{"podcast":{"title":"The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more","slug":"the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147","podcast_index_feed_id":161147,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/741404.rss","website_url":"https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/741404/3b0c4a7fd00a901c53a5b3c2e1528ed2.jpg","author":"Dominic Frisby","episode_count":622,"summary":"Thoughts on markets and occasional interviews","last_synced_at":"2026-07-12T08:19:40.461289+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147"},"episode":{"title":"Namibia and the Resource Curse","slug":"namibia-and-the-resource-curse","published_at":"2026-04-19T09:47:52+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147/namibia-and-the-resource-curse","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147","url":"https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/namibia-and-the-resource-curse","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/194676889/76a4ed2263eee20560d42ecc84551e78.mp3","summary":"Good Sunday to youI’m still finding my feet having just got back from Namibia. I’ve got a full country report coming, as well as a portfolio piece. But I’ve been thinking further about the country’s potential since Wednesday’s note . Namibia has almost everything. Resources. Location. Roads. A small population. On paper, it should work. And yet. Driving through Windhoek, the capital, my guide pointed out a hospital: the Katutura State Hospital. “You don’t want to get sick here,” he said. It didn’t look too bad from the outside. A bit craggy. But I’ve seen worse. The place is infamous apparently. Rats. Endless waits. People lying untreated in corridors. People deliberately go at 3 in the morning, because it betters your chances of being seen the next day. My guide described his own time there when he broke his arm last year. Oof. It makes NHS Accident and Emergency waiting times look slick. Across the road, stood a gleaming monstrosity - the SWAPO (ruling party) headquarters. Brand new. Vulgar. Expensive. Impossible to miss. It wasn’t discreetly tucked away. It was right there, bearing down on the hospital. My first reaction was simply how ugly it is. A few years and that will look truly horrible, I explained to my guide, who seemed baffled by my prediction. His point, however, that I hadn’t yet thought of, was simply how the building had attracted controversy: all that money being spent on what is essentially a vanity project, with the hospital over the road. It was built by the Chinese, funded through a grant from the Chinese government, rather than a commercial loan, at a cost of $50–60 million (figures vary). Because it’s a grant, it doesn’t sit as formal public debt. What could the Chinese possibly want in Namibia. (Clue Namibia, among other things, is the world’s…","meta_description":"Good Sunday to youI’m still finding my feet having just got back from Namibia. I’ve got a full country report coming, as well as a portfolio piece. But I’…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":379,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147/episodes/namibia-and-the-resource-curse/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-flying-frisby-money-markets-and-more-161147/namibia-and-the-resource-curse.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}