Rich countries and crappy countries
My worthless co-blogger, Kyle, asked me once (maybe - or i could be making this up) why several countries in Africa are so damn poor when they have so much wealth. The short answer: they suck. The longer answer can be found here.
posted by nick @ 1/12/2006 09:05:00 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Actually, the question was in regards to Louisiana, not Africa. But I suppose similarities abound. The same principles may apply.
But it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Louisiana. I understand the notion that ideas and intellect build wealth, not natural resources, and that locales that retain the ideas and intellects are the richest. But that doesn't explain why the locations that index high in ideas and intellect were generally once high in natural, non-renewable resources. Does that mean one day Louisiana will be the New York City of the World?
not necessarily...the netherlands, england, and japan have always been lacking in resources.
there's the famous study of Ghana and South Korea - same GDP per capita in 1945...now SK is one of the richest countries in the world, and it has almost no resources.
Louisiana sucks because it's so damn corrupt, has a terrible education system, and...well...it's Louisiana. It's a piece of crap.
Eh, i don't agree with your netherlands/england argument. When the "world" consisted of Europe, they weren't relatively lacking in resources. They had plenty, and thats how they became so powerful. They managed to parlay the period in which they had relative plenty in terms of resources into hundreds of years of dominance when they've had relatively little.
And the examples of countries who truly have limited resources and became successful are few and far between - and almost all were, for one reason or another, supported by the resource-laden backbone of America - thus they didn't need their own resources. The U.S., Russia, China, Germany, France are more the standard, and happen to be 4 of the 5 permanent members of the UN security council. Not an accident.
South Korea is a questionable example, given that the U.S. has propped it up and developed it for the purpose of highlighting communism at its worst: North Korea. If South Korea didn't border a communist country, it wouldn't be as developed as it is, because it would lack natural AND intellectual resources.
Lousiana has the resources, its in america for christ's sake, and yet it can't get its shit together. It really just has to boil down to corruption. Poor bastards.
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