Europe Youth Education

I don’t quite remember when I first heard the phrase or the young black kid who I last heard utter it, however i remember the shudder that went through my body each time. The kids were questioning why they’d to visit school to get the “white man’s education.” In both cases I never got to give a solution, because they weren’t talking to me, though I desperately desired to. Afterwards I recall thinking that this attitude was probably an increasing one among young African Americans. From my own experiences I saw how such nonsense could be attractive, particularly among youngsters mesmerized by street lifestyles and looking for a slick sounding reason to develop up illiterate and parasitical.

Inasmuch as Forty Million Along with a Tool’s primary thrust would be to secure our birthright of wealth, it’s equally necessary to confront the numerous other obstacles standing in the clear way of our comprehensive advancement; one of these is this obvious psychologically crippling notion that the basic literacy public schools offer our kids is somehow harmful, evil or irrelevant. Clearly, this misguided rebellion has its roots within the legitimate protest against long-standing bias in educational testing and the virtual lack of African and African American brilliance in textbooks, to say the least. Yet, somehow our kids have taken it to a level of lunacy that points our future toward simply defiant self-destruction. Many of them honestly think that they must rebel from the “white man’s education.”

After i attended elementary school for most of the 1960′s the only real blacks I remember researching were Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, George Washington Carver and Constance Baker Motley. In your own home I knew about other famous blacks like Willie Mays, Nat King Cole and Lena Horne, but didn’t quite obtain the sense that the things they did was extremely important. It had been only the three dead ones and Ms. Motley the teachers appeared to hold in any esteem. Crispus died for freedom; George did many things with peanuts; Benjamin drew plans for constructing the country’s capitol making time, while Ms. Motley became a federal judge. Which was it! Anybody else who did anything great or important was white.

As for reading, writing, arithmetic and regular school subjects it was taught that the Greeks started everything, and that is the actual way it stood for me before mid-seventies. It was then which i found that the Greeks started hardly any of anything; definitely not reading, writing, mathematics, biology, literature, history, philosophy or mythology. In fact, I learned there is no such thing as the “white man’s education.” Although this is well known now, imagine the mix of emotions I experienced when I found that the Greeks were educated, amongst others, by Africans; that Plato, Aristotle and others attested to Greece’s indebtedness to Egypt; that Greece’s greatest historian, Herodotus, described these Egyptians as people with “burnt skin and woolly hair.” It had been the most freeing and astonishing feeling I’d ever experienced. It was also the angriest I’d ever felt; the same anger, I suspect, our young people feel as they encounter the debilitating effects of an educational system that assigns for them inferior status, both historically and now.

During my research I came across a passage that sheds light on perhaps why black people in general seem to not know this stuff. It felt in my experience both like a back-handed slap in the face in addition to a sad commentary. The passage goes like this: “If you want to hide something from black people just place it in a book.” Finally after digesting countless books and articles I understood that Western Civilization was this is the result of Europe’s formal education, primarily by Africans of antiquity. Europeans, having later embarked successfully upon a quest of global domination, re-wrote much of history in their image and after their likeness. This is the way we’ve got on the road to what our young people call the “white man’s education.”

Today, a number of our young adults are extremely angry, particularly after learning these things yet others, that they have fallen into the trap of self-imposed illiteracy and criminality – even while reveling in the belief that they have somehow escaped the clutches from the white man’s education. The fervor and concentration of the rebellion is really that it doesn’t have expressed aim or purpose, the understanding appears to be that “anything whites in power promote – don’t buy into it, and what you condemn – embrace.” So when the president along with other powerful white politicians extol the virtues of getting an excellent education, that message gets translated right down to many of our youth as worthless trickery. Not really the multitude of college educated black leaders who preach “get an education” produce the specified results, which begs the question: how can a people re-discover or re-claim their heritage only to have its most precious segment turn their backs onto it and think that it belongs to another person? I’ll tell you how: knowledge not translated into power might as well be a fairy tale story, while favorite anecdotes backed by power becomes believed knowledge.

To counter the negative and debilitating aspects of the Euro-American educational system we have to teach our kids what not toss the baby (fundamental literacy) out with the tub water (lies and mis-education) to avert being brainwashed and psychologically crippled. Several Afrocentric and urban movements are teaching generations of black youth about the hypocrisy from the American educational system. This cuts like a double-edged sword, causing many to abandon the procedure altogether, while some negotiate the process having a solid feeling of self. However, until we are able to implement structures that ensure the healthy education of our babies from the cradle to school, we should continue to fill in the gaps in which the public schools don’t. Whatever approach we eventually endorse the best falsehood we absolutely must defeat is this perception of a “white man’s education,” for this concedes to others what is rightfully and equally ours.

As European Union leaders meet in London to wrangle over Eu budgets and the Anglo-Saxon versus in france they model, global investors have already voted and also have been handsomely rewarded.

Many American investors appear to have written off Europe as a quaint low-growth low-return destination. This sort of attitude is responsible for these phones miss some good opportunities. Let’s look at several.

Ireland was always seen as on the fringe of Europe. Its population of four million people (the uk is 15 times larger) was always viewed as a laggard. Into the 1960s, citizens needed to purchase secondary education, and as late as 1987, Irish gross domestic product was just 69% of the average of the nations that eventually formed the EU. The unemployment rate was 17%.

Suddenly, its economy became popular. Average GDP growth rates within the 1990s were 6.9%, by 2003, Irish GDP was 136% from the EU average with an unemployment rate of 4%. How can we take into account this remarkable turnaround? As usual, it is not because of one event, but instead to some confluence of policies, timing and action.

In the late 1980s, a grand deal was struck: Labor would moderate its demands, freer trade was pursued and corporate tax rates were brought down to zero for multinationals investing in Ireland. Education seemed to be noticeably improved because of its relatively youthful population, particularly in the technology area.

Inside a short time, Ireland became the low-cost production base in Europe, and the money flowed in. Foreign direct investment was the important thing, and now 1,100 multinationals – many within the tech sector -established manufacturing and R&D operations in Ireland. More than 25% of all American investment in Europe would go to Ireland and Dell is its largest exporter. This, consequently, led to an export boom. The stronger economy also sharply increased labor participation, especially among Irish women.

The resultant rise of Dublin like a booming city along with a major financial hub also led to a tourist boom with more than Six million annual visitors. Rather than talented Irish workers migrating to the U.S. for opportunities, these were returning home in droves.

You can see how every action spins off and helps build sustained growth and momentum. Every action resulted in another in a virtuous cycle, but the key ingredient for achievement was undoubtedly massive inflows of capital – capital from foreign direct investment, from EU subsidies, from exports, from stronger domestic capital markets and from migration. Good pro-growth market policies as well as sizable amounts of capital can lead to economic miracles.

The process for Ireland now’s to keep its competitiveness and momentum when confronted with greater competition and higher costs plus a potential property bubble. Congestion in Dublin, which represents 33% of the population and 40% of GDP, is really a bottleneck on growth.

The brand new Ireland Fund is really a closed-end fund which has done quite well. During the last ten years, it has an average annual return of 13%, and through recent times, it had been up a lot more than 35%. It trades at a 10% discount to its net asset value and is managed by the Bank of Ireland

Next, let’s take a quick consider the host of the week’s EU summit, the U.K., which has benefited greatly from the openness around the world. London is continuing to grow within the last Two decades by 800,000 to achieve almost 7.5 million. There are 300 languages spoken in London, and the number of nationalities is approaching 100. The U.K. is one of only three European countries, together with Sweden and Ireland, that have given workers from Eastern Europe free use of its labor markets. Since last May, 175,000 have accepted the invitation. The iShares MSCI Uk Index expires 12% during the last Twelve months.

As the American discussion of the flat tax doesn’t appear to go any further compared to local Starbucks, many of the countries of Eastern Europe have previously adopted one. The flat tax, combined with Eastern Europe’s inexpensive structure, access to new EU markets, and a strong work ethic have resulted in an outburst in growth. Because Eastern European stock markets are thinly traded, why not make use of the iShares MSCI Austria Index as a proxy? Austria works as a gateway to Eastern Europe and processes as its financial, transportation and logistical hub. Austria has also cut its corporate tax rate from 34% to 25%. The Austrian ETF expires 40% during the last Twelve months.

Germany’s GDP growth continues to be anemic, however the iShares MSCI Germany Index is up 16% in the past year. The reason, firms for example ABB and Siemens are not awaiting the politicians to tell them what to do. They are searching the world for opportunities and winning big contracts.

The broadest European indices are doing well. The iShares MSCI EMU Index is up over 15%, and also the iShares S&P Europe 350 Index expires almost 16% in the past year. By comparison, the S&P 500 expires just a little better than 6%.

Don’t buy in to the media’s no-growth, no-opportunity label for Europe. It has a few of the world’s best multinationals and controls 40% from the world’s wealth. Especially as U.S. markets continue to churn without coming to a forward progress, a brand new investment in “Old Europe” might be a wise move for your portfolio.