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I guess what I don't understand is why thought this was good news. Look around the world at countries whose economies depend on non-labor-intensive natural resource extraction. Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. These resources form a natural monopoly and quickly become the subject of political power.
Seems to be going great for Norway.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabd...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your demographic is showing. Some of us became interested in Afghanistan back in '79, when the Soviets invaded, and President Carter (remember him?) re-instated draft registration. Seemed pretty important at the time, but seems to be forgotten now...
Maybe a large part of the audience here is born in the 80s?!
Source: I've lived-in and worked on mining projects in the developing world and saw all this stuff happen first hand.
A guy called into NPR this morning and said he had a worlds almanac from 1967 with an article about Afghanistan's mineral riches.
I guess what I don't understand is why thought this was good news. Look around the world at countries whose economies depend on non-labor-intensive natural resource extraction. Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. These resources form a natural monopoly and quickly become the subject of political power.
What resources change is how much outside observers notice. Are the millions of people living in squalid hell-holes under corrupt regimes any better off for not having resources? Hardly, it's more just that the world doesn't give a shit, because their plight isn't interesting.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those places have good government, I guess that's what saves them.
I guess so, but then the claim boils down to: - It is bad to be resource rich and have a bad government. - It is good to be resource rich and have a good government. Why not instead just say - How good things are will significantly depend on how good the government is. Since that claim holds true for both resource rich and resource poor countries.
A guy called into NPR this morning and said he had a worlds almanac from 1967 with an article about Afghanistan's mineral riches.
Care to elaborate? Did it cover lithium / anything discovered , and not just theorized? Does anyone have a copy lying around they can check?
I, personally, have a more cynical and conspiratorial view of things: I think the U.S. intelligence cooked up the trillion figure in order to wane the production of opium for at least a decade, by promising Afghans a better bounty and a reason to form national unity. Mineral extraction is an expensive undertaking that can't be done by stealth mobile units in friendly pockets; the whole country has to come together.
What strengthens my suspicion is the U.S's willingness to announce this "finding", despite the possibility of undermining its presence there. The Taliban can always say the Americans knew about this all along and have fabricated excuses to invade us.
$50 on longbet, with a 10 year maturity :-)
The refute the discovery by citing a report from 2007 that says "Afghanistan has significant amounts of undiscovered nonfuel mineral resources". How does someone previously citing undiscovered resources contradict the idea of those resources now being discovered ?
If, hypothetically, Wire had shown that the military had no new information but simply took the previous general reports of resources existing and labeled that a "discovery", then Wired would have refuted the military's claims. Unfortunately, the wired article doesn't seem to provide enough information for this.