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Why Poor Countries Are Poor
Reason Online ^ | Tim Harford

Posted on 03/19/2006 4:48:55 PM PST by Lorianne

click here to read article


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To: King Prout

He takes the view that modern capital is based on recorded property. While the Recorder's Office is probably the dullest of all gov't offices, it is vital to modern commerce. The very instant Adam Smith's Wealth came off the presses it was obsolete because that is when the gov't recorder's office finally got in gear in the US. Recording of property made it available as collateral to the funding institutions and let capital operate at a new, much higher level.


41 posted on 03/19/2006 6:04:52 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale

not fundamental enough.


42 posted on 03/19/2006 6:07:56 PM PST by King Prout (DOWN with the class-enemies at Google! LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S CUBE!)
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To: muir_redwoods
No democratic republic has ever suffered a famine. Famines are "attracted" to disctatorships. Free people are, by definition, free to direct their economic efforts elsewhere if a drought or a plague of locusts attacks the agriculture.

Ding-ding-ding - We have a winner!

People don't starve. They ARE STARVED.

God is stubbornly generous; this world is full of food.

Does anybody actually believe that Cambodia suffered a poor climate from 1975-178? That Ukraine failed to produce food in the early 1930's? That Ireland did not EXPORT food in the 1840's? Even the canard that the early Jamestown colonists "starved" - the Powhatans were very wisely attempting to kill every last one of them..

43 posted on 03/19/2006 6:19:30 PM PST by Castlebar
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To: King Prout

Neither Marx nor Smith. A new dimension orthogonal to both. There is yet another new dimension, giving a total of four dimensions--the modern corporastion.


44 posted on 03/19/2006 6:26:35 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: Lorianne

Simple, lack of guaranteed property rights.

That's all folks.


45 posted on 03/19/2006 6:28:12 PM PST by Porterville (Sure are a lot of these few Muslim Extremist Fanatics)
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To: King Prout

Add property rights in outer space and the frontier will be open again, but four-dimensionally this time.


46 posted on 03/19/2006 6:29:23 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: Lorianne
“Yes! There are elections. President Biya is always re-elected with a 90 percent majority.”

Sounds like Seattle.

47 posted on 03/19/2006 6:30:37 PM PST by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† | Libs: Celebrate MY diversity! | Iran Azadi 2006)
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To: Lorianne
I cannot confirm that President Biya fits Olson’s description of a self-interested dictator. But if he did, it wouldn’t be in his interest to take too much from the Cameroonian people, because then there would be nothing to take next year. As long as he feels secure in his tenure, he will not wish to kill the golden goose.

The fatal flaw in this argument is the assumption that the Cameroonian people are the source of his plunder.
This underscores the distortion and permanent damage that "foreign aid", charity, introduces into the process.

The source of the plunder is the bottomless pocket of well-meaning but totally clueless foreign governments, who have invented and continue the perpetual motion of corruption.

48 posted on 03/19/2006 6:35:04 PM PST by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: King Prout
already posted last week

Buzz off, you useless, megalomaniacal little controlling twit!

49 posted on 03/19/2006 6:37:27 PM PST by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: Porterville

It's just that simple. Too simple to be interesting, but we have it in the US and can't see it because it is part of the background.


50 posted on 03/19/2006 6:37:50 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: King Prout
it was this very article, dude - right down to opening up with "the armpit of africa"

So what?
If this article had not been posted, I might have never read the old one.

What's so difficult to understand?
You are not the center of the universe, and you just come off as a total a****le...

51 posted on 03/19/2006 6:39:55 PM PST by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: King Prout
as I already stated: it was this very article. there is no difference between that article and this article. that article was posted on FR last week.

Again, so what?

The first law of digging holes, twit...

When you find yourself really really deep, the best way out is to stop digging.

Just STFU!

52 posted on 03/19/2006 6:43:16 PM PST by Publius6961 (Multiculturalism is the white flag of a dying country)
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To: Publius6961

by your [cough] logic, everyone should repost everything infinitely, because someone might have missed it.

your... gong-fu is... too weak.


53 posted on 03/19/2006 6:44:29 PM PST by King Prout (DOWN with the class-enemies at Google! LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S CUBE!)
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To: wintertime; Porterville
Good list, wintertime, but you must add to it:

6) free speech. (And religion, assembly, petition, & press)

Tolerance for dissent is a crucial ingredient to a nation's enduring economic and political success. It does not mean compromising fundamental principles, but it does mean being open to new ways, technologies and ideas. Cultures and nations that refuse to listen don't last. Chicoms are having one helluva time with this one just about now... For an original defense of dissent, see John Milton's Areopagitica, the great defense of being wrong. (And an original text or the American first amendment -- See this long piece: Milton's Areopagitica and the Modern First Amendment)

So, Porterville, there's more to it than just property rights. At least 1/10th of it, anyway...

54 posted on 03/19/2006 6:44:39 PM PST by nicollo (All economics are politics)
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To: Lorianne

bookmk ping , complete reading


55 posted on 03/19/2006 6:45:13 PM PST by Dad yer funny
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To: Publius6961; RightWhale

Hey, RightWhale - dig this little dipwad gettin' all steamed about our little side conversation


56 posted on 03/19/2006 6:45:37 PM PST by King Prout (DOWN with the class-enemies at Google! LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S CUBE!)
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To: Question_Assumptions

I used to hear that joke in South America. The sad truth is the same on both those sad continents.


57 posted on 03/19/2006 6:47:02 PM PST by nicollo (All economics are politics)
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To: nicollo

Property rights, recorded at the gov't recorder's office, is what launched the US economy in the late 1800's. No other country had the system, and no other country even comes close now.


58 posted on 03/19/2006 6:48:14 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: King Prout

Sorry. I did do a search but apparently didn't scroll down far enough .... I was in a hurry.

I do TRY to be careful.


59 posted on 03/19/2006 6:50:07 PM PST by Lorianne
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To: King Prout

Saw it. Don't have time, saving the world economy here.


60 posted on 03/19/2006 6:50:08 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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