whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

...e: 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 as an argument not to do the thi...

2.
(Comments)

...s you may have. Otherwise, I could care less if his answers and purpose seem like a vanity project, if the product is a good and useful one. Now some of the possible issues that people have been blog...

3.
(Comments)

...erefore the responsibility lies directly with the US. The onus should be on the importer to check that the product complies with that country\'s safety standard....

4.
(Comments)

...as BA has just been found guilty of) collude to defraud the public, nor may they force people to buy their products. If net neutrality is to mean anything then it must set a platform that is neutra...

5.
(Comments)

....\" I think there are significant benefits for moving towards greater formality - formal firms are more productive than informal firms and formality brings revenue to Government. There\'s a huge li...

6.
(Comments)

...f you don\'t know what it is: \"Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are mostly privately[1] owned and operated for profit...\" You\'re right that h...

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

...educed hours or send them home while keeping them on full pay. That isn't possible for long. Without production, there is nothing to sell. Without anything to sell, there are no profits. Witho...

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

... get larger volumes, decrease relative costs, and so increase their profits. They can differentiate their products by going upmarket and so charge higher prices. Or they can simply go out of busines...

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

...ividual investors. The great fortunes and great losses have been in private hands. Compare that with the products and services that governments decide are essential and that they feel are too import...

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

In 1998 the US state of California partially deregulated electricity production and sales. The "partially" bit is where things came ungummed. The private companies that purchased the righ

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

...liver on its promise. The resulting skills shortage and illness leads to reduced economic growth, limited production capacity, and product shortages. This mismatch between outcomes and promises is ...

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

...you that. According to Stats SA the current inflation rate for vegetables is now 25.6%, and that of grain products – a staple for many – is 17.3%. And these rates of inflation are all in...

13. Exports and parliamentary laziness
(Analysis/Analysis)

...;So," asked Jennings, "why is it that the financial press only concentrates on mining?" The production of primary products – such as mined resources – is an easy one to cove...

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

...further attention. Businesses keep to the sides and influence protectionist policies – also counter-productive – where they can. This is sad, as it makes for very one-sided debates. All...

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

... put their money into something stable. Once again they have chosen gold. Yet gold, too, is just another product.  It is no different from houses, shares or bonds, and – like these inves...

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

...his is precisely what the HandMade Project declares: "The accumulating environmental effects of mass production are a major cause of global warming and the poisoning of our air, water and soil.&...

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

...flection of the collective will and interests of the people who happen to be living there. Skills are not products in the same way that pocket calculators are products. Pocket calculators can travel...

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

...er way round. Business success does not mean that jobs will be created. Businesses act to maximise their production and efficiency. From the invention of the wheel, to the steam engine to the micro...

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

...lse. By selling the land they allow another farmer to combine different plots to create a larger and more productive farm, and the seller can take their profits and use it to improve their own lives ...

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

...y law in Africa is not a very definite thing. Whole industries, such as telecommunications or electricity production, may be protected. Land ownership by foreigners may be illegal. Redistribution p...

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

...n Europe and the US. Mattel, the world's largest toymaker, has recalled more than 20 million of their products, including Fisher Price and Barbie. The cause? Toys with paint containing too high...

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

...t announced their unequivocal support for “the development of the Transnet Pipelines’ new multiproduct pipeline which is necessary to alleviate the identified constraints in the petroleum ...

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

...ding has gone into empowerment.” He pointed out that rising prices at the till have a lot to do with production shortages.  Companies should have been building new plants and factories to t...

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

...t numbers.  They got inflation wrong.  They got the rate of job creation wrong.  They got production numbers wrong.  And it wasn't until others pointed out inconsistencies t...

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

...'t need the extra schools or hospitals. The latest on this is that government is to reduce tariffs on products needed for its R 400 billion infrastructure development programme. The products aff...

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

...y rights. By that I mean that, any contractual dispute (whether about the ownership of property, ideas or products, or a legal wrangle) can be sorted out by a recognised third-party whose decision is...

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

...g LinkedIn as the premier destination for business networking. Now, while Facebook may be the superior product when it comes to social networking that leads to business opportunities, LinkedIn i...

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

...assets of weaker firms and maintain their competitive advantage. Customers and society win as inefficient products are removed from the market and the base standard rises. There are losers, of cours...

29. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

... are and why they do it, as society turned the name "businessman" into a curse. The book was a product of its times. Communism was raging through Europe, South America and Asia and Africa....

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

... it's printed on Zimbabwe is short of everything and produces virtually no food on some of the most productive farmland in the world 80% of the population depends on the informal sector for ...

31. 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

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

...less poor. He printed cash and gave it to veterans and the rural destitute. He fixed prices on essential products at low prices to benefit the poor. And, when business owners flouted those rules, h...

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

...ting of the UCT Unilever School of Marketing that companies that neglect the Black Diamonds will see their products displaced by those who don't, the informal sector is filled with unbranded Chine...

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

... beast. The company itself can make anything from computer software to ball bearings to soft drinks. Its products are usually sold throughout the world and its owners can be scattered. But maybe th...

35. 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

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

...use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields. He points out, in the Economist, that global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. ...

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

...efficient. Low wages, manual labour and limited education go hand-in-hand with poor performance and lousy product quality. In the rich world the efficiency gains have allowed workers a choice: eith...

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

...fare, and be paid to drink and be bored, by the state. If you are too old to work, or too unhealthy to be productive, what of you? That is where taxes come in. Capitalism generates wealth. How tha...

39. Guess which South African cellular company offers the best contract tariffs?
(Analysis/Analysis)

Whythawk does not normally stoop to being a consumer-action journal; however, when the products in question are cell-phone contracts it may be of interest to understand how they stack up against each

40. Sarkozy's French Election: when elephants fight only the grass gets trampled
(Analysis/Analysis)

...it, prices go up. This increases the cost of local manufactures and decreases the competitiveness of these products against imports.  The companies who have been affected promptly declare that th...

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

...se went to GATT (now the World Trade Organisation). France declared that they were simply preventing toxic products from entering their market; citing evidence that Costa Rica used harmful pesticides ...

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

... in Africa is a result of a lack of MRI scanners at their hospitals; no matter how much this sophisticated product would improve their diagnostic capacity. Talk of the digital divide ignores the stabi...

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

...ies to make headway in the fight against poverty than making it possible for our citizens to be engaged in productive work, which would continue to be decent, within the context specific to our circum...

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

...nture is the creator of all this content: everyone.  More than four million people have helped in the production of over seven million articles in 251 languages.  Over 1.7 million of these a...

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

... protectionism when the EU refused to trade with us until we renamed our Shiraz, Champagne and Grappa wine products. Lessig has a point, certainly.  He is especially expressive when it comes to t...

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

... afraid that it’s not sustainable, or that there isn’t enough support for Free and Open Source products.  But one of the things we’re aiming to show with the Expo is that there ...

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

...billion a year on goods – surely a market worth pursuing. And, no, it isn't exploitation to aim products at the poor. Exploitation is when you allow intermediaries to purchase bulk quantit...

48. What market is worth R 100 billion a year and is growing at 10.9%?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...s The poor love high-quality brands; they cannot afford to risk their money and will not experiment on new products unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so Stokvels are complex and well-run fi...

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

...rove competitiveness since companies usually price in a typical default rate for their industries into the products they sell.  If it is clear that you won’t default then they can reduce th...

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

...t, if farmers had greater access to information, they would be able to supply ITC with a better quality of product at a better range of prices. Intermediaries under-paid farmers, mixed the soya beans...