whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

Continued...Also... the quanity requirements seem to have been waived... As for... \"What is needed in impoverished nations is exactly the same thing as got Europe and the US out of the mire: stabilit

2.
(Comments)

Nope, Freedem, doesn\'t wash. The South African government disputes the connection between HIV and AIDS and won\'t distribute medication even though it\'s been donated. The US government doesn\'t li

3.
(Comments)

...ey are. They\'re not even about rich and poor. And it\'s not about equality. It\'s exactly what I said: fairness. The articles are posted as a continuing series of evolving thoughts. This is ...

4.
(Comments)

...ike, (7,5%-6%). For every day lost he therefore has to work 100/1,5=66,6 days to make up the days not paid during the strike. Your calculation says 40. To make up 20 days, a worker would have to wo...

5.
(Comments)

...under plough in the whole of the rest of the world. \"You could be the Middle East of biofuels,\" he said in awe. None of that land is being farmed since all three countries suffer from neglect and ...

6.
(Comments)

Ntshangase sounds like a Nat cabinet minister -- I\'m sure several of them said things like that. Is that a result of the ANC swallowing van Schalkwyk & Co, or it is just another incidence of all powe

7. The hazard of market dominance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ls. There are a lot of benefits to betraying the others first and cutting a deal with the law. That said, there are plenty of drivers that will lead business executives into temptation. Price fixing...

8. When no-one is held accountable, everyone suffers
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ilure of the South African government to hold the health ministry to account sees millions dieing from AIDS. Electricity, and its ails, have been discussed to death; but consider the knock-on impact ...

9. Netscape, the Internet and Creative Destruction
(Analysis/Analysis)

...is collective blame shedding and the waste of taxpayers' money on populist causes. As Jacob Zuma said in Davos, "I’m not certain whether when there has been some shortcomings that we s...

10. Funding departments instead of people cheats everyone
(Analysis/Analysis)

...es are exhausted and public health infrastructure is imploding under the strain, and 31% of posts are said to be vacant. The state has spent R 105.5 billion on education for 12 million learners in 200...

11. Zimbabwe's winds of change are blowing once more
(Analysis/Analysis)

...koni's side. Another ally came in the form of former speaker of parliament, Cyril Ndebele. Mutasa said Mugabe was a charismatic leader loved by the people, adding that Dabengwa and Makoni were als...

12. Jacob Zuma, Inflation Denialist?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ance is a substantially more generous Z$ 750 million and Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, said that they could wait. The queues were compounded by people attempting to swap their old Z$ 2...

13. Simba the Saviour?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...coming the next president of the republic of Zimbabwe. In him is a man who is well principled, not afraid to speak his mind and well respected among many sectors of the country. He is widely conside...

14. Of Capitalism, Socialist Greed, Poverty and Remaining Silent
(Analysis/Analysis)

...property rights. One of the worst excesses of South African state negligence has been regarding HIV / AIDS. Many large firms, from Anglo American to PG Glass, have invested in their own education an...

15. Podcast: The US dollar's decline effects aid and trade in Africa
(Podcasts/Emerging Market Risk)

Aid and trade are essential to Africa's further development.  The US dollar declined by 30% during 2007. This has an effect both on the real value of aid and on the world economy. Download th

16. 100 Days of Sodom
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ing importing an Indian employment model that will guarantee every household the right to 100 days of paid work per year. Didiza, as a representative of the state, is promising people the right to a ...

17. The Miracle of Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

"Look here," said the man in the parking lot. "No, I'm not begging. Look at this chair. It is the first one he has made." Beside him was a wooden chair made of slim poles i

18. Investment cannot happen if the market isn't private
(Analysis/Analysis)

... they see they will want to invest. Who knows, despite the obvious failures of government strategy on AIDS and Zimbabwe, they may be right. Foreign tourists arriving in South Africa in 2010 will (al...

19. Black Diamonds and the trouble with statistics
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e explosion of single mothers seems unusual?"  he glared at me, turned to someone else and said to me, "I'm speaking to this person now." The information I was supplied with ...

20. Ending poverty means abandoning charity and accepting reality
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hate charity? Because it makes the donors look and feel good, it gives jobs to otherwise unemployable aid workers, it lends credibility to corrupt governments, but does bugger-all for the poor."...

21. Scrogues Converse: Open-space, Identity and the Missing Web
(Analysis/Analysis)

...them over anti-gay comments they made in a public forum. To their perception, I was everything they said I was and worse, even if it was inaccurate in fact. :) They knew only what they saw, and ev...

22. Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch
(Analysis/Analysis)

..... has anyone read it recently? It's a disaster. It's boring, dense, hard to read and badly laid out. It looks like they're using the same typesetter from 1902 when Clarence Barron boug...

23. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...und 11 000% at present) and is currently nationalising more businesses. In words that could have been said by Wesley Mouch, Atlas Shrug's Economic Dictator, Zimbabwe's Trade Minister Obert Mpo...

24. Department of inJustice: the corruption of high office
(Analysis/Analysis)

...he department. He agreed to leave after extracting an undertaking from his superiors that he would be paid his salary and benefits until the date he would otherwise have retired. But Tshishonga was n...

25. Zimbabwe: the Hollow State
(Analysis/Analysis)

Three weeks ago Tama Muru from the BBC asked me if I thought Zimbabwe would explode. At the time I said, "No." Was I wrong? The situation three weeks ago was this: The Zimbabwe dollar

26. Zimbabwe: recovering the irrecoverable
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ules, he arrested them. The results have been precisely what market-economists, such as myself, have said would happen. Agriculture collapsed, the Zimbabwe Dollar is entirely debased, essential prod...

27. South Africa's two tiers
(Analysis/Analysis)

...y cynical to take the credit for job creation in the informal sector while doing absolutely nothing to aid it and plenty to discourage it. In 2006 SARS announced a tax amnesty for businesses signing ...

28. People, Planet and Profits: the complexities of corporate governance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ector of AstraZeneca in the US. "It's because we don't have proper governance and are afraid to make difficult decisions." "Overcomplexity leads to ruin," says Dunne. &q...

29. The war of informal markets against central states; a bellwether of support
(Analysis/Analysis)

... collapse?" asked Tama Muru, from the BBC's HARDtalk. "It has already collapsed," said Whythawk. Zimbabwe, for all the posturing by Robert Mugabe - their increasingly detached tyr...

30. The Trouble with Paradise, or why Pakistan Sucks
(Analysis/Analysis)

...which so devastated parts of South East Asia happened around the same time as the earthquake in Iran. Aid agencies are still somewhat embarrassed at how much money they got to deal with the tsunami. ...

31. How every day on strike left civil servants permanently worse-off
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hey recover their one month of lost pay. Each day of the strike also meant that government hadn't paid workers and so was able to offer an equivalent increase without actually effecting their budg...

32. The tragedy of innovation: how brilliant ideas are criminalised
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e of famine to do so. I was with a group of tourists visiting an impoverished part of South Africa. Said one American woman, "I love that you're all so in touch with the environment. We Ame...

33. "Be sure, we will be watching you," the other GB and the pursuit of social justice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," said Nelson Mandela speaking at his treason trial in 1964. His lawyer at that trial, and that of ...

34. Suburbanise! How aid and trade obliterate unique cultures
(Analysis/Analysis)

...he noise, all the stone throwing. Despite "Make Poverty History" and billions of Dollars in aid and opposition to capitalism. Poverty will end. The foundations for that post-poverty world...

35. Two Frontiers: wars of liberation and of determination
(Analysis/Analysis)

...re there is a genuine belief that soldiers won't simply massacre the participants. It was Mao who said, "Kill the one to scare the millions." Every now and then a protest turns into a ma...

36. The Golden Pen, Yahoo, and the worst country in the world to be a journalist
(Analysis/Analysis)

.... At great personal risk, Shi's mother Gao Qinsheng accepted the award on his behalf. What she said was simple enough. Her passion, her obvious pride and sorrow and anguish, her howl of outrag...

37. The efficiency of markets and how protectionism leaves the poor behind
(Analysis/Analysis)

.... Since they were purchasing so much they had a hold over their manufacturers and would return it, unpaid for. The manufacturers, desperate to recover some costs, would then unload it on value purch...

38. Do you hate the poor enough to be charitable?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...t;I am from the church, we're collecting clothes and money for people living in shacks," she said. I know what living there is like. I said, "No." I had to repeat myself several ...

39. Freedom of speech is fine, just don't try to use it, says Patricia de Lille
(Analysis/Analysis)

...titute claims that ID councillor Simon Grindrod was a client of his. A complaint of slander has been laid by Grindrod and the law should take its course. But, to ensure that the press pick up on the...

40. Nigeria, or the idiots guide to stealing an election
(Analysis/Analysis)

In 1492 Rodrigo Borgia, a Spanish cardinal, is said to have bribed all his rivals the equivalent of millions of dollars in order to become Alexander VI, the 215th Catholic Pope. In comparison to Nige

41. The future of Newspapers, journalistic integrity and the battle for Google's soul
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ia and President of WAN, is concerned. Not about the future of newspapers; here he is bullish, "Paid newspaper circulation figures grew by 1.9% in 2006. If you include free newspapers, it grew b...

42. Melamine, China, and the peril for emerging markets
(Analysis/Analysis)

...tions.  Tax-payers in the rich world prefer to keep poor nations in permanent need of charity and aid (so that they can drive around in fancy off-road vehicles while lording it over the neglected...

43. Have you paid your car guard today?
(Analysis/Analysis)

Moral outrage is bigotry with a halo.  And the moral citizens of our cities are whiffling about the high-streets breathing fire and brimstone, “Something! must be done!”  And don

44. Jobs are from Mars, Business is from Venus
(Analysis/Analysis)

...edrocks of democratic governance." I don't know what that means either.  But he really laid down the importance of this when, stressing the need for action, he said, "Each and ever...

45. The Jimmy Wales interview: Wikipedia and Lessons in Globalisation
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nd isn't an extremist can complain.  We had a situation on the Tartar language Wiki where it said on the front-page ‘Long live the Tartars'.  This would be equivalent to saying...

46. Lawrence Lessig, take note: Digital freedom still needs digital responsibility
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ict happening in society comes from shifting identities brought about by technological change,” said Western Cape Premier, Ebrahim Rasool.  “The more uncertain people become, then the...

47. Jacob's ANC Ladder: the power of the state, the power of the party
(Analysis/Analysis)

... wearing a dress, what did you expect me to do?") Zuma proclaimed that he had avoided contracting AIDS by having a quick shower after coitus. But you see, Zuma doesn't have to sell himself to...

48. Jimmy Wales, Digital Freedom South Africa: What would you ask him?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...f the Western Cape (UWC). Says Professor Derek Keats of UWC, "A lot of people still seem to be afraid that it’s not sustainable, or that there isn’t enough support for Free and Open S...

49. Unlearning helplessness: how donors reinforce poverty and dependency
(Analysis/Analysis)

"Well, something is better than nothing," said the well-dressed man at the charity launch function. "No it isn't. You're making the assumption that the recipients of corporate

50. Hedging and bundling; improving the efficiency of microlending
(Analysis/Analysis)

... in El Pais, an Acehnese girl developed measles symptoms thanks to three identical jabs from different aid agencies," says The Economist. Aid agencies managed to look a little sheepish but the O...