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Where Wealth Is Concentrated In Africa

Zero Hedge - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 08:45
Where Wealth Is Concentrated In Africa

56 percent of Africa’s millionaires and over 90 percent of its billionaires lived in just five countries in 2023 - South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Morocco, according to The Africa Wealth Report 2024 published by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth. There were 135,200 people who owned wealth of 1 million U.S. dollars or more living in the continent that year, as well as 342 centi-millionaires worth $100 million or more and 21 billionaires.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, South Africa had the highest number of so-called high net worth individuals (HNWIs) with 37,400 millionaires, 102 centi-millionaires and 5 billionaires. It was followed by Egypt with 15,600 millionaires, 52 centi-millionaires, and 7 billionaires, while Nigeria placed 3rd on the continent with 8,200 HNWIs. Rounding up the top ten were Kenya (7,200 millionaires), Morocco (6,800), Mauritius (5,100), Algeria (2,800), Ethiopia (2,700), Ghana (2,700), and Namibia (2,300).

 Where Wealth is Concentrated in Africa | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Looking at the data in terms of cities, then South Africa’s Johannesburg comes first as the place with most HNWIs in Africa, with 12,300 millionaires, 25 centi-millionaires, and 2 billionaires, followed by Cape Town with 7,400 millionaires, 28 centi-millionaires, and 1 billionaire. Cairo in Egypt (7,200 millionaires), Nairobi in Kenya (4,400), and Lagos in Nigeria (4,200) also rank high on this basis.

According to Andrew Amoils, Head of Research at New World Wealth, another pattern in recent years is that a large number of high net worth individuals are moving abroad.

According to our latest figures, approximately 18,700 high-net-worth individuals have left Africa over the past decade (2013 to 2023). There are currently 54 African born billionaires in the world, including one of the world’s richest, Elon Musk, but only 21 of them still live on the continent”, he said.

“Most of these individuals have relocated to the UK, the USA, Australia, and the UAE. Significant numbers have also moved to France, Switzerland, Monaco, Portugal, Canada, New Zealand, and Israel.”

Despite this, the report writers state that Mauritius, Namibia, Morocco, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda are all expected to experience 80 percent millionaire growth, if not more, in the coming decade.

Tyler Durden Wed, 05/15/2024 - 02:45
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Beware of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

Mises Institute - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 08:30
Should calling attention to war crimes be punishable by jail? You don’t have to be a libertarian to recognize that we can’t have a free society under the censorship this Act would impose.

The CCP's land grab attempts reflect its flawed Marxist roots

The Remnant Newspaper - Remnant Articles - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 08:07
On April 10 this year, four Tibetans were arrested, detained, and supposedly beaten up by Chinese police while in detention as they had protested the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s land grab in Markham county in Chamdo, or Changdu in Chinese, located in the Tibet Autonomous Region, based on a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA).
Categories: All, News, Traditional

The Hush-Money Case against Trump Is Ridiculous and Revealing

Mises Institute - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 08:00
Despite the media definitions of the Trump trial as a “hush money trial,” the actual criminal charges are contrived and legally unprecedented. This is a show trial.

Mario Savio's Call to Arms: "Put Your Bodies Upon the Gears and Upon the Wheels", by Mike Whitney

The Unz Review - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:20
No one in the anti-genocide movement is calling for a general strike, a worker's revolt or disruptive acts of civil disobedience. What they're asking for is a ceasefire and divestment in any company that is profiting from Israel's war in Gaza. These are reasonable requests and entirely appropriate. The problem is that the students making...
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political, U.S.

Why I Don't Have an Ethical Problem with Welfare, by Robert Stark

The Unz Review - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:05
source: @ScottMGreer on X Scott Greer has a recent YouTube podcast Don’t Take the Welfare Pill, denouncing the embrace of welfarism on the dissident right. Greer is a reactionary and an elitist who promotes White identity based on preppy WASPs and fraternities. While a degree of elitism is needed, the reality is that country club...
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political, U.S.

Can conservative and liberal Catholics coexist?

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:03

Many Catholics who love church tradition have been dispirited by the current papacy. But lately, in both Rome and the United States, conversations with well-informed Catholics indicate the old conservative confidence has made a comeback. Is the Francis era a “last gasp” for the Catholicism of the Baby Boomer era?
 

 

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Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

The Unknown God

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:03

One of the crowd went up,
And knelt before the Paten and the Cup,
Received the Lord, returned in peace, and prayed
Close to my side; then in my heart I said:

“O Christ, in this man’s life –
This stranger who is Thine – in all his strife,
All his felicity, his good and ill,
In the assaulted stronghold of his will,

“I do confess Thee here,
Alive within this life; I know Thee near
Within this lonely conscience, closed away
Within this brother’s solitary day

“Christ in his unknown heart,
His intellect unknown—this love, this art,
This battle and this peace, this destiny
That I shall never know, look upon me!

“Christ in his numbered breath,
Christ in his beating heart and in his death,
Christ in his mystery! From that secret place
And from that separate dwelling, give me grace.”

The post The Unknown God appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

On Faggioli’s feverish “Trump-Strickland-Barron” fantasy

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:03

Massimo Faggioli’s recent Commonweal essay is heavy on bombastic rhetoric and very light on data, arguments, and substance. To be sure, Bishop Joseph Strickland is a Trump supporter, but it’s false to suggest Bishop Robert Barron is, which is why Word on Fire threatened a lawsuit and Commonweal edited out the Barron reference. Good on Word on Fire for saying the bullies must either fight or get out of the schoolyard. And shame on Commonweal for fueling the false narrative of a surging movement of “backwardist” American Catholic deplorables and their alleged “axis” with Trump.
 

 

The post On Faggioli’s feverish “Trump-Strickland-Barron” fantasy appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Mexico: court rules Church need not revise baptismal certificates for transgender people

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:03

A court in Mexico has thrown out an attempt by a transgender activist to force the Catholic Church to doctor baptismal records to reflect a “change” of sex. The Twenty-second Federal Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutional rights of the Diocese of Querétaro to refuse to alter church records according to a transgender individual’s self-identification.

 

 

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Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

JFK Jr. walks back full-term abortion position

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:03

In an interview with Sage Steele last week, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. backed full-term abortion.  In a more recent X post, he conceded to some restrictions on abortion once a fetus reaches viability, which occurs around 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. He had told Steele that late-term abortions were always medically necessary, but now says, “I’ve learned that my assumption was wrong.”

 

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Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

On the Ministry of America’s Bishops

The Catholic Thing - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:02

Eleven years into his pontificate, Francis remains popular among Americans who identify as Catholic. Some 75 percent of self-described Catholics in this country have a positive view of the Holy Father. This shouldn’t be a surprise. His care for the poor and marginalized, his concern for the environment, and his witness to peace have widespread appeal.

But as with all modern leaders, Francis is not without critics. His past comments about “backward-looking” and “reactionary” attitudes in American Catholic life have caused resentment among some faithful Catholics.  And his view of Church leadership in the United States – often perceived as negative – has perplexed American bishops who, as a body, have a long record of loyalty and generosity to the Holy See.

A possible pastoral visit to the United States in the Fall, recently reported in a French Catholic newspaper, would be welcomed and could be an opportunity for the Holy Father to see the Catholic Church here in a different light.

On the matter of bishops, I have some experience. A Catholic convert in my college years, I went on to be ordained a priest and served for a decade in Rome as an official in the Vatican’s Congregation (now Dicastery) for Bishops, the office tasked with evaluating and recommending men for the episcopate.  The work was largely bureaucratic.  It consisted of research, reports, meetings, correspondence, and related staff duties.  But it was a thorough education in the strengths and potential problems in the selection process for ministry as a bishop.

Based on what I saw and staffed, the process was and remains sound; not perfect, but nonetheless objective in essence, with plenty of checks and balances along the way.  It’s strictly confidential, which precludes public lobbying, campaigning, and political maneuvering – at least in the manner so common in the secular world.  It’s also highly consultative, involving 25-40 clergy, and consultations with lay men and women familiar with a candidate under consideration.  All of this is governed by canon law and directed by the Apostolic Nuncio, the papal ambassador, in each country.

I’ve been away from Rome now for nearly two decades.  I’ve experienced the selection process from its other end.  I’ve served as a bishop in the United States for the past 16 years, both as an auxiliary and now as an Ordinary, the bishop in charge of a diocese.

No matter what a man knows in advance, the ministry of a local bishop is a surprise and a challenge.  Whatever social prestige Catholic bishops once enjoyed is long gone. The clergy abuse crisis buried it.  Today the reality can be quite the opposite.  But this is not finally a loss, because true Christian leadership is a “privilege” only insofar as involves service to others in a spirit of humility.

American Bishops at the Fall 2023 Plenary Assembly in Baltimore [USCCB photo]

In my case, life as a bishop has been a blessing, because my brother U.S. bishops have been overwhelmingly good, committed men. They have very different skills and personalities.  All have strengths and weaknesses.  None of them is close to perfect.  But they’re faithful to the Church and devoted to their people.  They’re also unquestionably loyal to Pope Francis, which makes his ambiguities and seeming criticisms difficult to understand.

So what’s the point of these thoughts?

Simply this. Before the Holy Father makes his next visit to the United States, I’d ask him to spend a little time familiarizing himself with the real terrain of American Catholic life, because so much of it is hopeful and good despite the many challenges we face.  As one of my brother bishops notes in the recent book True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church (Ignatius, 2024):

Theres a great hunger for beauty [among our nation’s Catholics].  The sacramental imagination is still alive.  And if you feed that imagination – peoples need for something sacred and true, something beautiful and greater than themselves – and combine it with active outreach and social ministry, the results are impressive.  It gives me a lot of hope.  When you watch [our] young parents and children get all excited as they discover Jesus Christ in his Church, you realize that the same message was preached 20 centuries ago, and it still has enormous impact, despite all of the worlds distractions and changes in culture and technology.  The Lord continues to do his work, and the work still bears fruit.  We just need to be nimbler in addressing the challenges that are coming our way.  And we need to be more willing to speak the truth. . .even when its not welcome; even when it has a cost.

The men in our country who accept an appointment as bishop today, are, by and large, men who know full well that they will suffer. They’re men who are ready to carry the cross of Christian leadership and have prepared themselves through deep prayer, faithful theological formation, and pastoral experience in the trenches.  Their eyes are wide open to the social and cultural toxicity of our times.

While the future will not be easy, they were made for these times.  And those who are chosen and who accept the call to serve as a bishop, are, in my estimation, zealous for the task.  They need – and they deserve – encouragement, clarity, and support from the man who holds the Office of Peter.  Pope Francis can provide all three.  We should hope and pray that he will do exactly that.

The post On the Ministry of America’s Bishops appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

Categories: All, Lay, Organisations

Washington DC: The Unaffordable and Unecessary War Capital of the World

AntiWar.com - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00

Ultimately, there is no mystery as to why the Forever Wars go on endlessly. Or why at a time when Uncle Sam is hemorrhaging red ink a large bipartisan majority saw fit to authorize $95 billion of foreign aid boondoggles that do absolutely nothing for America’s homeland security. To wit, Washington has morphed into a … Continue reading "Washington DC: The Unaffordable and Unecessary War Capital of the World"

The post Washington DC: The Unaffordable and Unecessary War Capital of the World appeared first on Antiwar.com.

Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Does Western Civilization Any Longer Exist?, by Paul Craig Roberts

The Unz Review - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00
Western Civilization has long been under attack by its own intellectuals and professors. Is there anything left of it? I defend Western Civilization, but Is there any civilization left to defend when the leaders of Western governments endorse Genocide not only of the Palestinians but of their own white ethnicities and brand criticism of Palestinian...
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political, U.S.

Will Post-Modernity be Post-Darwinian?, by Nelson Rosit

The Unz Review - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00
Perhaps all of Western socio-political history can divided into three eras: Pre-Darwinian, Darwinian, and post-Darwinian. The first period consisted of the millennia before the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origins of Species (1859) when men intuitively understood the importance of blood and breed, monarchy and aristocracy being the dominant ideologies. Then in the late...
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political, U.S.

"Biting the Bullet" (1989)—Peter Brimelow On '80s Gun Control Attempts and '70s "Protests", by Peter Brimelow

The Unz Review - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00
James Fulford writes: This was written in 1989 by Peter Brimelow while he was still a British subject living in New York, to explain the American gun issue to the readers of the London Times. It covers two violent periods in American history—the nationwide “peace” riots that supported the Viet Cong—and led to Peter himself...
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political, U.S.

Jackson State and Forgotten History

AntiWar.com - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00

This originally appeared on May 15, 2015 Many of us have heard the song, most of those probably know its famous backstory: “Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming/We’re finally on our own/This summer I hear the drumming/Four dead in Ohio” sang Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young in 1971. The Kent State shootings – done by National … Continue reading "Jackson State and Forgotten History"

The post Jackson State and Forgotten History appeared first on Antiwar.com.

Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

The Arsenal of Genocide: The US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza

AntiWar.com - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 06:00

On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had “paused” a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah.  The move elicited an outcry from Israeli officials (National Security Minister … Continue reading "The Arsenal of Genocide: The US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza"

The post The Arsenal of Genocide: The US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza appeared first on Antiwar.com.

Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

Mass Starvation: Here's Why Most Of America Is Completely Unprepared

Zero Hedge - Wed, 05/15/2024 - 05:40
Mass Starvation: Here's Why Most Of America Is Completely Unprepared

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

The concept of mass starvation has not been in the forefront of American society for a very long time. Even during the Great Depression the US was majority agrarian and most people knew how to live off the land. In fact, the US has never suffered a true national famine. There have been smaller regional instances of famine (such as during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s), but nothing coming remotely close to the kinds of famines we have seen in Asia, the Eastern Bloc, Africa or the Middle East in the past 100 years.

Even Western Europeans dealt with major famines during the World Wars (like the Dutch Famine) and that experience has left an imprint on their collective consciousness. Most Americans, on the other hand, don’t get it. Because we have lived in relative security and economic affluence for so long the idea of ever having to go without food seems “laughable” to many people. When the notion of economic collapse is brought up they jeer and call it “conspiracy theory.”

Compared to the Great Depression, the US population today is completely removed from agriculture and has no idea what living off the land means. These are not things that can be learned in a few months from books and YouTube videos; they require years of experience to master.

I will say that things have changed dramatically in the past two decades I have been writing for the liberty media. When I started back in 2006 the preparedness movement was incredibly small and often people were afraid to broach such topics in public forums.

In the past several years preparedness culture has EXPLODED in popularity. Millions of Americans are now dedicated survival experts with extensive preps and firearms training. Prepping and shooting is no longer the realm of tinfoil hat “crazies”, now it’s considered cool.

The credit crash of 2008-2009 certainly helped wake people up to the reality of economic instability in the US. Then the covid pandemic, the lockdowns and the attempts at medical tyranny really shocked Americans out of their stupor. Everything we “conspiracy theorists” have been warning about was suddenly confirmed in the span of a couple of years. Every time globalists and governments create a crisis they only inspire more preppers.

The greater problem in terms of famine is not that individual Americans are not aware of the threat; many of them are. The problem is that our infrastructure and logistical systems are designed to fail and there’s not much the average citizen can do about it.

The just-in-time freight system is perhaps one of the worst ever devised in terms of community redundancy. Any disruption no matter how minor could cut off supplies to a town or city for days or weeks. Then there’s the interdependency that comes with food being produced outside most states. If your state does not have a solid agricultural base then it will be reliant on outside food sources during a crisis. What guarantees are there that your region will be able to secure food from elsewhere?

Furthermore, most of the populace, even those that are preparing, have never experienced large scale starvation events before. It’s difficult to adapt mentally to a threat that one has never seen.

I suggest people who want to know what starvation feels like practice it from time to time. Try fasting for 24 hours, then try fasting for 48 hours. See how many days you can go without eating (just be sure to drink plenty of water). My maximum was seven days (after months of practice), and what I found was that after day three the hunger pangs actually stop altogether. You don’t go crazy, you don’t get violent; at most you might get tired, but you will also be surprised at how heightened your thinking becomes and how much energy you still have.

The human body can survive for three weeks or more without a single bite of food. My suspicion is that initial panic over potential hunger is the thing that causes the most violence during famines. People encounter starvation and lose their minds within the first three days. First-stage stomach pains and fogginess causes them to react without thinking and this leads to the widespread riots and other crisis events we are used to seeing in history during food shortages.

Fasting is a way to educate yourself on what it means to starve; it’s not as bad as it seems as long as you have some fat stores in your body. When you hit the point of muscle loss and organ deprivation, that’s when things change and the possibility of death arises. Having some familiarity with the feeling of true hunger will help you to avoid panic should the real thing ever occur in the future.

The greater problem is not what you can endure, though. Watching people you care about starve is much more difficult. This is not something you can practice for and it could be a far more powerful motivator when it comes to looting and crime during a crash.

The goal of course is to avoid famine altogether. Food storage is the foundation of any survival plan. Anyone who claims that jumping right into agriculture and hunting and wild edibles is the solution has never actually had to survive off the land in their lives. The reality is, finding enough food and growing enough food to live on is difficult for most people even in normal times.

During collapse, crops are often difficult to plant safely. They can be stolen or destroyed easily and require large communities of people to maintain and protect. Even smaller gardens can draw attention from undesirables and are hard to hide.

Hunting might be useful initially if you live in a rural area, but you won’t be the only person with the same idea and animals will move out of a region quickly if they are being hunted on a daily basis. You’ll have to go further and further out to find them and that’s risky during a crisis.

Wild edibles are nice in spring and summer when they are plentiful, but then again, if you’re hiking around expending more calories that you can get from these plants then the entire exercise is pointless. I tend to find that wild edibles proponents are the most delusional when it comes to the logistics of survival. Survivalists who think they’re going to run to the woods and live off of the random plants they find will probably die.

Growing food, hunting food and foraging food are all supplemental measures, especially in the first years of any crisis event. Without a primary emergency supply most people will not make it. Food storage has been a mainstay of civilization for thousands of years for a reason – It works. When larger secure communities are established then agriculture can return and self sustaining production makes food storage less important. Until then, what you have in your basement or your garage is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who think they don’t need to store supplies because they plan to take from other people. Firstly, anyone who makes this their Plan A is probably a psychopath and I have zero empathy for them. Secondly, such people won’t stay alive very long. With every violent encounter the risk of injury or death increases; looters and raiders will be whittled down rather quickly as they get picked off by people defending their resources.

It’s not like the movies, folks; marauders will disappear swiftly during a crash. After the first year I would be surprised if any of these individuals or groups still exist.

In the meantime, the initial stages of collapse are going to be a shock for many Americans. It could be a grid down event, an economic collapse, a supply chain collapse, etc., but the panic associated with hunger will be ever present. People who understand the nature of famine can avoid panic and organize for safety. They will survive and thrive. People who don’t understand famine will freak out in the first week without food and make detrimental mistakes.

Mental preparedness is just as important as physical preparedness. Keep that in mind as we move forward into uncertain times.

*  *  *

One survival food company, Prepper All-Naturals, has proactively dropped prices to allow Americans to stock up ahead of projected hikes in beef prices. Their 25-year shelf life steaks currently come at a 25% discount with promo code “invest25”.

Tyler Durden Tue, 05/14/2024 - 23:40
Categories: All, Non-Catholic, Political

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