Yet some of the more garish headlines that have punctuated her six-month tenure as UK development secretary – Poverty barons make a fortune from taxpayer-funded aid budget, Snouts in the aid trough, Foreign aid cash wasted on consultants – would almost have you believe she does little else.
Sirius and Sony find themselves in 2009 with combined billions of dollars in debt and shareholder cash wasted, scorched earth all around them and two victors of a still uncertain market standing and wobbly.
No more fuzzy first-date decisions, no more waking up and not performing as well on the tennis court, no more cash wasted on the new breed of Bulldog (gin) or whatever else is popular this week (rye took the cake a couple of years ago).
He also needs to deal with the inherited plague of early retirement, which gobbles cash and wastes talent.
Is China really so different Although the Chinese government invests a fortune in research and development, too much of this cash is wasted, according to the OECD.
Amref was forced to redo the well after suspecting the water table was too low to sustain supply but their efforts and cash seem wasted so far.
No doubt some of the cash was wasted and anyone who has worked in an institution with guaranteed income, from BBC to NHS, knows there is scope for efficiencies.
Both Amazon and the BBC, due to increasing scrutiny over value for money, have become increasingly conscious of the rate at which cash is wasted by shows that fail to attract an audience.
Robert Feldman of Morgan Stanley says that if the money is spent well, on projects like energy-saving technologies, the rewards could be huge, bolstering efficiency and tax revenues.But if the cash is wasted on projects with no economic merit, it will add to a gross public debt without materially boosting output, raising a debt-to-GDP ratio that already exceeds 200%.
Read Oceana's "Wasted Cash: The Price of Waste in the U.S. Fishing Industry" report here.
