Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

Corruption in Kenya and the Scarcity Mentality

The Daily Corruption Spread Is the perception of a resource scarcity to blame for corruption?  A number of resources on the pre-colonial state of the factors of production in Kenya all conclude with similar findings. There was a lot of “idle” land, probably by design or because of nature. The population was low, and there was a lot of forest coverage in the main population areas. What is certain though was that there was a lot of disease and pests which affected animals, crops and people alike. This especially decimated animals stocks,  made farming a challenge and in effect, checked the growth of animal, farmland and people. It was a challenge to farm in forests, and it was even more challenging to rear livestock due to issues like mosquitoes, tsetse flies and the once infamous rinderpest. Nature probably had her plan for how the state of things would continue playing out. Whatever this plan was, we will never know,  for the colonisation of Kenya rudely disrupte

Why will people buy you alcohol but not lend you the money?

Why do people offer to buy you alcohol but not to lend you the money?  Many people have often wondered why some certain person is always eager to buy them alcohol the whole night, but if you ask the same individual to lend or give this money to you instead, they approach this suggestion with more hostility than Trump’s supporters have against Hillary. It doesn’t make sense, does it? It’s the same money,  coming to the same person (you) and you are even offering to return it, unlike alcohol which once consumed is non-returnable. This aspect is well covered in the works of Dan Ariely, especially in his book, “Predictably Irrational”. Suppose, you wanted to move a large piece of furniture and approached your neighbour for help to move the same. Most of the time, they will go ahead and assist you with little expectation.