whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

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

...ion or the power of individual 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...

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

...rises then we try to drive less. If there are water shortages then higher prices punish those of us who waste. Eskom, despite terrible electricity shortages, must continue to provide free electricit...

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

The entire private hospital sector, including Netcare, Life and Medi-Clinic, is worth about R 63 billion a year. Yet this large number is only 4.6% of the total South African economy. State spendin

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

...100 / barrel – can only ever scream heaven-wards. The National Party put their faith in gold and wasted a decade of high gold values on the trauma of Apartheid.  And we shouldn't, no...

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

...eads 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 gave us motor cars also gave us th...

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

...hat embarrassed at how much money they got to deal with the tsunami. Billions of dollars was needlessly wasted. No-one talks about Bam. And now we have Pakistan awash in water and begging the west ...

7. When equality becomes unfair: South Africa's two economies
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ing Mexican workers entering the US to seek for job denied them at home. Europe, with their gratuitously wasteful Common Agricultural Project, does the same with their agriculture. Union representativ...

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

...ould result in an ever-improving standard of investments and products.  It would be inefficient and wasteful. This is the current state of the development sector.  Popular NGOs soak up vast...

9. "Heads or Tails" ... resolution to a difficult choice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...sets up, builds, fails, learns, gets the hang of it and is cast out. And so on. Money has been spent and wasted; skills have been learnt and lost; individuals have been carried for a while. But how e...

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

...r it. If development is seen as magnanimous but totally disconnected from our daily lives, then we will waste it.  If development is seen as a means towards trade and investment then we will ask...

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

... with others is property; from the clothes you wear, to the time spent on conversation.  People who waste your time are, technically, stealing it. It takes time and investment to learn things.&n...

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

..., since they are free, no-one is responsible for them.  Factories and households happily dump their waste (organic and otherwise) into the nearest river or ocean; cars and factories belch fumes ...

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

...test light source in the home.” That has to count as probably the silliest reason in the world to waste all this time and effort producing a $ 100 laptop.  There are many technological bre...

14. The danger of wanting to believe in the power of good intentions
(Analysis/Analysis)

...money directly to people who have lost the capacity to know what is in their own best interest is simply wasteful and may leave the giver feeling all warm and fuzzy but does little for the recipient, ...

15. Guide to Donating
(Analysis/Donation Tips)

...r giving plans so that the organisation knows it can rely on the you and the charity doesn't have to waste resources and harass you by sending numerous solicitations.  This content is custom...

16. Senescence, the death of development
(Analysis/Analysis)

...eathe. If development is seen as magnanimous but totally disconnected from our daily lives, then we will waste it. If development is seen as a means towards trade and investment then it would look com...