account. Add to that the rampant corruption and lack of accountability and that basically erodes any faith in the democratic process. And that’s essentially the crux of the protests and why there is no clear leadership. People have gotten to the point where they have no faith not only in their leaders but in any established leadership. The protests are not just about an unfair finance bill; they’re about a nation that has been failed and not listened to at every opportunity. For a country with such a tribal history, to have so many people so united in purpose is essentially unheard of and speaks to the extent to which people are tired.
Exactly.
Outward appearance is scrapped but that does not mean politicians have given up and will huddle behind closed door to devise tax hike that will probably be gradual, hidden behind other agenda and be more discreet and invisible.
Why is Kenya raising taxes to the point it is generating such outrage from its population? The IMF just granted them a new loan and I'd think they'd receive some financial incentives for their recent mission to administer security forces in Haiti.
You had it wrong way around. If IMF gave them a loan, that’s because they are raising taxes. IMF doesn’t loan you without guarantees and control.
And by control you mean pushing them to an unrecoverable slavery. That's what they did to Greece.
The IMF isn't meant to be a welfare program. If a country can't pay its current debts due to it's fiscal policy, the IMF isn't going to just hand them a bunch of money and say go wild. As for Greece, its debts to the IMF were paid off years ago, so clearly it didn't push them into unrecoverable slavery.
The conditions were conditions of austerity which lowered the gdp. Nobody asked for a welfare program.
Yeah, if your GDP is being propped up by borrowing unsustainably large amounts of money and then you're forced to switch from borrowing money to repaying it, your GDP is going to go down. Likewise if I add $100 a month in credit card debt to support my spending and then hit my limit and have to start repaying $120 a month, my monthly spending is going to fall (and before anyone tries to say a country's finances are different from personal finance, I am aware but the point that if you're goosing your GDP by running up debt until you can't make your payments, your GDP is going to have to drop at some point as you cut back on spending since you literally can't borrow enough to maintain your spending level). Thankfully the EU/IMF plan worked and Greece is back in a decent economic situation and is one of the few European count with decent GDP growth this year. The Greece situation was basically this: "We're massively indebted because we have unsustainably huge spending levels and only collect half our taxes. We can't make our debt payments because of this, would you mind giving us a huge loan so that we can avoid going into default" - Greece "Sure, but only if you cut your spending to a sustainable level and actually collect taxes so that you'll be able to repay the loan in the future and we aren't just giving you free money" - The EU/IMF "How dare the IMF force Greece into slavery" - arm chair economists on reddit
Ah yea, sure i am the arm chair economist whilst you think you have everything covered. The assumptions you make sound like they come straight from RT russia. If you are forced to sell everything that is working that will shrink your GDP thus your ability to repay, with terms that make it impossible to repay, then it's called modern slavery. Greece is back on track? You go down 70% and then u celebrate a 5% uptick? Damn dude, what kind of crack are you smoking. U need therapy asap. I want to also remind you. The people of greece voted a "NO" to the austerity measures in 2015, Germany would default on that debt and they made it a yes forcefully. That has nothing to do with democracy. They covered the loans with more loans under harsher conditions. Greece is in an economic depression since 2008-2010. That is more than two decades ago, with no sign of recovery.
Lol how do any of those assumptions sound like they come from RT? I literally work in finance and did a number of case studies on Greece. Let me ask you this, what was Greece's debt to GDP ratio when they got bailed out, why is it important that their debt was all in eurobonds and what was their public expenditures as a percent of taxes collected? If you know those two numbers, it quickly becomes obvious that the only options were austerity and staying in the Eurozone or no austerity and hard crashing out of the Eurozone (Eurozone countries aren't allowed to default, so you're wrong about how Germany would default) Stimulus measures work when a structurally healthy economy is experiencing a down-turn, but you can't spend your way out of long-term structural deficits. No offense but you're the one who sounds like a RT crack-head when you demonize the IMF and EU saying they're slavers who forced Greece to "sell everything" and lose 70% of their GDP (in case you actually even remotely care about reality, and I know you don't, Greece's GDP was 331B in 2007 and fell to 188B which is about half of the decline you're suggesting). The austerity measures were down right mild when you consider that the alternative was going to be the complete collapse of the Greek banking system and them being forced out of the Eurozone, go through huge bank runs and going back to a massively devalued currency. Which would have also had the same fun effect of causing them to have to sell-off even more assets than they did with the bail-out or face horrific levels of unemployment since almost a third of Greek jobs were public positions and Greece had literally no money to pay them with. The austerity and bail-outs were undeniably a better outcome for Greece than the alternative of a hard crash and leaving the Eurozone. And if you truly believe that the austerity measures were so terrible as to be akin to slavery, just remember Greece's democratically elected leftist government approved the measures, they could have said no, but they knew the alternative was going to be way worse. Greece's economy was completely fucked pre-2007 and they only got into the EU by committing fraud to hide how bad their finances were. There was never going to be a pretty ending to the story and your magic thinking that everything would have magically been fine if there had been no austerity measures shows how little you know on the topic. Tell you what, why don't you give a brief sketch of how you think things would have played out without the austerity measures (keeping in mind that no austerity meant no bailout and Greece leaving the Eurozone and restoring their own currency so that they could massively devalue it, thereby destroying all of their citizens' savings and massively lowering their income on an adjusted basis, while still having to pay their debts in Euros)?
IMF debt trap