> include the cost of the IRS infrastructure Nope: what matters is marginal costs and raising rates isn't nearly as expensive and cash-burning as “awareness” c

> include the cost of the IRS infrastructure Nope: what matters is marginal costs and raising rates isn't nearly as expensive and cash-burning as “awareness” campaign. > whatever lobby yells loudest, while charities are market driven That statement appears self-contradictory to me. Lobbies introduce market concerns to a generally one-man-one-vote representative democratic process. My point about Africa is not about who should be labelled a leader or a government: it is that development doesn't need just money, it needs institutions, education, trust… Things that take time; things with massive externalities. Throwing billions like fastballs won't help anyone from benefitting from those. Do you think that William Kamkwamba (the heavily publicized boy who couldn't go to school, yet made a windmill himself) needs 10k$ or 100M$, or does he need roads, electricity, running water to his village? Of all the hundreds of charities that offered to help him, none suggested infrastructure. Local government are deeply corrupted, but all state-sponsored projects seem far more relevant for me, albeit less photogenic.