Category Archives: Burkina Faso

Looks like I read 20 novels in 2016 (though I will probably read a couple more over break). Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend Michael Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things Stephen Jarvis’s Death and Mr. Pickwick Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The … Continue reading →

Good short analysis of the political and economic situation in Burkina Faso.  I disagree with the last point made though, that economic policy success depends on “finding the resources.”  I think that an engaged president could do much more to … Continue reading →

The overall objective sought by the terrorists is to provoke the withdrawal of the operation Barkhane troupes. Indeed, for the main cities of northern Mali, these troupes constitute the only credible protection. The end of Barkhane would cause a collapse … Continue reading →

More than anything, though, the precipitous drop [in the pound] seemed to attest to an increasingly unmistakable reality: Britain’s vote to exit the European Union — Brexit, in common parlance — has put its commercial relationships with the world on … Continue reading →

Alpha Blondy was also in Ouagadougou meeting with the President.  Opération coup de poing banned in the new constitution? Le président burkinabè Roch Marc Christian Kaboré a installé jeudi à Ouagadougou les membres d’une Commission constitutionnelle qui doivent produire dans … Continue reading →

Very similar to ATT’s disappearance after the Mali coup d’état.  Hard to even get a handle on how an important public personality can suddenly turn everything off.  Is he reading a French translation of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now? … Continue reading →

Thanks Andrew Passet for the link! A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences compared the microbiots of children living in rural Burkina Faso in West Africa to the microbiots of urban, city-dwelling children in Italy. … Continue reading →

I kept waiting for the call, but someone must have told them my expertise was rural libraries in Burkina Faso, not really the skill-set needed? The White House said it had chosen seven experts in finance and the law to … Continue reading →

They are good meetings…. but still.  From 8am-2pm working with Dounko, our FAVL director here in Burkina, covering all the issues, planning, and budgeting.  Then 3pm-5pm excellent meeting with our partner team at Catholic Relief Services over in Gounghin.  Great … Continue reading →

“We’ve shown that over time, evolution favors strategies to help those who are at least as successful as themselves.” In their study, the team used computer modelling to run hundreds of thousands of simulations, or ‘donation games’, to unravel the … Continue reading →

Bernanke covers practically every topic covered in my summer Macroeconomics class.  Great summary discussion!  Thanks Vic Chia for the pointer. Estimates of potential output growth (y*) have declined primarily for two reasons.  First, potential growth depends importantly on the pace … Continue reading →

The short-term impact [of Brexit], however, has been largely negative. In the weeks since the vote, the pound has fallen sharply, and stocks in a number of sectors, including banking and construction, have been under pressure. Several real estate funds … Continue reading →

Maybe?  The 20-city Case-Shiller index suggests that while nation-wide prices are rising rapidly (about 10% a year) for the past three years, we are still pretty far away from a bubble.  But the peak back in 2006 was really high, … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Michael Kevane:
Last night I read “The Story of a Scar” by James Alan McPherson, and I have to say that it is an excellent short story.  The dialogue is gripping, and the characters sympathetic.  I wasn’t…

The dollar had been strengthening against the euro the past few weeks, but the “soft” Fed meeting statement caused the market to reverse the recent gains.  (Gains for me, because our expenses at Friends of African Village Libraries in Burkina … Continue reading →