Yet the airwaves are dominated by a banal debate that rarely rises above government good vs. government bad.
Paul Miller of Friedman Billings Ramsey, an investment bank, says a government bad bank can pay more for assets than a private investor because its cost of funds is irrelevant, it needs no capital and can hold the assets to maturity.
Too often, it sounds like the simple beat of bad government and bad policies but the cause is usually deeper that African governments, even bad ones, are weak, and policies, even good ones, don't get implemented.
And political risk will always be there particularly for oil, which is so often associated with bad government for the simple reason that its very presence causes bad government in states that do not have strong institutions to curb their politicians.
Strife in the workplace is bad for management, bad for business, bad for government and bad for workers.
There are good reasons to suspect that big government is bad for growth.
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The proposal would have seen the government buy bad debts from US banks to prevent more of them collapsing.
The economic setbacks that precipitated the change also served to confirm the liberal view of the world (too much government is bad).
Click on the image for a full-size look at how the majority of scholarly research this century confirms that big government is bad for prosperity.
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Sadly, even though the world is filled with evidence that smaller government is good for prosperity (and even more evidence that big government is bad for growth), statism is not abating.
Not only is government uniquely bad at funding the sorts of outlays that minimize suffering the sensitivity to suffering, and the appetite for its minimization, seems to have no limit in democratic times.
Two more frescoes flank this painting, one depicting the effects of good government and another showing the effects of bad government.
Irrespective of the disagreement as to size of government the left, right and center all condemn Bad Government, Stupid Government, and Elitist Government.
The fact is, the government is notoriously bad when it comes to these long-term projections.
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This brings us to our last favorite cause of the financial crisis: bad government regulation.
As always, bad government policy, not finite resources or growth, is what causes shortages.
It makes collaboration on projects vastly easier, and that's something the government is notoriously bad at.
Forget the boogeyman of big, bad government coming to dispossess you of your firearms.
But what troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad.
Economic liberty suffered a terrible reverse in the 1930s, thanks to war, financial breakdown and bad government.
On the other hand, some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government.
But, does government deserve a bad rap for not being innovative or as adaptable to new technology trends?
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He described the coalition as "a bad government that is letting down the good people of this country".
What started in August 2007 was not the failure of free markets but the outcome of bad government actions.
It is hard to imagine a blogger who would wish to promote the cause of corruption and bad government.
Grievances about corruption, bad government, worsening local feuds and foreign soldiers could all fuel anger at rule from Kabul.
As has always been the case, bad government policy, not finite resources or growth, is what causes shortages and bubbles.
Opinion polls suggest that they are disgusted with bad government, but this rarely translates into votes against the incumbent parties.
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