Monthly Archives: August 2017

Debt-Ceiling Fight Looms as Next Big Test for Congress – National Review

Posted: August 9, 2017 at 5:37 am

If you thought the recent fight over health-care reform was fun, get ready for the next big Washington circus: raising the debt ceiling.

In October of 2015, Congress chose to avoid the usual fight over setting a symbolic debt target by agreeing to waive any limit on the debt for 17 months, until March of this year. For the past few months, the Treasury Department has engaged in what it calls extraordinary measures to extend the deadline through the end of September. By that time, the U.S. national debt will officially exceed $20 trillion.

As is almost always the case, the big fight will be over whether or not to pass a clean increase in the debt ceiling i.e., one without any amendments. A bill to raise the debt ceiling will require 60 votes in the Senate, effectively giving Democrats veto power over any Republican proposal. If Republicans added a provision supporting Mom, the flag, and apple pie, Democrats could be counted on to oppose it unanimously. Indeed, many Democrats are expected to back a proposal by Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii to abolish the debt limit altogether.

Yet, many Republicans see this as one of their few opportunities for budget leverage. Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson is typical in warning, Ive been raising the issue of the debt ceiling for months now, and certainly what Id like to see is some meaningful, structural control enacted in conjunction with increasing [the debt limit].

House Republicans are expected to take an even harder line against any bill that raises the debt ceiling without making an attempt to rein in future spending. Just this week, Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, never considered a firebrand, said that he could not see any scenario in which the House agrees to raise the debt ceiling without accompanying spending cuts. Meanwhile, the conservative House Freedom Caucus is backing a number of separate proposals, ranging from as much as $50 billion in spending cuts to a demand that the federal government sell property to pay down the debt. Some also want to attach a partial repeal of Obamacare to the bill.

It should come as no surprise that the Trump administration is putting out conflicting signals about what it wants from this fight. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin reportedly prefers a clean bill, as Treasury secretaries have since time immemorial. Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney is more ambivalent. He originally wanted spending cuts in exchange for increasing the debt limit, but has recently dropped that demand. He now says that the administration hopes for the cleanest possible bill. But he also remains one of the chief proponents of prioritizing debt payments, which would allow the federal government to avoid default if the debt negotiations drag on.

All of this will take place against a backdrop of apocalyptic commentary from much of the media and the business community. They will ignore the fact that the federal government actually did briefly default on its debt in 1979, in part as the result of a debt-ceiling impasse under a Democratic-controlled Congress. Since then, both Democratic and Republican Congresses have missed deadlines to increase the debt ceiling: Once in 1981, a second time in 1985, a third time in 1996, and a fourth time in 2002. In none of those cases did the world end.

Moreover, until fairly recently, it was considered routine to add all sorts of conditions to debt-ceiling legislation. Perhaps the most famous of these provisions was the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings amendment in 1995.

Of course, failure to raise the debt limit would not be a good thing. Financial markets could be expected to react badly. Increased uncertainty would slow economic growth. And we might even see another downgrade of the U.S.s credit rating. But those consequences pale in comparison to the almost-certain calamity that will result from a failure to get control of runaway federal spending and debt.

In the end, the fight over the debt ceiling will mostly be a question of political theater. An increase in the debt limit will eventually pass. Congress will go on spending money on a bipartisan basis the way it always does. And, in a couple of years, well do this all over again.

But amid all the noise thats sure to follow, its important not to forget that our fiscal irresponsibility cant continue forever. Congress may be in the habit of pretending otherwise, but were headed for a fall.

READ MORE: The Bipartisan Push to Increase Spending and the National Debt Congress Continuing Self-Degradation Can Republicans Stand Together on Spending?

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis. You can follow him on his blog, TannerOnPolicy.com.

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Puerto Rico financial board creating grounds for own removal – The Hill (blog)

Posted: at 5:37 am

Scanning recent tax revenues, one would think that all is well in Puerto Rico. On Aug. 2, the Puerto Rican Treasury Departmentannouncedthat tax collection for the first month of fiscal year 2018 was ahead of its forecast. In addition,there was the publication of data showing the government collected more than $150 million above the forecasted revenue figures in fiscal year 2017.

Yet, on Friday, the federally-appointed financial oversight board announced the implementation of a two-day government furlough program beginning this September, along with a 10-percent cut to public pension benefits beginning in fiscal year 2020.

This issue is very worrying because the Puerto Rican government informed Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who is overseeing the island's bankruptcy proceedings, that by the end of June, cash flow would be $290 million. Now, Rossellos administration said the government ended with almost $1.8 billion in cash on June 30.

According to new information arising from the ninthmeeting of the fiscal board last Friday, oversight of the finances of the commonwealth are clearly lacking. The budget was certified weeks ago, and the government did not meet the plan. Furthermore, in March, the liquidity report concluded cash flow was at $230 million.

All of this news comes on top of the lack of financial transparency that has governed the actions of the Puerto Rican government and the financial oversight board. One thing is clear: The actions taken by the board and Gov. Rossellos administration are ripping off bondholders.

For the last few months, the unelected seven-member fiscal board set up under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) has been pursuing a policy to lead Puerto Rico back to the markets. However, this policy is being pursued in the belief that the island can quickly regain access via fiscal consolidation, and given the lack of definition of what is an essential service, this consolidation isamounting to basically reducing debt service payments.

The current situation has seen the board and government follow the policy of taking almost every government entity through Title III bankruptcy instead of following the route of fair, transparent and open negotiations with creditors, many of whom are Puerto Ricans. Consequently, this path results in a cut to bondholder payments totaling almost 80 percent of the expected payments for the next 10 fiscal years.

Instead of following a strong fiscal policy that includes a real fiscal consolidation and the subsequent return to sound finances, Puerto Rico has chosen to violate creditors' rights and fail to pay the money creditors are owed.

The fiscal board established by Congress has chosen to disregard the words and intent of the PROMESA legislation, refusing to amend the fiscal plan for more debt service payments in spite of the better-than-expected revenue figures. It has misrepresented the liquidity figures in court by arguing that the government will be out of cash by Nov. 1.

Now, it turns out, given the refusal to pay bondholders, the government is sitting with millions in cash, which wasn't accounted for in the evidence presented to Judge Swain.

After all of the time the fiscal board has spent litigating against creditors, the most recent meeting of the board reveals its failure to establish the real fiscal condition of the commonwealth. The decisions and disregard of the fiscal board are laying the groundwork for a clear vote of no confidence.

Ojel L. Rodriguez is a research analyst for the Puerto Rican public policy think tank Fundacin Libertad, which promotes libertarian principles of individual freedom, limited government and free markets.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Evidence Shows that Freedom Works – The Weekly Post

Posted: at 5:37 am

I know many Democrats and progressives who continue to be frustrated by the conservative Republicans who have controlled the North Carolina General Assembly since 2010.

The Left has spent years stating and restating its standard narrative about our state: that North Carolina has historically grown faster and been more successful than other Southern states because it was more willing to spend tax dollars on higher education, infrastructure, and other government programs.

Having repeated this catechism faithfully and endlessly, and yet seen no significant change in the policy direction of the state, progressives either resort to conspiracy theories about dark-money interests dictating terms to their political lackeys or they resort to personal attacks on the intelligence of GOP lawmakers.

I chose my terms carefully. The Lefts narrative is a kind of quasi-religious orthodoxy. It is neither good history nor good social science. Since the end of World War II, North Carolinas economy has usually outgrown the nations, to be sure. But thats a regional phenomenon, not a Tar Heel phenomenon. In fact, the average annual growth rate since 1948 of per-person, after-tax income has been exactly the same for North Carolina, South Carolina, and the Southeast as a whole.

Im not arguing that government programs have no value. But to assert that North Carolina had the right amount of government expenditures and taxes before the Republicans took over in 2010, and now it has not enough government, is to make an ideological claim, not an empirical one.

Several years ago, I began keeping a list of all the studies I could find on the subject of state economic growth. My database contains many hundreds of papers, all published either in peer-reviewed academic journals or as chapters of peer-reviewed academic books.

The available research doesnt just examine public-policy variables such as government spending, taxes, and regulations. It also considers other potential explanations for differences in economic growth, including energy prices, private investment, geography, and educational attainment.

Overall, this emerging body of empirical evidence suggests that most governments are too large and do more than they should taxes and regulations are negatively associated with economic growth but that non-policy factors are usually more significant in explaining differences among states and localities.

In the new edition of the Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Southern Methodist Universitys Dean Stansel and Meg Patrick Tuszynski reported the results of their own review of the literature. They looked specifically at the 155 studies that have used the Fraser Institutes annual Economic Freedom of North America index in their empirical models. The index includes state-by-state measures of government size, taxes, and labor-market regulations.

In two-thirds of the studies, Stansel and Tuszynski found, economic freedom was associated with better economic performance among states. Of the three sub-indexes, the regulatory burden was the most important.

If you view this conclusion with suspicion, you are of course free to disbelieve it. But just understand that repeating your catechism a few more times isnt going to change anything. Fiscal conservatives have good reasons to believe what we believe. What are yours?

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The Debt-Ceiling Crisis Is Real – The New York Times – New York Times

Posted: at 5:37 am

First, the administration is confounded by inexperience, incompetence and infighting. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has little expertise in congressional stage management, but he understands the gravity of the situation and has lobbied for a clean debt ceiling bill one without conditions or unnecessary amendments.

But that puts him in tension with his White House colleague Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, who has intimated that breaching the debt ceiling would not be that consequential, and who has argued that the must-pass legislation should be used to advance the hard rights agenda. Without a firm signal from the White House that the debt ceiling should not be held hostage to political agendas, it will be hard to get Congress to do the right thing.

And thats the second problem: Congress, and in particular the Freedom Caucus. As the health care fight showed, the caucus is fixated on cutting entitlement spending. It has made it clear that if the House leadership balks on their demands for major cuts in the 2018 budget, theyll refuse to vote on raising the debt ceiling.

Finally, some conservative policy makers besides Mr. Mulvaney have convinced themselves that crashing into the debt ceiling wont be a big deal because the government can prioritize its bill payments, so that interest on Treasury debt will be paid on a current basis, while other bills sit unpaid.

Understanding the false allure of prioritization requires a little background. Hitting the debt ceiling is not the same as a government shutdown or other fiscal brinkmanship. Think of the United States, acting through the Treasury, as holding a bank account at the Federal Reserve. Every day, millions of bills arrive and are promptly paid by debiting Treasurys account at the Fed. At the same time, millions of dollars in tax and other receipts arrive and are credited to that bank account. The money coming in is systematically less than the money being disbursed (thats what it means to run a deficit), and Treasury makes up the difference by borrowing in the capital markets.

A government shutdown occurs when the Treasury has money in its bank account but Congress refuses to appropriate the funds necessary for the government to function. Crashing into the debt ceiling, by contrast, would occur if Treasury had no money in its bank account because Congress prohibited it from funding deficits through incremental borrowing.

If Treasury hits the ceiling, it has only two realistic responses. Treasury can pay the governments bills on a first-in, first-out basis, with the wait for payment growing every month, or it can prioritize bills, as Mr. Mulvaney and others have suggested it would.

But there are profound doubts as to whether the Treasury could even implement prioritization, beyond ring fencing interest payments, because its payment systems are designed to pay all claims as they are due, regardless of their origin. More important, prioritization is default by another name. The consequences are the same, regardless of which i.o.u.s Treasury chooses to dishonor.

All valid claims against the United States are backed by the credit of the United States, full stop; the Constitution does not contemplate that some claims are more senior than others. The deliberate nonpayment of billions of dollars of uncontested claims every month thus constitutes default, even if the Treasury is paying some of its other debts. The resulting class-action lawsuits will enrich generations of lawyers.

Once the unthinkable happens, no future constraints on congressional irresponsibility with regard to the national debt will remain. Prioritization will constitute the intentional subordination, not just of one claim to another, but of all claims to the pettiness of congressional politics. As a result, the once unassailable credit of the United States will become a perennial hostage to politics, and in response the debt markets will demand much higher interest rates.

These are noisy times in Washington. But even in this context, the awfulness of a debt ceiling crisis should galvanize us. Like an impending execution, it should concentrate our minds now, while something can still be done.

Edward D. Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a former chief of staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, is the author of We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 7, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: The Debt-Ceiling Crisis Is Real.

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Woman wins financial independence – MyDaytonDailyNews

Posted: at 5:36 am

While the Ombudsman was visiting one of the many adult care facilities in our area, a woman told her that she does not receive enough money to pay for her personal needs and activities. The womans Social Security benefit income is managed by a representative payee agency that charges a fee. The woman would like to be in charge of her own finances but it has been a long time since she managed her own money. The woman is currently receiving $15 per month for her personal needs. If she managed her own money, and no longer paid the agency fee, she would have $40 per month.

The Ombudsman contacted the local Social Security office to learn what steps the woman needed to take to become independent of the agency. The woman needs to provide personal identification and her doctors contact information.

The woman and the adult care facility manager were not initially successful at the face-to-face appointment at the local Social Security office. The woman was told she would have to know her monthly expenses. The woman does not know that information because all of her bills go directly to the representative payee agency. In addition the woman needed to have her doctors written verification that the she can manage her own money.

The woman has a doctors appointment scheduled and believes she will obtain the verification from the doctor at that time. The Ombudsman recommended she receive a list of all expenses paid for by the representative payee agency and work with the adult care facility manager to create a budget, decide which bank she will use and how the bills will be paid.

The Ombudsman received the good news from the woman that the second appointment with Social Security was successful. The woman provided the doctors letter and demonstrated that she knew her income and expenses. The woman will be receiving her Social Security benefit check and has opened her own bank account.

The Ombudsman Column, a production of the Joint Office of Citizens Complaints, summarizes selected problems that citizens have had with government services, schools and nursing homes in the Dayton area. Contact the Ombudsman by writing to the Beerman Building, 11 W. Monument Avenue, Suite 606, Dayton 45402, or telephone (937) 223-4613, or by electronic mail at ombudsman@dayton-ombudsman.org or like us on Facebook at Dayton Ombudsman Office.

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Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd (SCGL) Is Yet to See Trading Action on Aug 9 – Herald KS

Posted: at 5:35 am

August 9, 2017 - By Winifred Garcia

Shares of Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd (LON:SCGL) closed at 8.15 yesterday. Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd currently has a total float of 473.50M shares and on average sees 10,667 shares exchange hands each day. The stock now has a 52-week low of 2.2 and high of 22.

The UK is one of the richest nations globally. It has long been among the driving forces behind the success of the European economy. It has been always been leveraging opportunities and maximizing its capabilities to execute its prospects.

Truthfully, Europe would not be the global leader that it is today if its not for the economic growth initiatives of countries such as the UK.

Similarly, investors can benefit from this revolutionary growth through time. By simply learning about the ins and outs of equity market in the UK, they, too, can succeed financially in their own ways.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is the primary stock exchange in the UK. Established in 1801, it is surely one of the first stock exchanges in the world.

With nearly 2,300 stocks listed on it and a total market valuation of more than 6 trillion, the LSE is the largest stock exchange in Europe. Worldwide, it is the third largest stock exchange.

The LSE Group (LSEG) oversees the operation of the LSE. In October 2007, it had been established from the consolidation of the LSE and the Borsa Italiana.

The regular trading session on the LSE opens at 8:00 a.m. and closes at 4:00 p.m.

The Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index is the benchmark blue-chip index in the UK. It tracks the 100 largest stocks on the LSE based on free-float market capitalization, representing over 80% of the total market valuation on the LSE. Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd is a stock traded on the U.Ks stock exchange.

The FTSE 100 had been established on January 3, 1984 using a base value of 1,000 points. Currently, the FTSE Group, an LSEG subsidiary, oversees the operation of the FTSE 100. As of the third quarter, it has a total market valuation of 1.70 trillion.

Rebalancing of the FTSE 100 happens four times a year on a Wednesday immediately succeeding the first Friday of the months of March, June, September, and December. This helps maintain the actual representation of the FTSE 100. Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd has relatively good liquidity.

The FTSE 100 is a powerful indicator of the LSE but not of the UK economy because it is mostly composed of international stocks. The FTSE 250 is a more powerful indicator of the national economy for two reasons: 1) it tracks the 250 largest stocks on the LSE, making it a broader indicator; and 2) it is mostly composed of domestic stocks.

The FTSE 100 had touched an all-time low of 427.50 points in February 1978 and an all-time high of 7,103.98 points in April 2015. Meanwhile, on October 11, it had touched its best intraday high of 7,129 points.

The UK economy has gotten better and more progressive through time. It is indeed one of the fastest growing economies in the world not just in Europe.

There is no better way to bet on this valuable economic growth than to enter the equity market in the UK. Investors can expect rewarding investment returns by trading on the LSE. Professional analysts might be interested how this will affect Sealand Capital Galaxy Ltd.

Sealand Capital Galaxy Limited is a Cayman Islands company, which has not yet commenced operations. The company has market cap of 36.57 million GBP. The Firm focuses on trading business operating in the information technology and social media sector in the Asia and Pacific (APAC) region. It currently has negative earnings. The Firm focuses on providing three products, which are available for download and use by individuals and businesses within the APAC region: Metalk Basic, Metalk Premium and SecureChannel.

By Winifred Garcia

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UTOPIA TiTan Handmade Concrete Speaker Available From $299 … – Geeky Gadgets

Posted: at 5:34 am

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A new range of concrete speakers described by their makers as a brutalist design meets audio with Bluetooth aptX connection for design enthusiasts, has been launched by the Indiegogo crowdfunding website this week.

The Utopia Titan handmade concrete speakers provide an interesting mix between rugged industrial design and the latest Bluetooth technology. Watch the promotional video below to learn more about their futures and construction.

UTOPIA Titan is the new breed of wireless loudspeakers! Sleek enough to display in your home and handmade enough to feel personal. Each piece is crafted just for you with concrete that last for a lifetime.Our vision is to create an interesting mix between brutalist, industrial design and wireless sound technology. A speaker that is a beautiful piece of your home, representing your unique taste for handcrafted goods. We prefer one of a kind instead of mass produced in china. We decided to create speakers for those, who are looking for something unique and one of a kind.

Are you not bored of plastic speakers? We are!!! Our speakers made of special concrete, which is a 10 times stronger material, than an average cement based concrete. It provides an outstanding low resonance enclosure that leads to no sound coloration. What you get is crystal clear highs and solid, focused bass.

For more information on the new Utopia Titan handmade concrete speakers jump over to the Indiegogo website for details by following the link below.

Source: Indiegogo

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Millennials May Be About To Shake Up Kenyan Politics | HuffPost – HuffPost

Posted: at 5:34 am

NAIROBI, Kenya Starehe constituencysits almostat the dead center of Kenyas capital, Nairobi. The citys central business district makes up part of the constituency, as well as residential housing areas that run the whole spectrum from fairly well-to-do middle class, to informal settlements and slums. It is the largest single constituency in the country, withover 130,000registered voters.

Perhaps in a way, it is apt that this place is ground zero for a demographic shake-up that has been a long time coming in Kenyan politics.Because of its size, population and economic importance, what happens in Starehe is significant, a canary in the coal mine of a change in Kenyan and regional politics that may increasingly have young people at its center.

For the past five decades Starehe constituencyhas been representedby politicians with deep links to the business class that came up after independence in Nairobi a small elite group of city traders, industrialists and real estate tycoons.

After 50 years, they are now entering their sunset years, many of them having amassed a fortune, by both legal and unscrupulous ways.

But this year, the whole group of old school politicians including the incumbent member of parliament were trounced at party primaries a few months ago, and the three men who emergedas frontrunnersare all under the age of 35, a generational change whose impact will be watched keenly in Kenya.

Around80 percentof the countrys population is younger than 35, and for the first time, a major parliamentary contest, right in the heart of the city, is playing out within that demographic.

It signals the start of the end of an era in Nairobi politics, and perhaps in Kenyan and African politics more broadly, as the grip that older politicians have had is loosened by the simple factor of time and demographic change.

This does not necessarily mean that young people will usher in a new utopia. But at least its a start.

Yet in a country where ethnicity is the dominant form of political organization, will the youth vote make a difference more broadly?

Young people in Kenya often dont feel that they are a powerful voting block, said Nerima Wako, a 20-something-year-old whos executive director of Siasa Place(the place of politics in Swahili), a nonprofit that works to engage young Kenyans in politics and governance.

Noor Khamis / Reuters

There are many other competing identities that intersect with age ethnicity and class are the two most powerful ones. Rather than being different, young people are often co-opted into these more dominant forms of political organization in Kenya.

Odanga Madung, a 25-year-old data scientist and owner of a rising tech business in Nairobi, agrees.

Tribal politics is so endemic in this country that most youth political organizations coming up are easily splintered by appealing to ethnic identities, he said. That makes it difficult to really sustain a youth vote in the classic sense.

Still, the Starehe three are a motley bunch, and will make for a very exciting race, regardless of who wins. They may redefine how young people are seen in political circles in Kenya and the region more broadly until now, their main roles were as hangers-on, cheerleaders and even militia and hired goons.

Leading in the polls, albeit by a slim margin, isBoniface Mwangi a photographer and artist-turned-firebrand political activist and organizer.

Mwangi spent many of the past few years denouncing politicians in the most strident and sensational ways heonce let pigs loosein front of parliament and drenched them in blood, to highlight the greed of politicians (MPigs, he called them). Now, he says he wants to clean up the system from the inside.

Having created the image of a force for moral change, he does not give voters cash handouts like most politicians do, but, incredibly,ordinary people have been giving money to him for his campaign sometimes in sums as little as10 cents.

It is a shift that was seen before in Uganda, where opposition politician Kizza Besigye, who suffered numerous defeats, surprised many who had written off his political career by mounting an energized and electrifying presidential campaign in the 2016 election against incumbent Yoweri Museveni.

Instead of giving out cash, villagers would go to his campaign rallies and give himsmall gifts to support his campaign, including very small cash contributions, but mostly in kind chicken, rabbits, sheep, or even just a handkerchief to wipe his face, as a way of expressing gratitude for the years of beatings, arrests and tear gas he has faced fighting for the rights of ordinary Ugandans.

They probably knew that Besigye would not win against Museveni as incumbent, the latter was backed by powerful state machinery but they wanted to make a statement that they appreciate his work in the struggle. The same kind of resonance with ordinary people is what Mwangi is finding in Starehe.

- via Getty Images

Running against Mwangi isCharles Njagua Kanyi, a popular musician better known by his stage name, Jaguar. His songs are feel-good pop, a string of similar sounding hits. In fact, in a now ironic way, one of his more popular songs is Kigeugeu, a Swahili word which roughly translates to hypocrites or fraudsters, in whichhe laments the duplicity of politicians. Now, it seems hes hoping to ride his celebrity status all the way into that same parliament.

And the third contender isSteve Mbogo, a candidate who claims to be a businessman, but whose source of wealthmany still question, and whose claim to leadership seems to be on this basis alone that he is wealthy.

What makes the contest even more significant is that all three candidates are from the same ethnic community, in a country where ethnicity is the mostprominent fault linein national politics. Now, without that as an overt factor, it is the perfect natural experiment, where the strong differentiating effect that ethnicity usually has on politics will be suppressed.

Starehe is definitely a race to watch, Wako said.The three candidates are all young and if I could describe each ones claim to the parliamentary seat: one is rich, one is famous and one is an activist. The way the vote goes will tell us a lot about the place of young people in Kenyan politics. Perhaps nothing will change. But maybe, something will.

Madung fears the election will bring about the usual violence. Hes especially worried that his nascent, tech-dependent business could be caught flat-footed.

I was completely taken aback the other day when one of our clients asked us for a mitigation plan, and I hadnt realized how unprepared we were in the case of instability, he said. Getting questions like: How will you ensure continued service delivery in case the roads are closed, or the GSM [global system for mobile communications] network shut down? painted a very grim reality for me.

Madung says that his hope is that there would be no violence.

This is a country that offers little economic opportunity in the way of employment, and if you asked me what was more important a credible election or peace I think peace would come first. Yes, let there be a credible election, but let us also forgo violence in case of a dispute. A lot is at stake here.

Thomas Mukoya / Reuters

More insights on the hopes, fears and disappointments coloring the election come from Wakos organization, Siasa Place. Last August, together with German political foundation Heinrich Bll Stiftung,they started an ambitious project calledElection Diaries. Part of the project included having one young person from all 47 counties in Kenya keep a diary for one year, where they would write about their experiences, thoughts, feelings and fears as campaign season unfolded. At the end of the year, the diaries would be compiled into a book.

Within a few months, the original group of writers was then whittled down to 11, partly so that the journals could be easier to track in an in-depth manner but also because so many of the diary keepers dropped out, citing a lack of motivation and the challenges of keeping a journal.

Still, there are some insights. One diary entry, titled Politics pays, education doesnt, is written by an early-20-something named Niceta Nyaga, in Embu, a largely rural county near Mount Kenya.

Nyaga tells the story of Jeremy, her friends brother, who along with about 20 of his friends has spent the past five months on the campaign team for the local senator.

The senator would provide them with transport[ation] from wherever they were, [and] lunch and accommodation at his home whenever he wanted to see them, Nyaga wrote. Their work involved social media campaigns, hashtags and Facebook posts to popularize the senator for the seat of governor, accompanying the senator wherever he goes and act[ing] as his cheerleaders [during rallies].

This means that since the campaign started, Jeremy has only been to school for about one week in a month, she continued.

He lies to his parents [that] he is in school, but they dont know he is usually a stone[s] throw away from them. To him that wasnt a loss since he was being paid a good amount of money. [but] he is missing out on his final year [of university] as a student.

Nyaga said she was conflicted on how to process the situation.

So what happens after the general elections to such youth? she wrote in her diary. No matter how much you try to [persuade] them out of being used and manipulated by these politicians, its a dead end. Whats the solution? Do we give up on them till the general election, or whats their salvation? Do these youth need salvation?

Perhaps the race in Starehe would be a good place to start to answer this question. What happens when a young person isnt merely a cheerleader to be used and manipulated but is actually a front-row candidate? The results in that city constituency whichever way it goes will perhaps be the start of that new day in Kenyan politics.

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Reviving a South African Musical That Once Promised So Much – New York Times

Posted: at 5:34 am

The resuscitation of King Kong is the work of Eric Abraham, a South African-born, London-based producer of theater and film (Kolya, Ida) who encountered the music by chance in the mid-1990s, and immediately decided to pursue the project for the Fugard Theater, which he founded.

Somewhere I had heard about the myth of King Kong the musical, and it just resonated, Mr. Abraham said in an interview at his west London home. The making of King Kong reflected a kind of utopia in the midst of an utterly fragmented society. Having grown up in that society, this appealed strongly to me.

King Kong is set in Johannesburgs Sophiatown neighborhood, until its demolition in 1955 a multiracial cultural hub that bred a generation of writers and musicians. It tells the true story of a famous boxer, Ezekiel Dlamini, nicknamed King Kong for his size and strength, whose downfall (caused partly by his jealousy over his girlfriend, Joyce, the owner of an informal nightclub) and untimely death provided, for many, a parable of lost chances and thwarted lives in apartheid South Africa.

Mr. Abraham had some experience of that himself. Working as a journalist in his early 20s, he was targeted by the South African secret service for reporting on police atrocities and torture, placed under house arrest, and eventually smuggled across the border to Botswana in 1977. For a long time he retained an ambivalent connection to his home country, but by the time he heard the King Kong music, he was actively looking for South African projects.

His path to a revival needed the kind of tenacity that Mr. Abraham has plenty of. (An attempt at a revival in 1979 folded after two shows.) I like a challenge, he said. And who can resist Todd Matshikizas music and Pat Williamss lyrics?

Ms. Williams was 23 and a journalist for Johannesburgs Rand Daily Mail newspaper when she was asked to write the lyrics for King Kong by her friends Clive and Irene Menell, who against all social strictures were friendly with Todd Matshikiza and his wife, Esme. Without their financial and practical support (among other things, Mr. Menell wrote the story line), Ms. Williams wrote in her recent memoir, King Kong Our Knot of Time & Music, the musical would never have happened.

Ms. Williams, who moved to London in 1960, said in a telephone interview from Cape Town that she was delighted when Mr. Abraham approached her about the rights to the lyrics. But he had a longer road to travel with the widow and heirs of Matshikiza, who died in 1968, and of Harry Bloom, the author of the book (a credit Ms. Williams gently disputes in her memoir).

It was a long, hard journey because there were lots of differences of opinion, said Esme Matshikiza in a telephone interview from Cape Town. But we got over them. Now I am very excited to see the show.

By 2011, Mr. Abraham had secured the rights and begun the search for a director. He would, he said, have liked to find a black South African director, but after several unsuccessful forays, he approached Jonathan Munby, an English director with whom he had collaborated previously.

I was completely seduced by the score and songs, but I had great reservations about the book, which felt outdated and thin, Mr. Munby said in a telephone interview from the Fugard Theater, two days before the premiere. I felt it had to be rewritten and reimagined, to tap into an emotional center, in order to survive in the 21st century.

Mr. Abraham called on William Nicholson, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter, who noted in an interview that he had worked on South African material before, in scripts for Sarafina! and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

The key was to dramatize pivotal moments that werent shown onstage in the 1959 production, he explained.

They had strong singers and dancers, but not actors, he said. Times have changed, so I said, Ill rebuild the story while keeping the songs and big moments from the original.

Mr. Nicholson also added new characters, composed lyrics for additional songs (with new music, based on Matshikizas compositions, written by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder) and wrote in boxing matches for the choreographer Gregory Maqoma to flesh out. It may be a tragedy, but its an absolute blast, Mr. Nicholson said gleefully. A critic for the Cape Times praised the shows stellar staging and called it a worthy successor to the original.

After initial doubts whether he, as a white European, was the right choice, Mr. Munby said he came to feel that being an outsider was also an advantage. Ive had to do a lot of listening and research, and a lot of empowering the cast to bring their South African-ness into the show, he said, adding that his associate director, Mdu Kweyama, was South African.

Asked if he had faced resistance from the cast, led by Andile Gumbi and Nondumiso Tembe, he laughed. Early on, absolutely, he said. Deep suspicion. I have had to win their trust. Now we have a show that everyone feels ownership of.

Ms. Tembe said that she had never questioned Mr. Abrahams choice of Mr. Munby as director. We the cast are black, ensuring every day that the integrity of historical accuracy and cultural authenticity is there, she said.

Despite the differences between the South Africa of 1959 and today, Mr. Abraham said he felt King Kong remained a universal morality tale in a post-truth, post-shame, politically fragmented society. He reflected briefly and smiled. Its also great fun.

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