Torsten - All Comments

re: James Shikwati: Africa doesn't need Aid

Jerida Maphoto Mathipa — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:09:42 GMT

the article by shikwati is making sense bcoz africa is not actually poor as it luks. there is money invested in swiss banks that is from african countries. Lack of proper financial mangnt contnues to ruin Africa irrespective of the aid we recve from the West

re: diamonds and Kimberley process certificates

Epoche* — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:49:16 GMT

A through market in phony diamond certificates as well as more cvd diamonds would "protect" people more than anything else I can think of.

re: Sources for e-Texts in social sciences and philosophy

Junker — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:32:41 GMT

http://www.fee.org/library

re: Sources for e-Texts in social sciences and philosophy

Robert Brager — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:13:17 GMT

Well, another, more Kinsellian way of acquiring e-texts is to acquire a safe file-sharing program (I recommend Soulseek, which filters out entirely potentially damaging file suffixes) and then, whilst requiring much patience on the part of the fileseeker, utilizing the search features of the software, search for ".pdf" or ".doc" or whichever you prefer and then scan through your results for anything that might appeal.

This is the mode most like fishing. It's not ideal, but I've found some real gems. .pdf files that were purchased from Springer, Oxford, Cambridge, or Amazon and thus otherwise unavailable to the casual fileseeker.

GoogleBooks is a Godsend as well. With scant exception, most of the pre-1923 publications I've sought out and even some I didn't I've been able to acquire. The regular Google search engine can work wonders too, if you know the book you're looking for, or a subject, sometimes entering the book's name and filetype:pdf yields results.

Human Rights Watch, while generally offering statist policy proscriptions, offers many (I would say most) of their publications for .pdf download, and they're certainly quite useful for ascertaining knowledge of (sometimes) obscure global conflicts and a greater understanding of all of the players involved. If you're a John Denson or vehemently anti-imperial sort of Misesian scholar, Human Rights Watch is a great place to stop for .pdf e-texts.

As you can see, I'm biased towards .pdf documents. I think they're easily the most ideal and they're convertible for the most part as well. Bartleby and Gutenberg aren't fond of Adobe apparently, their typesets are hideous, frankly, and virtually all of what they have to offer are available elsewhere in a presentation more conducive to aesthetic sensibility and readability.

re: Sources for e-Texts in social sciences and philosophy

Junker — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:29:39 GMT

http://www.archive.org

onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com

re: James Shikwati: Africa doesn't need Aid

martinf — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 00:56:21 GMT

Yes, I also think it would be a good idea. It would be great to count on someone who speaks about Third World from a libertarian point of view, and specially someone who comes from those countries. Another economist who has written about this is Xavier Sala-i-Martin, a Spanish professor at Columbia University. He's not Austrian, but has made interesting points about globalization, the World Distribution of Income and why Africa doesn't need foreign aid.

re: James Shikwati: Africa doesn't need Aid

Torsten — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:58:34 GMT

... I am familar with the situation in Africa, espeacially South Africa and Ghana to a lesser extent. Through business and personal contacts I'm aware about what is going on in some of the other countries as well (Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe). James Shikwati is one of the first that talks out very frankly on the issue, but I think it is already known to many. Don't forget that most economists are actually working for the government or financially dependent on the government. And indirectly they may benefit from the Aid money as well.

Someone else said that large sums of Aid money (or money from the exploitation of minerals) is one of the motivators for civil wars and coups. We as Westerners may make differences between the political, business, private and spiritual spheres. For Black Africans this is not necessarily so. They think politics is a means of getting rich and famous, while work and business is not held in that much esteem. One can also notice that they don't distinguish between authority and power. Might is right to them. That is nobody dares to do something against Mugabe in Zimbabwe. I'm not sure whether they are ready for new initiatives, but I think especially in Zimbabwe they are sick and tired of what their government is doing. So new ideas may find an interested audience. It would be important to spread the message elsewhere as well, since most of "AID" is actually coming from first world countries.

So I also would think that it would be a good idea, if the Mises Institute could invite him to a conference or seminar as a speaker. I'm sure James and perhaps a few others would even appreciate this.

Now I think I should start a thread in the forum, where we can discuss this.... What do you think?

re: James Shikwati: Africa doesn't need Aid

martin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:48:51 GMT

If there were more experts and economists who thought like James Shikwati, I think Africa would be better. I guess you know the situation of Africa.

Are there many African people ready to take new initiatives and able to develop the continent? I mean, developing the continent if State let them free.

I'd like to know your views.

Thanks

re: Sources for e-Texts in social sciences and philosophy

martin — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:18:23 GMT

More,

http://www.independent.org/

http://www.econlib.org/

http://archive.freecapitalists.org/default.aspx

TrackBack — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:27:21 GMT

re: Sources for e-Texts in social sciences and philosophy

Pedro — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:11:39 GMT

http://www.gutenberg.org

http://www.bartleby.com/