Posted on 03/19/2006 4:48:55 PM PST by Lorianne
lack of economic freedom, lack of property rights
The following will make any country RICH!
1) Honest courts and police to enforce contracts and put criminals in prison.
2) profound respect for private property.
3) Free markets
4) Secure borders to keep out invading armies and hordes of refugees.
5) Rule of law and equality before the law.
Democracy is not necessary. If it were Hong Kong wouldn't be the powerhouse that it is.
This hellhole is a typical liberal/socialist dream come true.
Wow! Since none of the 5 things you listed exist in the United States anymore, sounds like we're on the road to ruin.
Free people are, by definition, free to direct their economic efforts elsewhere if a drought or a plague of locusts attacks the agriculture.
It is not yet too late. Thankfully, the new media came along just in time.
Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.
Horse hockey.
It takes a government to make a country poor.
So in essence these so called independant nations currently ruled by tin-pot dictators were better off as European Colonies. Is that what the author is saying?
That the European Colony Pashas or whatever they called themselves gave the locals a better life that the "Elected" Tin-Pot Dicttors and perhaps they'd be better off if they returned to being European Colonies?
Excellent summary of the article
So what is different about this country and the entire disease ridden, corrupt, economic trainwreck of the continent of Africa?
This non-sensical sentence always makes me despair of journalism as a serious profession.
Having one eighth the income does not make them eight times poorer. Below a certain level of existence, the comparative is meaningless...
already posted last week
Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan provided the first effective revolution in economic thought.
Central Banks caught on to the inflation bogeyman in the late 1980s and that revolutionized monetary policy.
Communist governments recognized the error of their ways and China and Vietnam are the fastest growing economies in the last 15 years.
The other pieces of the puzzle are now coming together and the facts are hard to ignore. The good posts above all touched on the last pieces of the puzzle.
There are still setbacks like in Venezuela and its impact on the rest of South America, but the good times for the whole world, even Africa are ready to roll.
The real answer to economic principles has to be basic human nature. Just think about what people are really like and design an economic system to reward the good things about human nature and design laws to prevent the bad things about human nature and then recognize that an economy of 250 million people cannot be planned or controlled or motivated one way or the other and you are set.
It turns out Adam Smith was very very right. Just let the invisible hand do its work.
Interesting. However, it raises the question -- why wait for the government to fix the road? Why don't the people band together and fill the potholes themselves?
Also the cure. The recorders office is the solution. Property that is not recorded does not count as capital, that is, it cannot be used as collateral.
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