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Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
121–130 of 230 posts
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#122Simple answer; people from rich countries will use flaws in the political structures of certain other countries to install corrupt politicians; these politicians are then going to work for the interests of their rich foreign patrons and against the interests of their own people (for kickbacks/self-enrichment). The corrupt politicians will do things like saddle their people with significant public debts (which will fo…
Yeah, balancing both budget and trade imbalance (better yet, a trade surplus) should take a country out of poverty over time. South Korea turned from agrarian to massive tech exporter over the time talked about. I'm writing this comment on a Samsung phone BTW. Not every country can have a trade surplus though, that part is a zero sum game. Having your own currency is probably important with a trade deficit, so exchan…
A trade deficit is an investment surplus, and vice versa. It's not like one is always good or the other always bad, you can't reason like that from a single number.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#123You can make the whole world not poor (and quite a few people not as rich as they are). Solution is simple - allow free movement of goods, services AND people. Perhaps also follow-up with allowing anyone to buy any piece of land anywhere so that rich can also buy up cheaper land (fair deal?). A lot of reasons for conflict (and need to organize around nation states) will stop remaining so important. I guess, one can d…
I used to think this way, but I tempered my belief to say that all poor countries need a brief period of extreme free markets. 50 to 100 years. After that, some regulation will be needed to manage the undesirable tradeoffs of that period
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you on this.. There can only be rich countries if there are poor countries.. Otherwise there would just be.. countries.. One of the reasons that the standard of living is so high in rich countries, is because we're paying poor countries to do the work + pollution, if they had as much money as rich countries, they'd be unwilling to do that work/polution for that price, and the "true" price of the work would r…
Easy to say from an easy chair in a rich country. But that paying poor countries to do work, that's their current route out of poor. To take that away over some social-action-theatre objection is just cruel and thoughtless. From one point of view.
This seems like an emotional reaction to a very valid point.
If everyone on earth had fair wages things would be far more expensive. Part of what makes your phone affordable is cheap labor in terrible conditions.
What happens when those countries start to be less poor? The answer is that the rich countries will find another group of poor people to make their stuff. This is likely why rich people, like Bill Gates, are obsessed with Africa.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
South Korea and Ghana were at the exact same place 50 years ago. South Korea’s leadership were largely competent, so they’ve industrialized and used trade to become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Ghana has not had nearly as good leadership and institutions, so they haven’t. Everyone constantly blames the West for all the problems of the world. If trade was really that deleterious to developing countrie…
Ha-Joon Chang explains the case of South Korea in details in his book "Kicking away the ladder": Korea developed because it was extremely protectionist, while receiving substantial financial support from the US (because of North Korea, China and USSR). While Ghana has been under the rule of the IMF the whole time. IMF policies are arguably extremely toxic; they basically guarantee that countries can't develop by keep…
> IMF policies are arguably extremely toxic
Correlation, not causation. The whole point of IMF intervention is to rescue countries that are already in the toilet, and need to consolidate foreign debt.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
South Korea and Ghana were at the exact same place 50 years ago. South Korea’s leadership were largely competent, so they’ve industrialized and used trade to become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Ghana has not had nearly as good leadership and institutions, so they haven’t. Everyone constantly blames the West for all the problems of the world. If trade was really that deleterious to developing countrie…
Ha-Joon Chang explains the case of South Korea in details in his book "Kicking away the ladder": Korea developed because it was extremely protectionist, while receiving substantial financial support from the US (because of North Korea, China and USSR). While Ghana has been under the rule of the IMF the whole time. IMF policies are arguably extremely toxic; they basically guarantee that countries can't develop by keep…
This was the policy of the USA— see Henry Charles Clay, the chief economic advisor of Abraham Lincoln. Started “the American School” of economics. It is all about healthy markets, but still allows for some protectionism. A middle way.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
South Korea had a propped up dictatorship that the United States strengthened and funded because they were scared of commies. Meanwhile Ghana had a dictator which was saddled with US loans who was overthrown. But the country still had to pay the loans back, despite them being will outside of their means.
This is extremely disrespectful of the economic savvy and work ethic of South Korean people. Korean state had an extremely focused industrial policy to improve the added value created by the country's economic output. The thing that needs critique here is that free trade would be somehow always beneficial. South Koreans state aggressively supported those industries it wanted to uplift. Countries do rise up from third…
Your implication is that Ghana failed where South Korea succeeded because they didn't work hard enough.
Of course people in South Korea worked hard to get where they are. So did people in Ghana. But in South Korea, the US protected them and funded them. Meanwhile in Ghana, the US stripped them of their wealth.
How well off do you think South Korea would be if the US didn't intervene in the Korean War?
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#128Maybe "poverty" is a fake word that was created by people who wanted to sell you something. https://newint.org/features/1992/06/05/poverty/ Think about it. Did people know there was such a think called "poverty" before some people started hoarding everything and not sharing it? That's capitalism! Maybe some people do not mind living in "poverty" and just because you cannot convince them to buy into your false dichoto…
> Did people know there was such a think called "poverty" before
Diogenes the Cinic 2400 years ago reportedly lamented hunger (and the absence of shortcuts to curb it, NSFW). That is the poverty contextual to the article.
Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is extremely disrespectful of the economic savvy and work ethic of South Korean people. Korean state had an extremely focused industrial policy to improve the added value created by the country's economic output. The thing that needs critique here is that free trade would be somehow always beneficial. South Koreans state aggressively supported those industries it wanted to uplift. Countries do rise up from third…
Your implication is that Ghana failed where South Korea succeeded because they didn't work hard enough. Of course people in South Korea worked hard to get where they are. So did people in Ghana. But in South Korea, the US protected them and funded them. Meanwhile in Ghana, the US stripped them of their wealth. How well off do you think South Korea would be if the US didn't intervene in the Korean War?
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Re: Why Isn’t the Whole World Rich?
#130Free Markets - the biggest wealth creation engine known to man. The most impressive and amazing reversal of fortune I've personally lived through was the switch from planned economy to free markets which took place in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. You could even predict the degree of improvement or the trajectory of a country by the percent of the free market reforms vs protectionism left in place. Of c…
> to being left behind by the IT/computer revolution
And you suppose it happened because of internal market pollution?