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)

...ty project, if the product is a good and useful one. Now some of the possible issues that people have been blogging about as to the implematation (such as the adults in the communities recieving the ...

3.
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...must be governed simply by this: there must be no force or fraud. Competitors cannot (as BA has just been found guilty of) collude to defraud the public, nor may they force people to buy their produ...

4.
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...ity regulations would only stifle our progress. Social networking pages have done wonders and have been the backbone for web 2.0. Net neutrality is about managing traffic most efficiently so we ca...

5.
(Comments)

...rnment disputes the connection between HIV and AIDS and won\'t distribute medication even though it\'s been donated. The US government doesn\'t like stem cell research and has banned it. The EU hate...

6.
(Comments)

...er\\\" the actual story is fiction, but only in the specifics, the general case is common, just having been exposed in Nigeria, but obviously more is secret than not. Enron was only different in t...

7.
(Comments)

Walton, it\'s been a while. Here\'s a definition for you from dictionary.com: capitalism is \"an economic system based on private ownership of capital\". None of this \"the concentration of economic

8.
(Comments)

...ater an agreement requires dialogue. Any example you care to name, where untrammelled brutality has been exercised in the name of profit (most recently at a brickworks in China) falls within countr...

9.
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Actually the police in Europe shot a protestor dead in Genoa, many more have been badly wounded, and others have had long sentences. If capitalism is so great, and has all these wonderful \"solutio

10.
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...stors have got nothing better to say than \"scrap capitalism\", then you\'re pretty ignorant, haven\'t been listening, and shouldn\'t comment on the issue. Protestors have been articulating alterna...

11.
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Hmmm. This is very interesting. You know in all the time that I have been involved in the credit profession, this thought had never crossed my mind. But you make a good point. I guess the lack o

12.
(Comments)

Gavin, as someone who has been following the development of the $100 laptop for a while, I found this post very intriguing. So, the following quote I find to be the most compelling argument for

13. Overcoming the Conservation of Energy
(Analysis/Analysis)

... to get in and out of the city. The benefit to London of such infrastructure is incalculable and has been vastly exceeded by its original costs. At the same time, the miracle of London's curren...

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

...all the geeks ganged together to beat up the biggest bully in the school. The geeks response may have been disproportionate and unfair, but they still have a concern that needs addressing. It isn&#...

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

...ndustry is in chaos. Worse, though, is that the blameless citizens of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi have been dragged into the fray. Fuel supplies that must come in via the land route through Kenya hav...

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

...y on populist causes. As Jacob Zuma said in Davos, "I’m not certain whether when there has been some shortcomings that we should punish people for that. Once decisions have been taken by ...

17. Electricity Redux - Electricity Quotas Will Work About As Well As Race Quotas
(Analysis/Analysis)

...-owned and their pricing and investment strategy are controlled by the government. Plenty has already been discussed in the press regarding President Thabo Mbeki's decision in 2001 to stop Eskom ...

18. Of Chiefs and Presidents
(Analysis/Analysis)

...a has ruled Cameroon since 1982. Since then he has won elections widely seen by the opposition to have been rigged. In 1992, he won the country's first multi-party elections with 40.0 percent of t...

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

...anyone we should be angry with it is the state. Despite this, the tone from government and unions has been unequivocal. Everyone from the minister of health, "The 2008 private hospital tariffs ...

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

... their supreme decision making body. Even more interesting is Charamba's comment that Dabengwa has been rejected by the people of his constituency. Most Politburo and high ranking members, particu...

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

...t come true then the money in circulation does not represent the value of the economy. Money that has been created and is in circulation cannot be removed unless it is physically destroyed. Too much...

22. Higher food prices mean downgrading that Turkey to a Chicken
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hange. For starters, they eat a lot more meat and protein. It takes 8 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef. This massive increase in demand for grain has fed through into higher prices. The same is...

23. The Speculator: Pricing in the Future
(Analysis/Analysis)

...pitalist. What you are doing is to price future risk into your current financial situation. You have been told that future prices will be higher; best then to stock up now and gain, at the very leas...

24. Simba the Saviour?
(Analysis/Analysis)

... this country." Thank you very much for your efforts, now liberate us by stepping aside. We have been sovereign for 28 years, but we are still in the bush fighting a war; only this time against ...

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

...onment that respects 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 t...

26. Searching for objective measures of value
(Analysis/Analysis)

...erry Pratchett in his latest book, Making Money. Money, and the relative value of money, has always been of critical interest to investors. Most of the time maintaining the value of any investment...

27. Perlemoen and the Tragedy of the Commons
(Analysis/Analysis)

...stic new opportunities. Which leads us to perlemoen. The ocean is a very large common. Humans have been pulling food out and chucking waste in for millennia. The same industrial revolution that g...

28. Trevor Manuel and the "Plunder of Skills"
(Analysis/Analysis)

...l, South Africa's long-serving Minister of Finance, has had a busy time of it. When he hasn't been demanding reform at the IMF, he has been lecturing the US and Western Europe on their theft ...

29. Contradictions resolve in ways you don't intend
(Analysis/Analysis)

...f a nation. The official South African definition of unemployment is anyone aged 15 – 65 who has been actively looking for work in the past four weeks. When unemployment remains stubbornly high...

30. The Miracle of Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ods from their front-doors. Street traders are appearing on the thoroughfares. Hundreds of jobs have been created. Billions of rand has been added to property values. The old man with his chair le...

31. Africa, China and Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...Zimbabwe, is being forced to hand 51% of their local value to government nominees. South Africa's BEE laws have just forced HP to submit R 150 million of their capital into a government scheme. ...

32. China, Toys And The Tragedy of Xenophobia
(Analysis/Analysis)

Over the past two months a tragedy has been playing out in Europe and the US. Mattel, the world's largest toymaker, has recalled more than 20 million of their products, including Fisher Price and

33. The spectre of loyalty over ability
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ating the most capable that they leave. The clearest symbol of South Africa's poor leadership has been President Thabo Mbeki's firing of Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge for h...

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

...Jo'burgers but for foreign nationals. According to Erwin Rode, a property economist, a report has been sent to government on the development of policy on foreign land ownership. Suggestions rang...

35. Black Economic Empowerment, like charity, is not investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...cent Graduate School of Business (GSB) Distinguished Speakers Program, that, “Without legislated BEE South African companies would never invest in black people.” Vuyo Jack, CEO of Empowerd...

36. Black Swans, Cost Overruns and Industrial Tariffs
(Analysis/Analysis)

...sseted motor industry. All the noise and stone-throwing about the Doha round of World Trade talks has been about how rich nations should cut their agricultural subsidies to allow poor nations to sell...

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

...dimir Putin and cemented authoritarian rule. The results of imposing a democratic order on Iraq have been so appalling that they need no repetition here. The requirements for transition are more nu...

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

...mmon understanding of how something should work. Phones would never have caught on if there hadn't been a standard set of protocols that allow different brands of phone and different networks to i...

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

...per industry is in a period of trouble and strife. Editors' lock on opinion and breaking news has been degrading for a generation. How can a system of physical printing and distribution beat the...

40. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...d by Ayn Rand, first published 1957, 1 200 pages, ISBN 978-0452011878 "For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt? This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am ...

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

...the panel of assistant Masters responsible for approving liquidators, and asked why his friend had not been appointed. The Minister was informed that his friend had missed out because the trade union ...

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

...he order even though compliance would put them out of business Import duties on imported goods have been increased with a view to stopping the cross-border trade with South Africa (and favour China...

43. Science gone wrong: when self-delusion leads to death
(Analysis/Analysis)

It's popular to loathe mainstream pharmaceutical companies. Big Pharma has been accused of profiteering at the expense of the poor. Of not doing enough to find solutions to the diseases of the p

44. Everything is coming up Capitalism
(Analysis/Analysis)

...enting new versions of Newspeak to obscure meaning and disguise intentions. "Communism" has been entirely discredited. The word, that is, not the ideology. That has re-emerged. Now it is ...

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

...'s government has taken those against free-markets at their word. Over 1 300 business owners have been arrested across Zimbabwe. Their crime? Raising prices. For the past decade Robert Mugabe ...

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

...se of joining the formal sector, has led to dramatic informal sector growth. So much so that this has been used to plug holes in government's job creation strategy. From Deputy President Phumzil...

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

...equently rolled into one. This removes the idea of a robust external oversight board. The result has been controversial pay to executives as well as Enron-style corporate frauds. Yet Europe is far ...

48. After Enron: the Corporate Governance of Corporate Social Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ssment before putting oversight structures in place. By then a firm's reputation may already have been damaged. Besides the direct concern of the value of unscrutinised development initiatives ...

49. Dave Bullard and Graham Knox: "We can't walk on water so why not try wine?"
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nate their efforts and come up with innovative marketing. Discussions about what to do about this has been going round for 25 years, with plenty of concrete suggestions. However, this would require ...

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

...y great events. Cataclysms, in particular, let the strongest shine. South Africa has, for centuries, been the social equivalent of a violent tidal coast filled with danger and sudden-death that stim...