whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1. Apple, the destroyer of comfort-zones
(Analysis/Analysis)

The music industry has been an unhappy one for almost a decade. Music sales are worth some $ 17.6 billion, but that is 10% down in just the last four years. For every song sold, 20 are estimated to

2. The Remarkable Power of Remarkable People
(Analysis/Analysis)

...try to avoid it. Tax one, tax all When you select against a particular group, then the most ambitious and creative people within that group move. Sometimes they hide out within society by simply qu...

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

Governments do not know anything about competition, innovation or the power of individual investment. The best they can offer is collective blame shedding and the waste of taxpayers' money on pop

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

...city, and ban incandescent light bulbs. The only way to promote responsible use of electricity, as well as creative innovation, is to make it expensive. As a side-effect it'll help the environme...

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

...trial revolution and, a little over 100 years later, to us. Joseph Schumpeter came up with the phrase "creative destruction" in 1942; the act which destroys the old way of doing things and u...

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

...make investment in new ideas prohibitive. High tax rates and extortionate political policies push the most creative out of the country. Yet, as we head into the home stretch in the race to discover ...

7. 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

8. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

Atlas Shrugged 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 hi

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

At 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 t

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

"When do you think Zimbabwe will collapse?" asked Tama Muru, from the BBC's HARDtalk. "It has already collapsed," said Whythawk. Zimbabwe, for all the posturing by Robert Mug

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

...iticians sometimes don't do exactly what they promised." Nigeria is a populous nation filled with creative and ambitious people. The only reason it remains poor is because of corrupt and ve...

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

...s concerned about is the gradual undermining of accountability and responsibility. Laurence Lessig and the Creative Commons movement have done a great deal to campaign for the end of copyright and a ...

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

...er comes great responsibility,” as Spiderman would have it. Professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons movement, will have nothing of these namby-pamby sentiments.  He belie...

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

... be sure to post them in the comments section. UWC are quite excited about their speaker list:  "Creative Commons founder Prof Lawrence Lessig, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Co-founder of ...

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

...But it isn't really free, is it? On every page – from Wikipedia, to Ubuntu Linux, to Mozilla, to Creative Commons – there is that little logo that gives voice to the lie that anything...

16. The Last King, the Centralised State, and Democracy
(Analysis/Analysis)

Echoing the cry of every volunteer who has ever run away to some disabled and corrupt country, Dr Nicholas Garrigan rages at a British diplomat, “You guys come here and don’t recognise tha

17. Cry, The Beloved Country
(Analysis/Analysis)

There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills. These hills are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it. The road climbs seven miles into them, to Carisbroo

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

From the Davos Summit, to the World Social Forum, to where-ever Bono is burbling on, poverty is hot stuff on the international social circuit.  We are excoriated for ignoring the “Fortunate

19. Government rewards the worst schools for poor performance
(Analysis/Analysis)

...hat education is not only in dire straights, but also that the state seems woefully unprepared to introduce creative new mechanisms to improve standards.  The matric results indicated a number of...

20. Millennium Development Goals and the Measurement of Change
(Analysis/Analysis)

In 2000, members of the United Nations agreed on a set of priority poverty alleviation objectives, known as the Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015. They are, briefly: Goal 1: eradi

21. The end of wild seafood and the myth of "free"
(Analysis/Analysis)

There are very few things in life that are free: air, water, seafood … not free in the sense that you don’t pay for them (water out the tap, fresh fish in the markets) but the product its

22. Is the $ 100 laptop no more than a really expensive light-bulb?
(Analysis/Analysis)

Back in 1997, as a young engineering student, I conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the Freeplay Wind-up Radio, then in early release.  It was being pitched as a low-cost way to bring the wonder

23. Poverty: when second best isn't good enough
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ome wealthy because they had an advantage in technology - that came later. Poverty is caused by a dearth of creative thinking and local ambition to succeed. Cheap offcuts do nothing to stimulate that ...

24. A sense of scale
(Analysis/Analysis)

...n and bureaucracy it can take up to two years to legally start a business. Since only the most talented and creative start businesses, they must choose between the few available jobs, migrating to oth...

25. Research Reports, eBooks and Ideas
(Static Content)

... order to subscribe, first register), some is subject to copyright , while the eBooks are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License . Each is so indicated. eBook files are PDF's and 50 -...

26. Unlock the Value in Emerging Markets
(Static Content)

The world's largest and fastest growing economies are all informal ones - the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid - and the most dynamic and competitive companies are the ones that have seen the

27. Research Reports, eBooks and Ideas
(Static Content)

... order to subscribe, first register), some is subject to copyright , while the eBooks are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License . Each is so indicated. eBook files are PDF's and 50 -...

28. Unlock the Value in Emerging Markets
(Static Content)

The world's largest and fastest growing economies are all informal ones - the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid - and the most dynamic and competitive companies are the ones that have seen the

29. Whythawk Podcast Downloads
(Category List)

... Alll presentations are recorded as MP3s, playable in your favourite audio player, and are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License . ...