The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
71–80 of 107 posts
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#72This American Life & Planet Money did a follow-up on this idea three years later: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/483/s... Against the odds, Honduras was actually willing to give the "charter city" model a go, but the project turned into a disaster before it even got started. Mostly because Paul Romer is an egotistical, antisocial control freak and nobody could work with him. There's a lesson h…
Thanks for linking to the podcast, it was eye opening! Many people commenting here should listen to this before spouting off the same things repeatedly.
It's so frustrating watching people ignoring history and then passionately agreeing with like minded people into tunnel vision solutions.
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
This already went wrong. We are commenting on an older article. He actually got a chance to try this project and it failed pretty resoundingly. I eagerly await your "no true Scotsman" response.
No, he didn't. Honduras cancelled the project.
Failing to coalesce and maintain political support from the host government is just about the most predictable failure mode imaginable.... no true scotsman, indeed.
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#74Shorter version: Create corporatist deregulated cities in corrupt third world countries and assume that rather than enriching multinationals via lax oversight the project will make poor people less poor. Hard to see what could go wrong with that plan.
Well, it sort of works: massively increasing the wealth of any third world country will shift it from "if you're poor then you starve and die" to "if you're poor then you are begging on the street and sometimes working a lousy job for little money". It's not much of an aspiration, but it is, strictly speaking, an improvement. It's also not a hypothetical: supply-side economic demonstrably works, to some extent. It ju…
> Well, it sort of works: massively increasing the wealth of any third world country
Things are more complicated in real world, because even if massive wealth is created (say, a boom of a certain industry), it doesn't necessarily go where it's supposed to.
Here [1] there is a real-world example of how, in a country with a strong mining industry, the "colonialists" get all the money, and the "colony" gets the crumbs (of course, that doesn't imply that this is always the case).
[1] Published long ago on HN: https://psmag.com/why-is-zambia-so-poor-f44dfeedd5ed
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you're describing as "fluff", most people describe as "long-form writing." If you're reading purely for brrt-brrt-clank-insert-information-into-meatbot-head, you're missing out.
Others might also describe it as "getting paid by the word count".
You're high if you think that The Atlantic is some Demand Media/About.com/wikihow content spoo.
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you're describing as "fluff", most people describe as "long-form writing." If you're reading purely for brrt-brrt-clank-insert-information-into-meatbot-head, you're missing out.
bullshit. If someone would write an article that long without offtopic infos that would be cool. most of this text is just fluff to stretch out the whole thing without adding anything...
Which parts are offtopic?
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#77Shorter version: Create corporatist deregulated cities in corrupt third world countries and assume that rather than enriching multinationals via lax oversight the project will make poor people less poor. Hard to see what could go wrong with that plan.
That's not what he's proposing at all. There is a whole paragraph in the article about how Romer is not a libertarian and recognizes the importance of rules. But some rules are good and some are bad. The electric utility example is a good one: price controls are very popular in third world countries, but just about the worst way to meet whatever objective you want. Getting the government out of the way can also help…
> That's not what he's proposing at all.
Of course. But it's almost certainly the end result.
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#78Seems like we’ve entered some sort of post-modern neocolonialism. How do we “fix” the broken countries of the world. The neocons under Bush tried to remake the middle east by invading Iraq.[1] Debated with someone here who felt we just needed more time in Afghanistan so a generation could understand good governance.[2] In this article, the thrust seems to be benevolent foreign powers and businesses will lead the way…
I'm expecting a resurgence in colonialist-like approaches. Especially in the context of the Middle East. It's exactly failures like Afghanistan and Iraq that make some consider solutions involving total governance for much more than just a few years. A case can be made for the US having been morally obliged to basically colonize Iraq (and Afghanistan tho I'm less familiar with that one).
I've lived a while in a sub-par country. The incompetence at every level of society is staggering. Even corruption isn't as big a deal as incompetence.
Plenty of people I talk to agree that having the US or Germany or someone just run the government completely would be a huge step up. Honestly I can't find any realistic objection. Just hopeful stuff about educating them, making it better, etc. Approaches that have been tried a long time and simply aren't working. Apart from pride (which doesn't cure infections, get kids in schools, or feed people), there really isn't a reason for those people to object.
The problems of colonialism tended to be human rights, eh? Are we really concerned that Belgium would start cutting hands off in the 21st century? (It's also sort of funny. China's getting big in Africa. No way they're going to treat people there very well. Can't imagine a 21st century British empire in Africa ending up worse than Chinese business domination.)
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what he's proposing at all. There is a whole paragraph in the article about how Romer is not a libertarian and recognizes the importance of rules. But some rules are good and some are bad. The electric utility example is a good one: price controls are very popular in third world countries, but just about the worst way to meet whatever objective you want. Getting the government out of the way can also help…
> That's not what he's proposing at all. Of course. But it's almost certainly the end result.
That wasn't the end result in Hong Kong.
Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it sort of works: massively increasing the wealth of any third world country will shift it from "if you're poor then you starve and die" to "if you're poor then you are begging on the street and sometimes working a lousy job for little money". It's not much of an aspiration, but it is, strictly speaking, an improvement. It's also not a hypothetical: supply-side economic demonstrably works, to some extent. It ju…
I guess it's all a matter of your idiolect. It works, for some values of "works". Maybe it works for the macroeconomist studying national GDP growth rates? Sadly, there are also barbers and truck drivers.
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