Article

2013-07-02 Africa Subsaharan

Obama Plans to Power Africa--With Soccer Balls

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Posted by tipper 2013-07-02 07:05|| || Front Page|| [11133 views ] Top

#1 Crematoriums......can they produce electrical power ?

Posted by Besoeker 2013-07-02 10:32|| 2013-07-02 10:32|| Front Page Top

#2 Wut, no Monorail?

Posted by swksvolFF 2013-07-02 12:20|| 2013-07-02 12:20|| Front Page Top

#3 Doug Powers notes
The people in Fromans hypothetical example are living in a remote, off-the-grid village with no electricity but apparently theres a cell phone tower just up the road.

Posted by tipper 2013-07-02 14:19|| 2013-07-02 14:19|| Front Page Top

#4 I respect the idea. But here is the thing. The consumer is disconnected from the manufacturer. The marketing of this items is not to poor families in the third world, but to the do-gooders who all bought and wore TOMS shoes before realizing they were made in a sweatshop in China. Another Aid-Dev fail were Playpumps, a NGO fad a few years ago.

If you asked the poor family in need if they'd prefer an old fashioned hand pump & some rice to a gadgety soccket ball, they prefer the hand pump.

This plays back to the whole Playpumps fail. The communities needed hand pumps and not gadgety playground equipment. But gadgety "green" technologies chase and get the grant dollars. It took awhile, but eventually the blowback from the involved communities caused the NGOs and 501C to scrape the initiative.

And that's my point. The consumer is largely ignored. These are more happy ribbons for the Left. Cost benefit analysis be damned. It's the idea.

Posted by mossomo 2013-07-02 17:53|| 2013-07-02 17:53|| Front Page Top

#5 Crematoriums......can they produce electrical power ?

Might as well just burn money.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2013-07-02 19:18|| 2013-07-02 19:18|| Front Page Top

#6 mossromo says:. The consumer is largely ignored.

Not really. The consumer is he who pays the piper. The Grant providers and NGOs are the consumers of these items but they're not the end users.

The end users have no say much like the patients in our insurance driven healthcare payment system. The consumer is the insurance company.

Posted by AlanC 2013-07-02 20:32|| 2013-07-02 20:32|| Front Page Top

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