If You Hate Politics, Then You Clearly Hate Yourself— The Brutal Truth About How Politics Owns Your Wallet, Your Business, and Your Future
Politics is not an optional subject you can skip; it’s the air you breathe, the pothole you dodge, the tax you pay, and the reason you’re still queueing for fuel at midnight. Everything you touch, eat, earn, or even dream about is drafted in a policy somewhere. Yet many walk around declaring, “I don’t do politics,” as if that statement exempts them from its consequences. Ignoring politics is like ignoring gravity — it doesn’t stop you from falling; it just guarantees the landing will hurt more when your economy collapses on your face.
Every coin you hold bears the weight of a political choice. That shiny Sh100 note is not just paper; it’s a statement about debt ceilings, inflation targets, and who benefits from them. Money, like morality, flows where politics directs it. Politicians decide the price of fuel, electricity, and sugar, then smile as you blame the supermarket cashier. If you think your salary is small because your boss is greedy, look again — it’s because your leaders sold your taxes to foreign creditors, wrapped in ribbon, and called it “strategic partnership.”
Politics is the puppet master of your business dreams. You can have the best product, perfect marketing, and unmatched customer service — but one careless regulation, one sudden tax amendment, or one “public-private partnership” scandal later, and you’re filing for bankruptcy. Entrepreneurs in Kenya don’t fail because they lack innovation; they fail because they live in a country where policy is a weapon and bureaucracy is a battlefield. In this land, survival isn’t about profit margins but political immunity.
The economy you admire is nothing more than politics in a suit. GDP isn’t a divine blessing; it’s the reflection of policy priorities. When politicians steal billions meant for manufacturing, your dreams of industrialization die quietly, wrapped in the pages of the budget estimates. When they exempt their friends from taxes, your business carries the burden of patriotism. You call it entrepreneurship; they call it indirect taxation through frustration. The Kenyan hustle is not just economic — it’s political endurance disguised as ambition.
Insurance is supposed to cushion you from uncertainty. But in a politically dysfunctional system, insurance itself needs insurance. A hospital cover is meaningless when the health ministry is a playground for looters. Life insurance becomes comedy when your government keeps creating conditions that shorten your life expectancy. How do you ensure against poverty when poverty is a government policy? Every premium you pay is a quiet tax on your hope that maybe, just maybe, this system won’t collapse before your claim matures.
Taxation is the purest form of political communication. Every deduction on your payslip tells you who’s winning the national debate. When you see “housing levy,” “health insurance fund,” and “VAT adjustment,” understand that your government is speaking loudly, arrogantly, and often incoherently. Taxes are not about revenue; they’re about obedience. The state doesn’t need your money as much as it needs your submission. It wants to remind you who really owns your income — and hint: it’s not you.
Investment, too, is politics in a tie. Before you put your money in stocks, you study not markets but moods — the political climate, the appointments, the scandals. Investors are not analysts anymore; they are astrologers reading the stars of Sthe tate House. A single careless speech from a politician can erase billions in market capitalization. You call it volatility; we call it governance failure. In Kenya, investment decisions are less about risk appetite and more about risk survival.
Savings are the silent victims of politics. You save hoping to build a home, educate your children, or start a business, but inflation — a political invention — eats it faster than termites in a wooden house. The government borrows at higher rates, crowding out private borrowers, and the bank smiles as your interest shrinks to dust. You aren’t saving; you’re subsidizing government incompetence. The tragedy is that you still think you’re being “financially disciplined,” when you’re actually paying rent to political stupidity.
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