Dying to Eat

For all Monsanto’s bluster about “feeding the world,” the truth is this: Globally, 3.9 billion people are either hungry or malnuourished, according to ETC Group.

Now, a new global study (billed as the most comprehensive of its kind) says poor diet, which often leads to obesity, kills one in five people.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which coordinated the study, said:

One of the most alarming risks in the GBD is excess body weight. The rate of illness related to people being too heavy is rising quickly, and the disease burden can be found in all sociodemographic levels. High body mass index (BMI) is the fourth largest contributor to the loss of healthy life, after high blood pressure, smoking, and high blood sugar.

Who’s to blame for the foods that are killing us? Big Food, mostly.

The New York Times recently reported on the rise of obesity in Ghana, which not coincidentally corresponded to the rising presence in U.S. companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC):

But KFC’s expansion here comes as obesity and related health have been surging. Public health officials see fried chicken, French fries and pizza as spurring and intensifying a global obesity epidemic that has hit hard in Ghana – one of 73 countries where obesity has at least doubled since 1980. Obesity rates have surged more than 650% since 1980 from less than 2% of population to 13.6 percent.

According to the Times, KFC, owned by Louisville, Ky.-owned YUM!, has about 850 outlets throughout sub-Saharan Africa: to Angola, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and beyond.

Read ‘Poor Diet Kills One in Five of Us

Read ‘The Global Burden of Disease’

h/t: Organic Consumers Association

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Meet The Money-Laundering, Nigerian Oil Magnate Behind New York's $50MM Condo Foreclosure

Last night we noted that yet another luxury condo at Manhattan’s One57 tower, a member of “Billionaire’s Row,” a group of high-end towers clustered along the southern edge of Central Park, had gone into foreclosure - the second in the span of a month.  The 6,240-square-foot, full-floor penthouse in question, One57’s Apartment 79, sold for $50.9 million in December 2014, making it the eighth-priciest in the building and likely the largest residential foreclosure in Manhattan"s history.

According to Bloomberg, the owner of the apartment attempted to conceal his/her identity by using a shell company (you know how those kooky billionaires can be) but was able to obtain an "unusually large" mortgage with an even more unusual term: one-year.

In September 2015, the company took out a $35.3 million mortgage from lender Banque Havilland SA, based in Luxembourg. The full payment of the loan was due one year later, according to court documents filed in connection with the foreclosure.

The borrower failed to repay, and now Banque Havilland is forcing a sale to recoup the funds, plus interest.

Of course, it was only a matter of time until the mystery man behind Manhattan"s most recent luxury real estate epic fail was exposed.  As such, meet Nigerian oil magnate, Kola Aluko.

As it turns out, the world renowned, Nigerian-born, billionaire playboy is about $25,000 behind on his property taxes.  But, that is probably the least of his worries as the New York Post points out that he currently wanted by authorities in both Nigeria and Europe for defrauding the Nigerian government out of oil sale profits.

But Aluko has bigger problem, it seems. The 47-year-old tycoon is under investigation in Nigeria and in Europe for alleged money-laundering crimes.

A Nigerian court, according to various reports, tried to freeze Aluko’s assets, including his One57 unit, as part of the alleged scheme to defraud the government of oil sale profits.

Meanwhile, it seems that the only reason Aluko isn"t already in prison is because the Nigerian courts can"t seem to find him to serve papers.  Apparently he"s been hiding out on this 213-foot, $100 million yacht, the Galactica Star, for over a year.

Over the past year, the boat has been spotted making port calls in Cancun, Mexico and Turkey.

Of course, if you"re going to be an international playboy then you need to have rich and famous friends and, as it turns out, rappers Jay-Z and P. Diddy seemed to have fulfilled that role for Aluko.  Back in 2012 the rap duo apparently hosted Aluko"s birthday party in Beverly Hills.  Then, just a few years later in 2015, Jay-Z and wife Beyonce rented Aluko"s mega-yacht for the bargain basement price of just $900,000 per week to sail around the Mediterranean.

Well, presumably it was fun while it lasted.

And The Best Performing Stocks In The World This Year Are...

Nigerian Banks!

"No Brainer" US bank stocks languish unchanged in 2017 and even the unstoppable FANG stocks are lagging badly behind Nigerian banks.

It appears all those emails from Nigerian princes are paying off?

Or, as Bloomberg notes, since the Nigerian central bank eased a dollar shortage by opening a currency-trading window for foreign investors in April, lenders in Africa’s biggest economy have soared.

The local banking index is up 35 percent this quarter, outstripping South Africa’s equivalent stock gauge and MSCI’s emerging-market financials index. Even after the jump, Guaranty Trust Bank is the sole Nigerian lender in the index to trade above its book value, while none of the six members of the South African index trade below that level.