Emmanuel K

I post about Tech, AI and Programming.

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

Salah's a more complete player than Ronaldo was at United. https://t.co/ljQ1xM54Gw

[Alfred @CallmeAlfredo]

You sometimes see a table claiming that African countries, including Ghana, have the lowest IQs in the world. The most widely shared version is on Business Insider Africa.

Business Insider cites CEOWORLD magazine. CEOWORLD did not test anyone. Its figures match, to two decimal places, a 2019 dataset compiled by Richard Lynn and David Becker.

Now look at what is inside that dataset.
Sierra Leone's score of 45 rests on one study from 1966. Mali's rests on a single sample. South Sudan's comes from refugee children. Ghana's 58.16 appears to be the average of a small set of test samples and Ghana's TIMSS school assessment scores, rescaled and relabelled as IQ.

An IQ below 70 is the usual threshold for intellectual disability. A national average of 58 would mean most Ghanaians could not hold a job, run a business or raise a family. Anyone who has spent a day in Accra knows that is absurd.

The dataset's own author agrees there is a problem. Becker wrote in 2019 that differences between countries scoring below 60 are more likely measurement error than real differences in intelligence. He also wrote that the dataset is not suitable for comparing two individual countries.

The dataset was never peer reviewed, which Becker himself calls a weak point. Yet researchers used it in published papers for years, because reviewers check the analysis, not the data underneath. In 2024, academics called for several of those papers to be retracted.

That is how a zombie statistic is made. Lynn and Becker becomes "a study". The study becomes "CEOWORLD". CEOWORLD becomes "Business Insider". Each step adds a more respectable name and no new evidence. Then it turns up in social media arguments as settled fact.

Before you share a ranking, ask three questions. Who collected the data? How many people were measured, and when? Does the number survive a basic sanity check?

[DRS Unlocked @DRSunlocked]

Bahrain GP Qualifying Top 6 Comparison | Max’s poles are back?

[Federico Albano @Fred__18]

#Verstappen fa una mega pole, ma per me il miglior giro l'ha fatto #Hamilton. Clamoroso Lewis e la #SF26 in tutte le curve del tracciato, lente o veloci. Poi un dramma sul dritto, dove invece VOLA #RedBull. #Mercedes non bilanciata e con più drag nel nuovo pack. Da analizzare con più calma. #BahrainGP #Sepang

[Bright Simons @BBSimons]

1. Analysts like @CallmeAlfredo have been talking and writing about GoldBod for more than a year. On these streets, we have dissected and trisected every aspect of the issue.

2. All of a sudden, politicians jump into the fray, stay strictly on the surface, add no new insights, and the whole country is immediately agog as if the Ark of Covenant has been found...at Achiase.

3. People now start coming to my page asking me why "I am not talking about GoldBod." Seriously?

4. Seriously, Ghanafou?

5. So, if politicians don't move national debate, you won't be interested? You won't read what independent analysts write for your own education unless there is a political controversy?

6. When I complain about Katanomics (the inability of POLICY to compete with POLITICS in Africa, leading to shallow solutions that keep the same problems recurring without any "learning"), this situation right here is the perfect example.

7. Naturally, I wasn't going to rehash the plenty explanations and analysis of the last one year, but reading some of the questions I keep getting, I think there is one specific aspect of the affair that most people simply don't get and if they did they would be in a better position to educate themselves about the rest of the issues.

(In this post, my goal is to really simplify, which carries the risk of oversimplification. You will see that even a simple explanation is much too long for this format, so further simplification is impossible. Anyone looking for "sophisticated" analysis can read any of the dozen articles written on the subject.)

Here goes:
8. Most people accept (except die hard motivated reasoning party fanatics) that over the course of 2025, GoldBod bought roughly $10 billion of gold but the Bank of Ghana received value for about $8.3bn. Some prefer to call this "costs" and others "losses."

9. The only reason, in my view, why objective people are confused is because of how the costs and benefits of the entire state-run gold trading scheme have been defined. People have been led to the impression that GoldBod *GENERATED* $10bn worth of dollars in 2025.

9. Put another way: that somehow without GoldBod $10 billion wouldn't have come into Ghana. In that sense even if Ghana lost/spent $1.7bn, the country has still benefitted enormously. This is shallow analysis. And it is the one confusion most worth clearing up.

10. GoldBod doesn't produce gold. GoldBod doesn't invest in gold production. It hopes to get there someday but it is not there yet.

11. The gold we are talking about was produced, mostly, by small-scale Ghanaian mining operators. We believe that this includes both legal and illegal (galamsey) producers but that is another discussion for another day. These miners were the ones who invested to produce the gold.

12. Would they have produced $10bn of gold without GoldBod? Would $8.3bn have come into Ghana? If the answer is "yes" to any of these questions, then GoldBod is a waste of money because we are paying them for adding no value (they charged the country through BoG about GHS 558 million for their services).

13. If the answer is "no", then the question becomes: how much would the small-scale mines have produced and how much of the resulting "gold dollars" would have come to Ghana? GoldBod's contribution is the DIFFERENCE between $8.3 billion and whatever number pops out from that analysis. Clear?

14. So, say, you argue that without GoldBod, Ghanaian  miners would have produced $7bn and brought in $6bn (due to "leakages", which we will discuss later), then GoldBod's value to Ghana is between $1.3bn and $2.3bn. The question is: what is the actual number?

15. That is where the REALLY SERIOUS debate had been about until the politicians came and sucked all the oxygen from the room. They succeeded because politics is a masses business and policy is an elite business. Mass media will always be dominated by what the masses engage with. ("Elite" as used here does not connote superiority, only "social division of responsibility".) Until we find a way to link politics and policy in Africa more effectively, we are doomed. That is the task the Katanomics Society (www dot katanomics dot org) exists to confront.

16. Going back to the analysis, note that gold producers are business people. They will produce gold without prompting if there is a ready market for it, and there is. They have always had a way to sell that gold and they don't get any investment from GoldBod, so most of us can agree that the production of gold has little to do with GoldBod. The real controversy then is about how much of the gold dollars would have come to Ghana. And this raises two issues: smuggling and leakage.

18. Some of us argue that smuggling doesn't necessarily lead to much leakage. If Ghanaian gold producers sell as close to the international market price as possible in Cedis to Lebanese, Indian, or Chinese smugglers, then even if those people take the gold away to sell in dollars, those dollars won't be entirely lost to the Ghanaian economy. This may sound scandalous. But keep your shirt on, and continue reading.

19. Firstly, we have to be sure about the scale of smuggling and why people do it. I have argued elsewhere that those who do it to evade broader taxes (such as corporate and personal income taxes) have such a huge incentive that nothing will stop them. Which is why, even with GoldBod, we still have smuggling. But let's for now assume a kind of smuggling that can truly be stopped by GoldBod following passage of laws that have stopped all formerly legal exporters from exporting.

20. The key insight I want to leave you with is that even Smugglers still need to convert MOST of the gold dollars they get from smuggling gold abroad back into Cedis to keep buying the gold locally to smuggle outside. What they keep is their profit, which is the margin between what Ghanaian gold producers sell the gold to them for and the international market price. In a highly competitive market, that margin will drop to as low as possible. It definitely won't be the 17% that the new model loses. It will very likely not exceed 3%.

21. That means that the gold dollars will still come into the economy (minus profits of the smugglers) but it won't go to the Bank of Ghana. It will go to commercial banks and Aboki. That is another competitive market that will allot the dollars due to the real demand in the economy.

22. Nonetheless, let us accept that such an outcome doesn't sit well with you as a law-abiding Ghanaian. And you just feel that the gold dollars are best allocated by an omniscient, all-wise, Bank of Ghana. The truth is that the Bank of Ghana will still sell back into the market for people that need dollars. Whatever route gold dollars take, they end up in the same commercial market.

23. The only caveat, therefore, is that the GoldBod model routes most of the dollars through the Bank of Ghana, which grants BoG the choice to set a lower price for the dollars than the market may have done. That is what they mean when they say most of the losses are due to "exchange rate" losses. The whole GoldBod - BoG system is tightly connected to allow BoG to set dollar prices lower than normal demand and supply would have permitted. It is this "benefit" of GoldBod and the previous Domestic Gold Purchasing Programs (DGPP) that must be carefully valued.

24. How does one value this GoldBod role? This power it has given to the Bank of Ghana to subsidise the dollar rate? Is it worth $1.7bn? Obviously, it is much harder to analyse than the crude way we began with (by assuming the entire $8.3bn was some kind of bonanza from GoldBod). Now let me tell you the problem some of us have with this GoldBod "benefit".

25. The price of gold has more than doubled since 2021 (in both 2021 and 2022, average prices hovered around $1800 versus over $4500 today). For the same investment Ghanaian gold miners/producers would have made in 2021, the country gets twice the amount of dollars. Nothing whatsoever to do with GoldBod.

26. Supposing we were producing the same quantity of gold in 2021 from the small scale and artisanal sector. as we are doing today. The country would have received $5bn then. Now, for roughly the same underlying investment, it gets $10bn. That is $5bn extra "PROFIT". In such an arrangement, even if we create an inefficient bureaucracy that leads to $1.7bn in losses, we are still left with $3.3 billion more than we would have received before. Because the strength of the Cedi is roughly determined by the amount of dollars in circulation, the massive increase in gold prices will always benefit the country whether or not there is a GoldBod.

27. Study the attached graphs carefully. They show you historic episodes when Ghana enjoyed relative stability of the Cedi. They also show how external factors such as commodity prices have historically shaped the domestic experience of exchange rates and cost of living. Comparing Ghana's situation with peers across Africa, it is evident that the benign external environment of recent months (including unorthodox policies in the US that are weakening the dollar and boosting precious mineral prices) is not getting sufficient attention in Ghana.

28. The problem is what happens when that external picture and the positive cyclical trends change for the worse. What happens if Ghana's dollar flow halves because prices drop by 50%? Where would the government now hide the $1.7bn "losses" or "costs"?

29. Especially when the need to subsidise the cedi rate becomes even more intense precisely when the currency is under pressure.

30. That is why despite all the spin and confusion, the Bank of Ghana admits that there is a problem building up for the country. And has thus stopped directly funding the purchases of gold and is pushing for losses/costs to come down to 5%. Can it succeed?

31. This is where the Minority's push for transparency is useful. Without detailed modelling of the loss drivers, we can't be confident that the BoG-GoldBod alliance can. Let's look at the main risks one after the other.

32. The "exchange rate loss" component of the whole setup depends on how aggressively the Bank of Ghana intends to continue subsidising the Cedi. We need to have an honest conversation about that. What should the right Cedi - dollar rate band be?

33. The loss from paying miners very close to the international price (leaving too little a margin for other costs) is set by a simple decision of how much smuggling we are willing to tolerate.

34. And the loss from selling the gold at a price significantly lower than the international market rate is driven by good governance. Right now the system is opaque and no one except BoG and GoldBod knows if all buyers are getting the same deal and on the same basis. It is easily abused. The Minority in Parliament is absolutely correct that we must force GoldBod and the BoG to disclose all the offtake contracts from the dawn of the programs.

35. Like I said, so long as the price of gold stay well above $3000, there will always be room to absorb considerable policy inefficiencies. Should it start to drop well below $4000 wahala will gas! Knowing what I know about Ghana, I think we will just wait and see before any serious national consensus will build.

36. Each of the points above deserves its own 5000 word article. Yes, policy is damn hard both to think through right and to do right! Which is why without enough citizens being interested in pushing it, politics will always win and the katanomic condition will prevail.

37. I hope though that having read to this point, you now understand why some of us can't participate in shallow debates.

38. And the issue of whether or not the gold trading losses (shared jointly by GoldBod and BoG because they both set prices and impact volume decisions) are a problem is now much clearer to you now than before.

39. If you want even more emphatic and sophisticated analysis than this introductory one, you just need to spare 30 minutes and read the pieces I am attaching to this thread. And of course, pay attention to the attachments.

40. Keep faith with Ghana but never stop asking hard questions and thinking deeper beneath the surface. That is how we will bring down katanomics!

[Alfred @CallmeAlfredo]

It's not wild to expect water quality in rivers in galamsey areas to be worse than in the rest of the country. What's striking is how much that gap moves with politics.

Between 2017 and 2020 it almost closed. By 2019 the difference was barely a point. That was when a President had put his presidency on the line to fight galamsey.

It opened again in 2021, immediately after the December 2020 election, when some claimed they lost parliamentary seats fighting galamsey. The gap went from 2 points in 2020 to 10 points in 2021, and stayed there.

2024 was the worst year in the record. Rivers in galamsey areas averaged 12 points below the rest of the country. Another election year, and perhaps the lesson of 2020 had been learned.

There was a marginal improvement in 2025, and my earlier analysis traced it to the rivers where NAIMOS had operated. But it is not enough.

What I learn from this is that if the current government wants to effectively stop the pollution of the rivers, it can. The fact that pollution continues means the government isn't willing to stop it.

#StopGalamseyNow

[Danny Goodwin @dannywgoodwin]

The Pat McAfee Show on 9/11

[Hubert Tieku Esq @KwesiHubert]

Spending £90,000 of taxpayers’ money on the visas, airfare and yellowcard of the spouse and 3 children of a scholarship awardee and another £8,000 per month on EACH of the above is not just corrupt but pure cruelty

[Ali Al Hussein @AliBinAlHussein]

There is no shortage of issues regarding FIFA. Let me start by clarifying what some of these are from an FA perspective, in particular that of Jordan going into a World Cup for the first time.
We are a small country with a minimal budget for our FA and had to deal with enormous hurdles. First, getting our fans into the USA: not all were granted VISAS, even though they had tickets -which we also know were sold at exorbitant prices. Secondly, we are being taxed by the US govt through FIFA for our participation. Money that should go to players and staff. This was not the case for those who played and set up camp in Canada and Mexico. But we happened to be in the USA so now we face these huge costs in taxes for having participated.
Thirdly we have been waiting for reward money for our players since December for the Arab cup in Qatar, which is a FIFA event. The money our team should receive for having reached the final has not been delivered yet, while at the same time FIFA brags about how many billions they have in reserve.
It is clear the problem really is with leadership. For months, FIFA has been refusing to help us on any of these or other matters- until it was verbally communicated to me during the World Cup that if I endorsed Infantino it would go a long way to helping our FA out.
We pride ourselves in Jordan in upholding ethical values. We did not endorse him before and certainly will not now. But the whole situation amounts to blackmail and we refuse to give in to that.

[Game of Thrones @GameOfThrones]

Jalen Brunson,
First of His Name,
Breaker of Double Teams,
King of New York,
Most Valuable Player.

[The Cassava Express @cassavaexpress]

Opposition MP Kojo Oppong Nkrumah announced Thursday that he has finally discovered a massive youth unemployment crisis, a revelation that conveniently hit him the exact moment his party lost power and moved to the opposite side of the parliamentary aisle.

[Ari Meirov @MySportsUpdate]

The #Eagles have signed veteran G Michael Jordan.

[Emmanuel K @aning49]

@Britney_Tachie Ghana is GMT/UTC+0 so it's the same time

[Ghana Meteorological Agency @GhanaMet]

⚠️Weather Warning

A moderate rainstorm currently over Togo and Benin is expected to move steadily westward across Ghana, inducing cloudiness and producing thunderstorms with or without rain of varying intensities over parts of the country.

• The rainstorm will be accompanied by moderate to strong winds.

• Localised flooding in low-lying and flood-prone areas are likely to occur.

• Fisherfolk and motorists are urged to exercise extreme caution during this period..

For more info visit
https://t.co/0RVTTVSERF

#ghanaweather

[Ghana Meteorological Agency @GhanaMet]

🎯 Weekly Outlook

Here's what the weather is expected to be like for the rest of the week.

For more info ⬇️
https://t.co/XVjTunidZa

#GhanaWeather

[Ghana Meteorological Agency @GhanaMet]

🎯 Afternoon Forecast
The early hours of the afternoon will be characterised by mostly cloudy conditions with breaks of sunshine across all sectors of the country. However, parts of coastal, middle, transition and northern sectors are likely to experience thunderstorms or rain from late afternoon into the evening.
For more info ⬇️
https://t.co/0RVTTVSERF

#GhanaWeather

[Ghana Meteorological Agency @GhanaMet]

🎯 Weekend Outlook

Here’s what the weather for the weekend is expected to be like.

For more info ⬇️
https://t.co/XVjTunidZa

#GhanaWeather

[WWE @WWE]

OBA!! OBA!! OBA!!

#WWEClash continues on the ESPN App with an ESPN Unlimited plan: https://t.co/kzS0cxoAzD

[BasseyMuse @BasseyMuse]

I know ball one series left

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

Me using Claude Opus 4.8 to rename a file