Part of Uzbekistan is also ideal for growing tea. Interspan, a US company, invested heavily. But by 2006, Karimov’s daughter, Harvard graduate and international jet setter, Gulnora Karimova, had taken an interest in this market.

…Gulnora’s interest meant taking over Interspan’s assets and business. And this was not going to be by making an attractive offer. The company reports that men with machine guns, allegedly working for the Uzbek intelligence services, entered its offices and warehouses, and seized its assets and inventory. Its personnel were arrested and tortured. By August 2006, the company pulled out of Uzbekistan, and tea was now a Karimov family monopoly.

…Like almost all nations that are poor, Uzbekistan fails because its people operate under extractive economic institutions, which provide few incentives for investment or technological ingenuity, and force people to engage in activities that they do not wish or are not well-suited to

That from famed academics Daron Acemoglu and Jim Robinson on Day 2 of their new blog. Possibly the heaviest social science hitting power to hit the blogosphere in many years. They are also tweeting.

My only worry: The trouble with posting substantive stuff daily is that the regimen is hard to maintain. Most academic bloggers burn out after a couple of years of this.

I am on year four. My secret to longevity? Six days out of seven I cut and paste peculiar drivel I that catches my interest on the web. Sometimes I even read part of the papers I reference. Once in a while I re-read a draft before hitting “Publish”. And on the seventh day, I rant. The secret is out!

Their blog supports their new book, Why Nations Fail. I plan to read soon and report back. But I do not think you can go wrong with reading it.