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Why Poor Countries Are Poor

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Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#131

Post by ytinas »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #113
ytinas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. You don't think the US has interest in China labor being so cheap? What do you think would happen if standard of living for the average Chinese reached that of the average American and they had to be paid the same amount it would cost us to produce materials?

We've seen the answer to that - it already happened in Japan. The search for cheap labor moves on to another poor country, and the newly rich country is an economic benefit to all as a trading partner.

And when we run out of poor countries? You could say that that can't happen because when the Chinas/Indias of the world get to our current standards we will be at a higher standard and they will still be poor relative to us, but this doesn't appear to be happening. The American middle class had a lot more money e.g. pre-Reagan than they do now.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#132

Post by nostrademons »

ytinas wrote: post #130
nostrademons wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For "competent", I think an adequate definition would be "Having the institutions in place that encourage technological innovation and then allow the fruits of that innovation to spread freely through the population." Happiness is a funny thing, because it tends to depend more on relative status than on absolute standard of living. We can look back now and say those people were so primitive and boy am I glad I live t…

>(well, except you ;-) Don't get me wrong; I love my mac book pro, my smart phone, playing silly RPG games, watching movies and so on. I'm simply not prepared to claim that having these things makes me superior to other ways of life. It's different, but it's hard to say superior when a pie chart of how my life is spent would be made up mostly of work and sleep. >It's based largely on personal memory of a lot of the t…

Oh, I don't doubt that nearly everything we've seen or heard is exaggerated.

I make a claim about what the Bush administration's rationale for going to war was, not whether I believe that rationale is justified. To my knowledge, it's a factual and at least partially correct claim.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#133

Post by mtts »

dkimball wrote: post #127
mtts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"organized crime" pretty accurately describes other forms of government as well. Feudalism in medieval Europe, for example, was basically an extortion and protection racket.

On the other hand, just as it's not really paranoia when they're really out to get you, a protection racket is preferable to being overrun by hordes of Teutonic Nietzcheans. :) Having the same structure doesn't always mean being the same thing.

Except that in the case of the middle ages, if there weren't any bloodthirsty "nobles" to begin with, "protection" wouldn't be necessary in the first place, so to me at seems at least in part not just the same structure as a protection racket but the same substance as well.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#134

Post by kls »

ytinas wrote: post #129
kls wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The romanticized Indians where the victims bent, is a little old. The fact of the matter is the Indians (all distinctive cultures) where the looser in a bitter battle between two cultures. Both where right and both where wrong. Both committed atrocities that are appealing by today's standards. The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. The fact of the matter is, fo…

>The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. History doesn't support my conclusion? We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Now what remains are spread out on reservations, little crops of land that had no value to us. You assertion that "Both where right and both were wrong" is nonsense. If some other country invaded the US today and started having t…

> We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out.

Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it, that there was a general cohabitation period and then the whites did not like the godless heathens and the godless heathens where stealing and raping women. So the whites decided to kill the infidels and the infidels decided to kill the whites. I don't remember where the Normandy style invasion happened perhaps you could point me to that in your revisionist history books? I suggest you go back and read some simple child history books like the story of Captain John Smith and how he was ambushed and almost executed. Or of the reason that the Dunmore's War was started.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#135

Post by eru »

uuilly wrote: post #122
eru wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] form of a government that by definition serves it's people rather than a group of subjects who serve a monarch. There is quite an interesting argument claiming that the German Kaiserreich (1871-1914) served its people better than the modern federal republic of Germany.

Interesting... Link?

There's a German book called "Preußen und die Marktwirtschaft" ("Prussia and Capitalism") by Ehrhardt Bödecker. (http://www.amazon.de/Preußen-die-Marktwirtschaft-Ehrhardt-Bö...)

It cites a lot of statistics showing how the public sector swelled in the federal republic compared to the Kaiserreich. (Prussia made up the vast majority of the Reich.) Alas, it seems to be only available offline and in German.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#137

Post by ytinas »

kls wrote: post #134
ytinas wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The white apologist thing is just neo-trendy but true history does not support your conclusion. History doesn't support my conclusion? We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Now what remains are spread out on reservations, little crops of land that had no value to us. You assertion that "Both where right and both were wrong" is nonsense. If some other country invaded the US today and started having t…

> We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it, that there was a general cohabitation period and then the whites did not like the godless heathens and the godless heathens where stealing and raping women. So the whites decided to kill the infidels and the infidels decided to kill the whites. I don't remembe…

>Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it

The pilgrims "discovered" land people were already living in. Does it occur to you that the country you live in might wish to paint themselves to be victims (or even noble!) regardless of what really happened?

>the godless heathens where stealing and raping women

Good thing it's so black and white! It would be less convenient if awful things were happening from both sides. Then it wouldn't be so obvious which side was good and which side was evil.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#138

Post by kls »

ytinas wrote: post #137
kls wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We invaded some else's land and nearly wiped them out. Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it, that there was a general cohabitation period and then the whites did not like the godless heathens and the godless heathens where stealing and raping women. So the whites decided to kill the infidels and the infidels decided to kill the whites. I don't remembe…

>Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it The pilgrims "discovered" land people were already living in. Does it occur to you that the country you live in might wish to paint themselves to be victims (or even noble!) regardless of what really happened? >the godless heathens where stealing and raping women Good thing it's so black and white! It would be less…

yes they discovered land just like the illegal Mexicans are discovering land, that affords them better opportunities. And to answer you question no I don't blame them, I would try to go somewhere that where more prosperous if I could. But just like the Indians tempers are starting to flair, it would only take a few incident to light that match and atrocities would be committed on both sides. Are the Mexicans the victims? They are the ones moving in. If the white man looses was he the peaceful victim?

The reason I being up the Mexicans is because we see this occurrence happen through history and it usually ends up in a violent confrontation that both parties excite. The Indians and white settlers are no exception to the same occurrences we see in modern history. If you think the Indians where sitting around baking bread and then all of the sudden for no reason whitey started killing them then you have a very warped sense of revisionist history.

Just read the story of Daniel Boone's son and how they butchered (and when I say butchered I mean butchered) him and it will give you some perspective as to why the pilgrims started to war with the Indians. I mean everyone wants to make whitey the baby killers and here we are with documented accounts of multiple occasions of Indians butchering men's entire families (even the little babies) as revenge and intimidation tactics.

I we did the same to some illegal Mexicans you could be sure that they would want revenge for such atrocities. And once a populist attitude of indiference ot another race or culture has set in it is verry hard to reverse course, whch eventual leads to the total destruction of one of the two cometing cultures.

Israel and the middle east is a good example of this unrepentant attitude. As ws Kosovo, this is history as usual so please don't try to rewrite it to fit you own world view. It is as it is, human nature is as it is and you just have to accept it, until you and others do you are doing everyone a disservice, as solutions need to be derived from real problems and not once idea of what the problem should have been. You are denying the Indians their history and their plight for survival by making them wimps that where just the victims.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#139

Post by thaumaturgy »

kls wrote: post #138
ytinas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wow, really? I though that new land was discovered and pilgrims from the English and dutch settled it The pilgrims "discovered" land people were already living in. Does it occur to you that the country you live in might wish to paint themselves to be victims (or even noble!) regardless of what really happened? >the godless heathens where stealing and raping women Good thing it's so black and white! It would be less…

yes they discovered land just like the illegal Mexicans are discovering land, that affords them better opportunities. And to answer you question no I don't blame them, I would try to go somewhere that where more prosperous if I could. But just like the Indians tempers are starting to flair, it would only take a few incident to light that match and atrocities would be committed on both sides. Are the Mexicans the vict…

I'm a little amused by this exchange, since ideologically I'm probably somewhere between the two of you. There was indeed a wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the native populations in America during the 1800s, and by today's standards, much of it would be considered unconscionable.

But mostly, I'm interested in the facts of history, so I should point out that the "illegal" Mexicans are "discovering" land which used to be theirs in the first place. The current United States western and southwestern were already occupied by Mexico, up until the Mexican-American War, which ended with the United States forcibly buying the land from Mexico for a rather cheap sum.

It's also worth pointing out that the United States government probably already had an inkling of the natural value of California; the great California gold rush began less than a year later, and had that territory still been occupied by Mexico, it would have dramatically changed the balance of power in the Americas.

Re: Why Poor Countries Are Poor

#140

Post by kls »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #139
kls wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes they discovered land just like the illegal Mexicans are discovering land, that affords them better opportunities. And to answer you question no I don't blame them, I would try to go somewhere that where more prosperous if I could. But just like the Indians tempers are starting to flair, it would only take a few incident to light that match and atrocities would be committed on both sides. Are the Mexicans the vict…

I'm a little amused by this exchange, since ideologically I'm probably somewhere between the two of you. There was indeed a wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the native populations in America during the 1800s, and by today's standards, much of it would be considered unconscionable. But mostly, I'm interested in the facts of history, so I should point out that the "illegal" Mexicans are "discovering" land which…

My point was that settling for prosperity as well as refugees was natural part of human history and that usually when two cultures clash it is not a peaceful event.

If one would not blame the Mexicans today for their peaceful search for a better life (which could latter turn violent on both sides), then why would they blame the pilgrims? Just because they are white?

When the story is told by someone whit a bent the white man had murderous intent from the second he set out from Europe and that is the furthest from the truth. The fact of the matter is that most where refugees and the impoverished looking for a better life, in a land that (to them) had a lot of vacant space.

My point is not that the Indians where the devil and that White man where saints, it has been that history is history and it has no room for revision and when you see someone taking different views for the same event with different parties being the actors, you can be sure that they have an agenda. A very popular one is the white man butchered the Indians and robbed them of their land. While also being a supporter of the Mexican migration.

The Mexicans may have not been the best example, as they would be an example of someone who has a more legitimate gripe about white Americans than the Indians.

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