Wangari Maathai and the Stock Market

Its official. Wangari Maathai can help you beat the stock market! Well Wangari Maathai has never been known to be a stock market enthusiast. in fact now that she is in government of national unity she appears to in unfamiliar grounds. even her nobel prize was not feted much. but i digress.

a friend of mine has just told me how the great lady can help you beat the NSE fair and square. here is the deal. you get a piece of land or plot or shamba as the case may be. in a remote area that would be about 200,000 for an acre. you then approach Green Belt movement for a certain breed of trees which take just between 3 to 5 years to mature. assume you get 100 seedlings at 50 bob a piece. thats an investment of 205,000 in total. after they take root the trees will manage themselves so no more investment is required and there are no operational costs also no broker fees! if you sell those 100 trees at the current price of 10,000 a piece you get a cool 1,000,000 bob in 5 years or less! no sweat, no broker and no speculators. on top of that the shamba shall have appreciated by say 50 % so your total worth at the end is 1.3 million. another peace prize for the lady please.

Meanwhile this years Nobel Peace Prize went instead to a benvolent investor. the man who lends as low as $50 to the poor with only peer pressure and good manners as his collateral! the mans success is 99% in his guinea pig country. Mr Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank's success is now being copied all over the world including Uganda. I thought equity was doing that too. hey give our guy credit too. but no equity is doing micro-banking but Yunus is doing micro-credit. i read that in the nation yesterday. Mr. Yunus says that his idea must not be tried by the faint hearted or the traditional bankers lest they die of worry and insomnia.

While that is happening, the project fame has been started proper. and yesterday saw the first 8 contestants sing their way into the house. i must say i was amazed by the talent i saw. i never thought we were that endowed. if you ask me all of them deserved to go in. the only difference was the choice of songs. those who chose nice and known songs easily made it. but i must say i cannot forget Renee and her rendition. but thats besides the point. what i find shocking or suprising is that this show which will be beamed to 90,000,000 viewers accross east africa and more elsewhere has attreacted very few advertisers. for instance non of the telcos are there, not celtel, not safaricom, not mtn or telkom kenya! i even thought the politician would use this marketers golden oportunity to market his presidential ambition. i suppose the show will be watched by over 60,000,000 youth in this vast market. millions will vote through sms and IVR. Well why am i complaining after all the winner stands to sell millions of copies of their songs. but the seasoned judge Ian Mbugua said the standard was not that good. well i understand the man who has done many fine things and many other fine plays. but these are ameuters (sic) who stand to be turned into millionaires in a matter of weeks. i hope some if not all or that money will find its way to the NSE.

Odegle tip of the day --Money can be made at the NSE. NO. A lot of money can be made at the NSE and a lot of money can also be lost at the NSE.