Can We Measure Politics and Political Development?

Measuring how countries perform is all the rage. Everyone from the World Bank to Bertelsmann to Africa’s most famous entrepreneur does it, producing indices on things like how competitive economies are, how hungry populations are, how free the press is, how risky investments are, and how corrupt public sectors are. Many of these indices are [...]

Recession and suicide

Materialistic/hedonistic lifestyle and Suicide During the Great Depression, the press published dramatic stories of people committing suicide after they had lost their savings, homes, and/or jobs. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently reports that more than 800,000 people kill themselves each year, a rate that has been rising owing to the recent recession. Is there [...]

GDP per capita: Africa’s one & important target

Some Africans in government of their nations attended the just concluded world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland; their message of Africa rising is strong and forms a major part of their campaign. Africa is tipped to be the next economic powerhouse after last decade surge of countries like China, Brazil and India. This could be true [...]

Angola: Publicly account for the US$32 billion unexplained discrepancy

H.E. Mr. Carlos Alberto Lopes, Minister of Finance, Luanda, República de Angola Re: Angola: Publicly account for the US$32 billion unexplained discrepancy Your Excellency, I am writing to you to urge you to publicly account for the US$32 billion unexplained discrepancy in Angola’s public funds that was reported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I [...]

How to underdevelop a nation: IMF-EU prescription for Greece

There are signs not just in Greece and Portugal, but across Southern and Eastern Europe that popular uprisings may be inevitable in spring-to-summer 2012. Following the second bailout package of Greece, it now seems inevitable that Portugal too will need one as well. Portugal’s government has asked Germany for a second bailout, but the Merkel [...]

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