In Which Tense Matters

Via Matt Yglesias via Brad DeLong, we find the following chart from one of the UC professor’s lectures:

I did some quick googling, and found the following current statistics for Rwanda (these are based on total population, not households, and many of them are from newspapers, so beware).

Many people separated from us geographically are poor, and [...]

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House Rules

As far as I can tell, the standard lodging for an expat of any financial means in Kigali is much the same as mine: a room rented in a 3-4 bedroom house on a gated property with a couple housestaff. For most the living arrangement is a sharp departure from home, and ironically, it is [...]

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Makes Johann a Dull Boy

An Economist leader this week criticizes Germany’s exportlust:
Yet Germany’s muscle-bound economy is also a victim of its exporters’ success. Global markets are volatile: the country’s current-account surplus has fallen by more than half from a mighty 8% of GDP in just a year. As the hard-earned surpluses piled up, they were invested in lower-quality foreign [...]

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Worth a Thousand Words

I haven’t  learned much Kinyarwanda yet–French is far more useful on the margin–but after a colleague showed me a phrase book (a scanned page of which is below), I’m having second thoughts:

After all, what if I’m stuck helpless in a situation where the following phrase might be needed?

Of what use are these little things? Just [...]

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