Joe Studwell: belief

Transcript context

…But even Botswana worries me in this regard. They’ve had a pretty good heritage in history, but the last two years, corruption indices are up sharply. Their politics seems to have become a personal feud. There were all those recent articles that they can’t deliver basic health services to their population. In terms of governance, they seem to be going backwards from a pretty good start, right? I think you could say that, but I’m not sure that it’s fair yet to say that they are really going backwards. They’re in a major transition. The Botswana Development Party is out of power for the first time since independence, so there’s a lot of change going on in that respect. I think they’re going through a difficult period, but I’m not sure that they’re definitely going backwards. You could say similar things to what you’ve just said about Botswana, about the United States. Well, possibly we’re going backwards [laughs], but Tanzania worries me also. Three years ago, I had many friends and acquaintances telling me the reforms were going wonderfully. This is the next market-oriented miracle, bet on Tanzania. I’ve only been there once. I guess I was a little skeptical. And now, in the last year and a half, Tanzanian politics seems quite volatile. It’s not stable anymore. It’s of course not a petro state. There’s not an issue comparable to diamonds. Doesn’t this problem just crop up again and again and again, that there’s not a stable place where you would really want to put much of your money?…

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