whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

... Europe and the US out of the mire: stability, accountability, and respect for private ownership of one\'s capital (be that labour, land or products)\" valid point, but it is unreasonable to use that...

2.
(Comments)

... If you would, for a moment, consider who I am and what I do for a living, instead of the fact that I\'m a capitalist, you may realise that I am significantly more angry about poverty than you could e...

3.
(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

4.
(Comments)

This is disingenuous. While \'anti-capitalism\' is a very broad term, most people who call themselves anti-capitalists are united by one thing: their belief in economic democracy. Our biggest critique

5.
(Comments)

I\'m very pleased you have decided to engage here. As regards your question: \"if capitalism is so great ... why do 20% of the world live in absolute poverty?\" The US has 95% employment and

6.
(Comments)

...ot 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 \"solutions\", how come - in a world that...

7.
(Comments)

...ch has gone from US$35 bn to US$72 bn and that is out of new business scenting an opportunity (and venture capitalists piling in) and old businesses fearing carbon caps as well as new, more nimble, co...

8.
(Comments)

This is nonsense. You\'re confusing human interaction with capitalism. Look up capitalism on wikipedia if you don\'t know what it is: \"Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which

9.
(Comments)

...Thanks for the compelling argument and the sources. I\'ve just read the Amazon review of \"The Mystery of Capital\" book and am about to purchase it....

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

...nd trader. Depending on the circumstances, you could also be called a profiteer, hoarder, speculator or a capitalist. What you are doing is to price future risk into your current financial situation...

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

...n beings are very much more important than exports and profit, and therefore COSATU will not stop exposing capitalists who put profit first before the lives of the poor working class," Solly Phet...

12. This festive season: the accumulating effects of individual activity
(Analysis/Analysis)

...Germany. Individual production is hardly efficient. If it were those terrible leaches on society – capitalists – who would sell their own grandmothers, children and wives to make minceme...

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

...as become 27% larger. Much of the ANC succession debate has been over this seeming contradiction. Either capitalism doesn't create jobs, or businesses are being selfish and refusing to create th...

14. Slaves to land, the policies of Land Affairs
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nership amongst the currently impoverished has the capacity to unlock trillions of dollars of "hidden capital". De Soto has visited South Africa on several occasions to present his ideas to...

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

... to government nominees. South Africa's BEE laws have just forced HP to submit R 150 million of their capital into a government scheme. Instead of capital being used to its best value the cash &...

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

...land. Two other events, amongst others, give further indication to government's abhorrence of private capital. A tender being fought between state-owned Transnet and privately-owned iPayipi over...

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

Business is cyclical. Innovation changes environments and, unintentionally, destroys profitable status quos. When that happens stronger and more innovative firms pounce to buy up the assets of weake

18. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hey did then no threats would be necessary; they would be trades of mutual benefit. In order to raise the capital necessary to support De Beers, government will have to raise additional taxes from ot...

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

...s, policeman, bureaucrats, street sweepers and the like. Most formal businesses are closed as they have no capital to purchase stock and, in any case, won't buy goods they are then forced to sell ...

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

...9;re protesting against. Pensions are "low-beta" spread investments designed to return a stable capital gain. What could be more stable than blue-chip firms like those in pharmaceuticals, ...

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

... the tale-end of the Cold War, as the Berlin Wall fell, as Glasnost gave way to the crumbling of the USSR, Capitalists celebrated. As the wall fell, as the unhealthy, drably dressed, survivors of the...

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

Anti-capitalist demonstrators around the world should be celebrating. Robert Mugabe's government has taken those against free-markets at their word. Over 1 300 business owners have been arrested

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

...l entrepreneur either retires, decides to cash in his investment, or needs to raise a tremendous amount of capital for further expansion, then the company can be broken up into little bits and sold. ...

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

...ng lots of money home. Informal markets as bellwethers Hernando de Soto, writing in "The Mystery of Capital" about Peru, “All we had to do was make sure the costs of operating legall...

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

.... Are they more efficient now than they were 100 years ago? Yes, they are. The same is true of market-led capitalism, large-scale industrialisation, patent regulations, copyright, democracy and every...

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

...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 are being laid ri...

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

...en greater. The youngsters lighting fires in Germany at the G8 Summit to protest about globalisation and capitalism have little in common with the striking protestors in South Africa this week altho...

28. What comes after Capitalism?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...all. We have decided. Air will be replaced." Outlandish? Perhaps. But so is the argument against Capitalism. Air may be dirty, or clean. It may carry the scent of long-forgotten memories, a...

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

There is something magnificent about the way that modern, market-driven businesses get ever more efficient. How they are able to derive ever more from ever less. Agriculture used to be a matter of p

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

...th Africa's union movement: "We would rather that workers remain unemployed than be exploited by capitalist corporations who only seek profits." Striking for jobs; marching for poverty...

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

...date for the PDP. To win the right to contest the elections cost a fortune. It became a bit like venture capital. Shadowy figures would put up the money on condition that certain things be agreed i...

32. The future of newspapers II: of shock-jocks and self-made media-stars
(Analysis/Analysis)

...troversy, talent and astonishing communication skills. In the past media companies have been like venture capitalists: searching for people who appear to have talent and then investing in them over a...

33. Islam, Shari'ah Law, and Cultural Capitalism
(Analysis/Analysis)

...nd the world.  They are relatively new instruments but prove something exciting about equity markets: capitalism is a bicycle.  Whether you're Muslim, Socialist or a born-again environme...

34. One Laptop Per Child, now costing 75% more ...
(Analysis/Analysis)

...rope and the US out of the mire: stability, accountability, and respect for private ownership of one's capital (be that labour, land or products). Since poor countries cannot afford Negroponte'...

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

...s. On the other hand, if agencies worked with other organisations to present a single unified request for capital covering an integrated approach this would act to hedge the investment. If one or tw...

36. Leveraging your good name; the power of a positive credit rating
(Analysis/Analysis)

...an individual and their behaviour, talk of privacy has become pervasive. One of the central themes of the capitalist age for the last few hundred years is this:  how, given the complexity of fin...

37. From Linux to Mozilla: donations mean that open-source isn't really free
(Analysis/Analysis)

...y can charge for it. People will only pay for it once it's perfect. Consider this new form of venture capital Crowd Finance or Crowd Development. Many open-source products are getting to the po...

38. The US$ 5 trillion market at the bottom of the pyramid
(Analysis/Analysis)

...tely rethink your strategy to get a 50x reduction in price.” It is essential to build new strategic capital and disruptive business models.  Set the price you want to charge, set your prof...

39. Development organisations need to engage with ratings agencies
(Analysis/Analysis)

...unspent for fear of putting it in poor projects. Donor funding should be used speculatively, like venture capital, to fund startling and innovative new ideas, to support fledgling – but success...

40. Racial arguments muddy human rights and the ending of poverty
(Analysis/Analysis)

...er risen up against similar behaviour by their royal house.  Even France’s continuing terror of capitalism and globalisation are simply a way of pretending that they can control their futur...

41. Making money, doing good
(Analysis/Analysis)

...arries by hand to the district before the information can be brought to Kigali,” the country’s capital, says Dr Innocent Nyaruhirira, who holds the cabinet-level post of minister for HIV/A...

42. The best bridge out of poverty is over the future of cash
(Analysis/Analysis)

... outside forces. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) has seen numerous big-listings flee overseas where capital is more readily available.  Foreign investors couldn’t read the JSE and so...

43. The Martians Really Care: four points to govern development
(Analysis/Ideas and Challenges)

...to assist them in reaching some goal.  Development sits uncomfortably alongside the objectives of the capitalist community at large.  Capitalists enjoy the fruit of development but developme...

44. Bringing Capital to Small Enterprise
(Analysis/Ideas and Challenges)

... lender and the borrower, in aggregate, must remain obliged. And here we can borrow, intellectually, from capital markets: specifically, from financial structures in the collateralised debt obligatio...

45. How do we prepare nonprofit organisations for the long term?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...rventions but also prepare these organizations for self-sufficiency in the future – a cornerstone of capitalism; our best system for economic sustainability and growth so far. And it is these b...

46. So how exactly do you invest in the Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...to statistical reports on market trends, to specially hired consultants.  The free flow of finance in capital markets depends on independent and impartial trend analysis and institutional ratings...

47. May I have the bill, please? A lesson in wilful ignorance ...
(Analysis/Analysis)

...y are able to ignore the problem.  People tend to avoid confrontation and business owners are happily capitalising on our fears. But businesses, at least, suffer the frequent indignity of having...

48. Is the ownership of property at odds with the needs of the poor?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...declared, “Property is theft.” "The peasant who hires land, the manufacturer who borrows capital, the tax-payer who pays tolls, duties, patent and license fees, personal and property...

49. Does the new Apple iPhone cause poverty?
(Analysis/Analysis)

There is a naïve belief that, as the rich get richer, they consume more of the world’s resources and – in so doing – leave an ever dwindling amount of stuff over for the poor.

50. Ayn Rand
(Analysis/Quotes)

Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those