Absurd bureaucracy in many poor countries leads to the fact that only the rich and well-connected elite can get around the laws and regulations. Better than doubling development aid and cancelling debts would be to promote private property, set up a fair legal system and a free economy.

Die Entwicklungsländer, sagt er, könnten die Armut aus eigener Kraft bewältigen. Dazu bräuchten sie keine Verdoppelung der Hilfsgelder und auch keinen Schuldenerlass, wie das jüngst der G-8-Gipfel in Schottland beschloss und diese Woche der Uno-Gipfel in New York bekräftigt hat. Erfolgversprechender als alle Milliardengeschenke, sagt der Sohn eines sozialistischen Politikers, seien: Privateigentum, Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Marktwirtschaft. Diese Botschaft verbreitet de Soto mit dem Talent zum eingängigen Beispiel. Beschwörend schüttelt er beide Arme und sagt heiser: «Vergessen Sie doch Ihre eigene Geschichte nicht. Die Schweiz war noch im 19. Jahrhundert das Armenhaus Europas, ein Drittweltland mit nur wenigen natürlichen Rohstoffen. Auch sie wurde nicht dank Entwicklungshilfe wohlhabend, sondern weil sie sich eine funktionierende Marktwirtschaft und einen intakten Rechtsstaat schuf.»

source: Weltwoche.ch

Further link on Hernando de Soto:
Biography

Example how external aid supports unproductive policies:

James Shikwati, who heads the Inter Region Economic Network, a Kenyan NGO, says drought aid to his country in the 1990s “killed production” in many areas and increased dependency.

Aid can also encourage misguided policies. Mr Shikwati says this has been the case in Ethiopia, where farmers are not allowed to own land.

Instead of introducing reforms, he notes, the government appeals for aid.

When donors respond, Mr Shikwati says, “they are subsidising a government policy that makes it difficult for people to be productive”.

source: BBC NEWS | Africa | Can aid do more harm than good?

Entry in an advertising agency’s blog:

Können Sie auch altweiàŸ? (in German)

found this very useful link on speaking at technical conferences.

I enjoyed reading A.J. Jacobs’ article on outsourcing his life to India.

I particularly liked the emails his personal assistant wrote on his behalf to stop receiving press releases:

Dear All,
Jacobs often receives mails from Colorado news, too often. They are definitely interesting topics. However, these topics are not suitable for “Esquire.”

Further, we do understand that you have taken a lot of initiatives working on these articles and sending it to us. We understand. Unfortunately, these articles and mails are too time consuming to be read.

Currently, these mails are not serving right purpose for both of us. Thus, we request to stop sending these mails.

We do not mean to demean your research work by this.

We hope you understand too.

Thanking you,

Honey K B

I hadn’t heard about Your Man in India, but it sounds like a great service for expatters in general.

And I think Jacobs is right that there are quite a few good outsourcing companies out there with very motivated employees that are learning fast.

Source: kottke.org

Bei der Ciba Spezialitätenchemie im deutschen Grenzach ist am Dienstagmittag ein Grossbrand ausgebrochen. Die Bevölkerung in der umliegenden Region und auch in der Stadt Basel wurde aufgefordert, Türen und Fenster zu schliessen, da zunächst nicht feststand, ob giftiger Rauch entwich.

source: Basler Zeitung Online

It’s absolutely crucial for anybody in communication — and that could be journalists, TV, media, all of it, or marketing people — if you want to appeal to people, it’s absolutely crucial to understand what I call the reptilian hot button. If you don’t have a reptilian hot button, then you have to deal with the cortex; you have to work on price issues and stuff like that.

source: PBS

useful: Test bed for WordPress

for future reference:

One of the key reasons for Google’s success is a belief that good ideas can, and should, come from anywhere. Page and Brin insist that all engineers in the company have one day a week to work on their own pet projects. An ideas mailing list is open to anyone at Google who wants to post a proposal. What Mayer does is help figure out how to make sure good ideas bubble to the surface and get the attention they need. The task is becoming more complex as Google grows, with a workforce of 4,200 now and revenues on track to hit $3.7 billion this year.

Business Week article on Marisa Mayer

Rick Segal’s advice: Avoid Web 2.0 categorization. And it’s not just an easy way to find funding. You still need the business to go with it.

if you are working on solving a problem and looking to make money from the solution, focus on the customer and take advantage of what your ancestors, those Web 1.0 old farts, have done for you.

Lots of Bandwidth = You can do it on the web as a service

Lots of Storage = You can give people rich content because they can get it quickly

Lots of users = “Everybody” can get to an Internet connection

Free is good = You can do a lot, code a lot, market a lot, without spending tons of money

By the way:
Web 2.0 2005 is sold out, and registration is closed.

Quark’s “New” Look

Brief overview of themes in WordPress 1.5

Hat tip: weblogger.ch

(update 21.03.2008) both of the above links no longer work 🙁

This would be very useful on Sunday afternoons in the ICE train:
a sitbag

found this so-called meme map on Web 2.0 via Read/Write Web.

Web Design Cheat Sheets for Illustrator, Photoshop, and co.

via Swissmiss

the numbers say it all:

• $26 In CASH per download.
• 43x current year revenues.
• works out to about $20 million/Skype employee

source: Om Malik’s Broadband Blog » SkypeBay done for $4.1 Billion.

My comment:
i hope Skype won’t change for the worse. Cos I like the tool and use it often.