The Looting Machine

Great narrative n commentary! A must read for everyone interested in the subject.

Scritto in modo confuso e caotico, con descrizioni e commenti poco giustificati.Troppe illazioni e pochi fatti.Deludente per chi ha vissuto veramente in Africa e la conosce nel bene e nel male.

Very pleased

It appears a lot of research went into the writing of this book and it gives us insight into why many Africans are mired in poverty while the continent has enormous mineral wealth.

Systematic looting, ethnic conflicts, corruption and patronage is the curse of the sub-Saharan continent.This excellent book tells the stories of how natural resource-rich sub-Saharan countries are being systematically looted by their kleptocrats, ruling classes, and beyond all foreign companies and some unscrupulous individuals. This book is the result of investigative journalism at its finest, and the product of a scrupulous analysis. I highly commend the author for being so courageous and having produced such a revealing book. A must-read book for anyone who wants to understand why, since the colonization by Western powers, the sub-Saharan continent has been watching the rest of the world marching on the path of progress and prosperity while it remains stuck conflicts and problems of all sorts.I highly recommend this must-read book, along with the other excellent book titled China's Second Continent by Howard W. french.After having read this book, one can only come to the conclusion that black Africa, with its states artificially created by Britain, France and Portugal, and rotten with ethnic conflicts and corruption, will continue to be poor for the foreseeable future despite its enormous reserve of valuable natural resources. The culture of patronage and corruption that characterizes these societies will ensure that the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of foreigners and the ruling classes will continue unabated. After you have read this book, you will feel a deep sense of hopelessness and immense pity for the populations of these states who are so miserable and powerless in the face of the systematic looting perpetrated by their own ruling classes, and in particular so unashamedly by Western and now Chinese corporations. To ad insult to injury, some of the looting is done with the help of the IMF, the World Bank and its IFC division. One has to wonder how a continent, let alone a state, can fight against such formidable forces? How can a country develop economically, let alone technologically, if its ruling class is solely preoccupied with its own enrichment and self preservation, in the absence of true democracy or any real and effective opposition.After a century of Western colonization that had done nothing for the development of these states, maybe the only hope left is that the recent massive Chinese immigration and influx of Chinese aid and investments will bring deep and permanent structural ethnic and cultural changes to these societies, and finally help to lift this content out of misery; like what successive waves of Chinese immigration have done for most Southeast Asian countries over the previous centuries, which has recently enabled a number of them to become economic tigers in their own rights. The effect will be a gradual phase out of foreign influence (Western, Israeli, Lebanese and Indian), to be replaced by Chinese capital and human resources. Thanks to the accelerated pace of change that we are experiencing nowadays, I predict that this mutation will materialize after only two or three generations of inter-racial marriages between the Chinese immigrants and the local populations, instead of a couple of centuries as it has taken before for Southeast Asia.Or, maybe the sub-Saharan continent will end up being the Mine of the World, when China and most of Asia will remain the Factory of the World, while the West consolidates its role of the Financier and Consumer of the World. We saw the Division of Labor in action in the 19th and 20th centuries, now in the Global Village of 21st century the division of labor is split between continents in a tightly-coupled Supply Chain

Many people wonder why African countries have stayed poor, after the rest of the world has become more economically viable. The answer is that Western and now Chinese companies are looting Africa of their natural resources. The looting takes place with African allies in the countries. Nigerian and Angolan authorities help the West and the Chinese with their oil needs for huge kickbacks that disappear into far away banks, while the average Nigerian and Angolan subsist on less and less money. To make matters worse, the Chinese steal the clothing market away from Nigerians with their clothing smuggled into Nigeria, destroying a market where the local population made a living. In Ghana, an American company pays a fraction of the profits to the local government after mining gold. The company poisons the environment and the local population gets no benefits except poisoned fish. In the DRC, the Kabila dynasty replaced Mobutu, and now mines lots of materials (bauxite, tantalum) but the local population gets guns to settle ethnic rivalries. The ethnic rivalries are just gangs wanting a piece of the action so that they can make their money. Western and Chinese companies loot the continent and the West wonders why Africans are so poor. Africans get a tiny portion of aid that these multinationals rip off from the Africans. Burgis tells the story of why things must change in Africa.This is a great book about the inequalities in Western and Chinese business in Africa. If you need to understand the continent, this is a nice book to start with.