whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

... the confiscation of the commons by the screaming greediness of folk who have funded their research from moneys gotten from exactly the same source, the average person. The question is not \\\"tax...

2.
(Comments)

...rruption and failed economic policies? Rich people have no interest in poor people. Rich people make money by selling stuff; like microwave ovens, refrigerators, television sets, playstations and ...

3.
(Comments)

...m average of 5.5%) I get a rate at which inflation will eat up their gains. Of course, if they borrowed money to cover their losses, then all bets are off and they may never recover that increase. ...

4.
(Comments)

...e is a good analogy, as I know there are other factors involved such as cross-subsidy with tax-payers\' money. So the current \'competitiveness\' is not self-sustainable....

5. Government and Business, Panic and Rescue
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ow, if the banks are unable to offer credit it affects everyone. Small business owners who need to lend money against a contract to pay salaries today, households who need to use a credit card to tid...

6. Taxing the poor so that the rich can buy expensive cars
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e regressive. They fall more heavily on the wealthy than on the poor, partly because the rich have more money, and partly because one of the objectives of taxes is the politically tactile issue of &l...

7. The charity of dumping
(Analysis/Analysis)

...haritable programs aim to teach rural subsistence farmers how to produce more commercial crops. Lots of money and time are spent on these programs. At the end of the programs the consultants have be...

8. Higher food prices are good for the poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

... You may not like this, but it continues to be impossible to legislate how people should spend their own money. Countries that have legislated how investors are supposed to operate soon find they ha...

9. Prediction Markets for the Poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

...way of figuring out what people really want still comes down to what they are prepared to risk their own money or time on. This has led to the creation of what are called Prediction Markets. Say a c...

10. After Conceit: Recovering from the Credit Crunch
(Analysis/Analysis)

Wealth is created through an economic sleight of hand. All the money in circulation is a promise, not only of the value already in existence, but of the future value that people have promised to crea

11. The Revenge of the Markets
(Analysis/Analysis)

... As the terror has taken hold, investors are selling their shares the way that depositors withdrew their money from Saambou Bank back in 2002. No plan, just don’t be the last one standing when ...

12. Trade Liberalisation isn't only between Rich and Poor
(Analysis/Analysis)

... the profits from another, then that could be called good marketing. If that division continues to lose money, then most businesses usually sell it or shut it down. The US government currently sub...

13. Possession of state assets has become an end in itself
(Analysis/Analysis)

... itself. Yet, despite daily evidence that they're incompetent managers offering terrible value for money, government continues to want to own schools, hospitals and utilities. The Swedish gover...

14. Mozambique's Lessons for South Africa
(Analysis/Analysis)

...eck. Not all the corruption in Mozambique is this obvious, but it is ever present. More than 50% of all money spent in Mozambique derives from the charitable donations of the citizens of rich nations...

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

...source of much debate and political intrigue. Consider: rich people spend a smaller proportion of their money on food and clothing, but more of their money on big houses, flashy cars and other obviou...

16. South Ossetia: Russia and Georgia's dangerous game
(Analysis/Analysis)

...se to be stationed in Poland. They have supported dictators in as many countries as they can find. Oil money gives them the cash they need to afford influence. And the US moral stature has been sev...

17. No way out; ducking the Eskom bullet
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ductive capacity can do two things: they can go to their shareholders or creditors and ask them for more money, or they can raise the prices on their existing products to cover the cost. Eskom would ...

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

... Netcare operates subsidised nursing colleges where 40% of graduates go to their competitors. They spend money on Netcare 911 – an emergency service that assisted over 15,000 people in 2007 at a...

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

...vidual investment. The best they can offer is collective blame shedding and the waste of taxpayers' money on populist causes. As Jacob Zuma said in Davos, "I’m not certain whether whe...

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

...ost of free electricity after Eskom's price increase of 14.2% will require that the state spend less money elsewhere, decreasing services to the poor, or raise taxes, making business a less effici...

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

...and allowed them to cash them in at their favourite private schools. Government services have increased money supply without increasing economic value. Government has promised a service – qual...

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

...tes will be arrested for currency hoarding. In Zimbabwe, possession of "too much" of your own money is now a crime. Welcome to the world's fastest shrinking economy where the currency d...

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

...ir products for biofuels will have the perverse result of increasing food prices. Using tax-payers' money to inflate prices is hardly sound economic policy. Government, as far as biofuels is con...

24. Exports and parliamentary laziness
(Analysis/Analysis)

...s matters even worse as manufacturers go cap in hand to "beg" government to allow them to send money abroad to pay for all these marketing and sales junkets. Sharma says that South Africa h...

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

...reased medical fees. Yet no business leaders have stood up and expressed outrage over the misuse of the money they pay in taxes. Until the 13th of November 2007, that is. Jonathan Shapiro – Z...

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

...d to the value of the hand that holds it?" to misquote Terry Pratchett in his latest book, Making Money. Money, and the relative value of money, has always been of critical interest to invest...

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

...h can justly claim that South Africa "steals" all their talent, receives 26% of their GDP from money sent home. Do you think that the nation of Lesotho would benefit if South African mines ...

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

...lfish and refusing to create them, goes the argument. Pointless jobs can be created with taxpayers' money but taxpayers' money cannot be created without active and successful businesses. Job...

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

...eated a more confident and wealthier middle-class. This middle-class bought houses. They borrowed more money against the value of their houses and improved them, raising property prices further and ...

30. The Miracle of Investment
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ifferent. Perhaps the department of Trade and Industry decides that retail complex owners make too much money and rentals should be regulated. Maybe developers should apply for a certificate of need...

31. Killing the Golden Goose, a lesson in Economic Freedom
(Analysis/Analysis)

...s a market need for a new telephone service and lobbyists from existing businesses spend a great deal of money convincing her that this isn't necessary. The result is that consumers lose. Withou...

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

...quot;windfall" received by people who haven't earned it gets spent. This increases the overall money supply without increasing the value of the economy. This may lead to the short-term illu...

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

... is a ludicrous suggestion. After all when Jo'burgers buy property in Cape Town they not only spend money here buying a nice expensive asset but they are also guaranteed to spend more time here s...

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

...n the path to growth ... But if there is no clear evidence that aid boosts growth, then handing out more money makes little sense," they conclude. In a failed state, such as Nigeria or Sierra Le...

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

...d together for mutual support and commiseration. Except for Rupert. The Murdoch media empire does make money. It's astonishingly profitable. News Corporation is even, as Murdoch was quick to p...

36. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...once all the John Galt's leave. "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is mon...

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

...ple choose to meet for the purpose of trade and exchange. Sellers bring their goods, buyers bring their money. The bulk of that cash arises from donations from exiled Zimbabweans supporting loved-one...

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

...39;t limited to the US Linking their currency to the SA rand poses tremendous risks for South Africa. Money is based on fiat, or trust. The money supply must reflect the underlying value of the ec...

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

...Inflation There are 3.5 million Zimbabweans living in exile in South Africa and the UK. They all send money home as often as they can. Modern telecommunication systems allow them to send foreign c...

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

...nk goodness executives can still buy good feelings and happy times by dispensing their shareholders' money on charitable works. It's hard for shareholders to complain because then they'll...

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

...ris. That funny smudge on the horizon might be a tsunami. Seriously, though, who are you going to give money to come a terrible disaster? Iran after an earthquake in Bam that levelled a city and bu...

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

...rike. Consider this: for every day on strike, workers will have to work another 40 just to recover the money they lost. The 20 working days lost equates to three and a half years before they recover...

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

... is just too impossibly unstable, only the most scary of entrepreneurs go. While they may make a lot of money, they may also wind up dead. This is development from the outside in. The poor in these...

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

...sed warmly with a look of balmy good-will: "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, ...

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

...y. Oil. It is owned by the government. Whoever owns the government owns the oil. And pockets all the money. Spending a few hundred million to secure that largess is nothing. "And you don...

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

...se of you wondering why anyone would dedicate so much time and effort to writing outstanding copy for no money now know. Bloggers are just like those who invested in quirky dotcoms in the hopes of bei...

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

...In other words, the fund is suitable for anyone looking for higher yields than they get by keeping their money in a bank account but still wants a safe place to keep it.  People who have cashed i...

48. Government to gag South African bloggers?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...what?" Then what, indeed? Anton Harber, Professor of Journalism at Wits University, speaking on the Moneyweb Power Hour declared:  “Every possible media organisation, every editor, ev...

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

...a lot, absolute poverty is at 41%.  Conversely, though, 59% of Africans are NOT destitute and have money to spend.  They just have nothing to buy. With the current state of communication, t...

50. Internet Bubble 2.0: the future of dotcom depends on the mobile phone
(Analysis/Analysis)

...shared revenue model that has boosted Web 2.0.  Websites with no conceivable revenue model now make money by hosting Google Adwords.  Suddenly companies can offer user-created content in eve...