the creative spirit

Anil Gupta, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, is calling on students to study the creativity of informal businesses.His idea is that, in a work-study intiative called the shodhyatra, students should spend their time with small-scale fabricators, weavers, leather workers, chemical formulators or garment manufacturers--visiting and learning from these businesses that most business schools don't recognize as legitimate.

If hundreds of thousands of students every summer go out into the hinterland, industrial clusters and villages, there is no way the mindset which promotes inertia, mediocrity and inefficiency can survive in India. The time to connect has come. Creativity, collaboration and compassion will follow.

 Absolutely.

higer wages for System D

A super-brief item in the Buenos Aires Herald notes that, in January, wages in Argentina's informal economy rose at a much steeper rate than wages in the formal sector--a 4.1 percent boost vs. a 1.6 percent increase. But what does this mean? Are System D wages incredibly skimpy? Or is the informal economy so robust that it has no problem supporting such a strong rise in salaries?

Anyone who knows Argentina care to comment?

'you cannot postpone hunger'

Street hawkers who sell food and other goods at a taxi rank in Rustenburg, South Africa are protesting the demolition of their stalls by the local ANC government, iolnews reports. Local officials told the merchants they could demonstrate at a major ANC meeting in the city stadium, but the memo apparently didn't reach police, who blocked the hawkers when they tried to congregate.

The street traders vented their frustration in placards they mounted on their hastily rebuilt stalls. "We are totally angry," read one placard. Said another, "We are tired."

As one merchant told the news service, they are simply trying to put food on their tables. "You cannot postpone hunger... We are trying to make a living."

damn the torpedos!

The manuscript is done and the book should be out this fall. I took a break from posting to finish writing it and to deal with the black hole that sucked me in once I was done.

I spent my time repairing manual typewriters. Very cathartic.

Now it's time to end the hiatus.

System D. Full speed ahead!

what happens when you destroy a thriving street market

The headline on the Agence France Presse story tells half the story: Angola shantytown struggles after market bulldozed.

The other half: The market is struggling, too, after being moved 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) out of town.

Roque Santeiro, which some had called Africa's biggest market, was a chaotic sprawl on the shores of Luanda Bay in the Angolan capital. The market was torn down on September 5th as part of a supposed urban renewal plan.

The result: the surrounding neighborhood has been plagued by unemployment and crime. The new market is failing, in part because it costs an astounding 1,000 kwanzas, or $11, to go there and back from downtown. As a result, the country's biggest microcredit lending outfit is no longer giving loans to the merchants.

And for the final piece of the tragedy, the city has yet to announce any plans for the old downtown site.

the dream that failed

There's been violence between hawkers and Nairobi authorities after a nighttime demolition at Muthurwa Market in downtown Nairobi, Capital FM reports.

The hawkers lit bonfires and barricaded sections of the roads to protest eviction from the market by city council police.

The tragedy of this is that Muthurwa was built four years ago as a new and promising innovation for street hawkers. The creation of a planned market was supposed to be better for the hawkers and for people downtown. Instead, as The Standard reported last year, the dream failed. "The plan included a 24-hour market with basic facilities like water, restrooms, lighting, a hospital, a police station, multi-storied stalls, a banking hall, and an administrative office," at a price of 700 million shillings ($8.6 million), The Standard noted. But. "Sixteen months down the line, Murhurwa has become the epitome of chaos. The 12-hectare complex has degenerated into a den of muggers where hawkers and matatu [shared van] operators jostle for space."The newspaper enumerated some of the problems: "Burst sewers, dusty if not muddy roads, congestion, pickpockets, and lack of water."

The sad fact: the hawkers and the cops are fighting over a total failure of public policy.

pope-on-a-rope

Hundreds of unlicensed vendors will be competing to sell Papal merchandise as the Pope visits Edinburgh and Glasgow this week, the Daily Record reports.

The newspaper reports that only seven traders applied for a street sales permit in Glasgow, and only one received a permit. Yet more than 100,000 people are expected to turn out to see Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday.

The Pontiff-related stuff expected to be for sale includes "Pope-on-a-rope soaps, action figures, coasters, clocks, fridge magnets, keyrings and car air fresheners." The Catholic Church is trying to seize some of the street vendors' business by selling Pope-themed products online.

The Pope is often viewed as a voice for social justice, but that doesn't mean that local officials will be lenient with unlicensed vendors. As a Glasgow City Council spokesman told the paper: "Trading standards officers will be targeting unlicensed street traders on the day and will, if necessary, seize goods."