The Bhutan We Think We Know
Seventy-four paradoxes.
Each one is a single page. Each one is a structural argument about how a good decision became a hard problem.
- P 01 The Green Kingdom That Imports Brown Power
- P 02 The Export Dollar That Takes the Delhi Detour
- P 03 A Dam Longer Than a Career
- P 04 The Tariff Born Before the Dam
- P 05 A Summer Sultan, a Winter Supplicant
- P 06 When the Borrower Finances the Banker
- P 07 $2,718 per Bhutanese, Sitting in the Vault
- P 08 Australia: Bhutan's Unofficial Central Bank
- P 09 The Tourism Industry on Holiday from Its Debt
- P 10 50 Guests per Operator
- P 11 The Tourist Who Can't Fly
- P 12 More Tourists Than Bali, Less Money
- P 13 Bhutan's Second-Largest City Is in Australia
- P 14 The Nation Aging Faster Than It Grew
- P 15 Almost Half the People, Almost None of the Land
- P 16 Gross National Happiness Meets Gross National Diabetes
- P 17 566 Schools, 1 in 10 Used
- P 18 The Republic of Civil Servants
- P 19 9 in 10, Retiring Without a Pension
- P 20 The Year One in Six Walked Away
- P 21 The Stock Market That Never Became a Market
- P 22 The Country That Pays Its Monks
- P 23 Singapore's Tourism Machine, Bhutan's Tourism Prayer
- P 24 The Ngultrum: Sovereignty Printed on an Indian Rupee
- P 25 The Fine That Ate the Bank's Year
- P 26 The Bhutan Beyond Bhutan
- P 27 50 Years a State, the Map Still Coming
- P 28 More Cars Than Road
- P 29 $50,000 a Kilo, Picked by Bare Hands
- P 30 Importing Workers, Exporting Youth
- P 31 The Discount with a Sunset Clause
- P 32 Six Dollars in Seven Leave the Country
- P 33 A Digital Bank Nobody Digitally Uses
- P 34 Hiring Faster Than the Nation Shrinks
- P 35 A Civil Service of Healers and Teachers
- P 36 Water Everywhere, Safe Water Nowhere
- P 37 Free for All, Enough for Few
- P 38 GNH Up, Wellbeing Flat
- P 39 Even the Rich Aren't Fully Happy
- P 40 Nu 8 Billion, Sitting in Plain Sight
- P 41 Most Complaints Are About Competence, Not Corruption
- P 42 Democracy Running on 2.4 out of 10
- P 43 The Phone Call Republic
- P 44 The Safest Citizens, the Least Informed
- P 45 Happiness Has a Gender
- P 46 The Civil-Service Dream That Multiplies Unemployment by 21
- P 47 The Degree That Triples Unemployment
- P 48 77,000 Abroad — Nearly 1 in 10 Bhutanese
- P 49 Below Replacement While Still Catching Up
- P 50 Bumthang Smiles, Trashiyangtse Waits
- P 51 Buy High, Sell Low: The National Trading Strategy
- P 52 A Maintenance Budget Labelled Transformation
- P 53 1 Journalist per 5,200 Citizens
- P 54 1 Week at Uber, 6 Months at the Ministry
- P 55 The English That Drew Us Abroad
- P 56 Doubled for the Nation, Untouched for the Few
- P 57 The Dzongkha Teacher Behind the Taxi Wheel
- P 58 Cambridge Dreams, Missing Textbooks
- P 59 The Aid That Returned as a Fuel Bill
- P 60 Tobacco Banned, Vapes Imported
- P 61 The Money-Printing Profit We Never Asked For
- P 62 The Dollar Bill the Peg Quietly Pays
- P 63 Power We Sell Cheap and Buy Dear
- P 64 Cheap for the 23, Then Doubled
- P 65 Mega-Project, Mega-Irregularity
- P 66 What the Accounts Don't Account For
- P 67 The Same Money, Counted Four Ways
- P 68 The State That Finished Its To-Do List
- P 69 A Vacuum Within the Vacuum
- P 70 The Expertise That Stays at Home
- P 71 3,000 Wrote the Policy, 15 Sold the Dream
- P 72 The Nu 1,380 Subsidy in Every Tank
- P 73 The Hand That Pays, the Mouth That Blames
- P 74 Same Money, Buses Instead of Boleros