Why are some countries rich and others poor?

[AgentOfChaos]

The fucked up present day distorted standards of "richness" is set up the already rich and powerful countries centuries ago. This superficial characterization of countries is nothing more than a tool for the f-king "elite" countries to make themselves feel good at the expense of others.

I don't really care too much about 'richness', I just don't want to see Africans get left behind. We can't rely on our natural resources forever.

I don't give a fuck about neither how other countries see us nor for us to be in perpetual competition with elite countries just to see ourselves equal to them because I'm comfortable under my own skin.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

The issue is really complicated but ultimately, it's about leadership. I've read lots of books about the economic growth of east Asian countries and it always follows the same pattern.

-> Strong leadership that controls all institutions including banks e.g. dictators like in South Korea, Indonesia or quasi-dicators like in Taiwan, Singapore, China etc.

-> State planned economies with a bit of free market capitalism

-> State invests heavily in education and technical training which creates human resources. These skilled workforce is vital for domestic companies.

-> State invests heavily in infrastrcuture such as roads, railways, highways, municipal infrastructure such as clean water supply, electricity/power etc. This vital for any growing economy. Every city and town must be safely accesible and livable.

-> East Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan also recieved a lot of free money and Aid from the US due to it's paranoia over communism in the hopes that they don't fall to communist invasion or coups. Somalia has natural resources though, so instead we can get capital through trading our Oil, uranium etc.

-> State heavily subsidizes heavy industry e.g. automotive, chemical, steel, agriculture by offering incentives such as negative interest loans, high import tariffs on foreign competition, R&D subsidies, lower corporation tax etc.

-> Import substitution. High tariffs on foreign imports, zero/low tariffs of exports. The more competitive domestic companies are rewarded with tax reductions, lower interest rates on loans etc. That's how companies like SAMSUNG, LG, HYUNDAI, SONY, ASUS etc. got to be so big.

-> Punish inefficient or low-performing domestic companies by increasing your control over them or preferably sell them off to better and more competitive domestic companies.

-> Limiting foreign investment. Less foreign investment means that they have less control over your economy and less leverage to bully you into signing unequal trade deals.

-> Also forcing any foreign company with the country to hire most if not all their staff from with the country rather than allowing foreign corporations to simply bring skilled workers from outside the country, thereby limiting the benefits of their presence.

-> Higher taxes and tarriff on foreign corporations. This reduce their competition until your domestic companies are developed enough to properly cmpete on an international scale.

Read this book. It will open your eyes to the free-market economic myth that has been perpetuated by westerners to exploit poor countries



These is a good too.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Somalia is very lucky in that we have natural resources, so we shouldn't be begging for AID or Loans to kick-start our economy. We can simply use the income we get from the primarysector to inest heavily in manufacture and heavy industry. But unfortunately, we do not have human resources, and that is the most important thing of all.

[HannibalBarrcas]

The fucked up present day distorted standards of "richness" is set up the already rich and powerful countries centuries ago. This superficial characterization of countries is nothing more than a tool for the f-king "elite" countries to make themselves feel good at the expense of others.

I don't really care too much about 'richness', I just don't want to see Africans get left behind. We can't rely on our natural resources forever.

I don't give a fuck about neither how other countries see us nor for us to be in perpetual competition with elite countries just to see ourselves equal to them because I'm comfortable under my own skin.

You're comfortable with civil wars, dictators, famine, weak institutions, corruption, and sucking on the tits of western countries while back home people are struggling to survive?

[AgentOfChaos]

Somalia is very lucky in that we have natural resources, so we shouldn't be begging for AID or Loans to kick-start our economy. We can simply use the income we get from the primarysector to inest heavily in manufacture and heavy industry. But unfortunately, we do not have human resources, and that is the most important thing of all.

That's admirable dream to strive towards to but futile one nonetheless because I'm certain I don't have to remind you the two big obstacles in our way, the fragile qabiil territorial relations between Somalis and qabyaalad.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Yeah, Somalis have a lot of hurdles to cross (most of which are self-inflicted) but I have hope. There have been many nations througout history that have succeeded with less odds. There's also the fact that we are on a precipice - it's now or never. If we don't sort ourselves out, we won't survive the next century with increased global competition for food, water, resources.

[AgentOfChaos]

I don't really care too much about 'richness', I just don't want to see Africans get left behind. We can't rely on our natural resources forever.

I don't give a fuck about neither how other countries see us nor for us to be in perpetual competition with elite countries just to see ourselves equal to them because I'm comfortable under my own skin.

You're comfortable with civil wars, dictators, famine, weak institutions, corruption, and sucking on the tits of western countries while back home people are struggling to survive?

You assume too much, I could do the same and say that you should save your pathetic self-hatered for someone who gives a fuck, but that would be too easy.

[HannibalBarrcas]

Somalia is very lucky in that we have natural resources, so we shouldn't be begging for AID or Loans to kick-start our economy. We can simply use the income we get from the primarysector to inest heavily in manufacture and heavy industry. But unfortunately, we do not have human resources, and that is the most important thing of all.

When I look at places like South Korea I don't see intellect or creativity playing a large part, their high GDP can mostly be attributed to their "copy culture". Commercial businesses like Samsung, LG, and Hyundai are essentially just knockoffs of Western and Japanese companies.

Maybe human capital does play a big part, but like anything, there are ways to get around it.

[AgentOfChaos]

Yeah, Somalis have a lot of hurdles to cross (most of which are self-inflicted) but I have hope. There have been many nations througout history that have succeeded with less odds. There's also the fact that we are on a precipice - it's now or never. If we don't sort ourselves out, we won't survive the next century with increased global competition for food, water, resources.

Nothing changed in more than 20 years, its highly unlikely anything will change now, but I hope I'm wrong. Who knows, may be Somalis won't be blinded by qabyaalad and will finally see the light.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

Somalia is very lucky in that we have natural resources, so we shouldn't be begging for AID or Loans to kick-start our economy. We can simply use the income we get from the primarysector to inest heavily in manufacture and heavy industry. But unfortunately, we do not have human resources, and that is the most important thing of all.

When I look at places like South Korea I don't see intellect or creativity playing a large part, their high GDP can mostly be attributed to their "copy culture". Commercial businesses like Samsung, LG, and Hyundai are essentially just knockoffs of Western and Japanese companies.

Maybe human capital does play a big part, but like anything, there are ways to get around it.

East Asian companies are no longer copy-cats, but are actually at the forefront of research and development. Japan, despite it's more than 2 decade economic bubble, is still the most advanced in prodcution of highly specialized mechanical and electrical parts. South Korea is now the greatest shipbuilding nation but is soon to be overtaken by china. They are also fast becoming one of the most tech-advanced nations on earth.

You are right in that East Asians traditionally haven't been seen as the most creative or inventive race and they are also hindered bytheir strict confucian ideals and hierarchy. But apart from maybe scandinavia and Germany, they are the most highly skilled and technologically advanced nations on earth. The PISA studies which measure the average skill levels of schoolkids in the OECD have put chinese, korean and japanese kids at the top for Maths, language, science and critical-thinking/problem-solving.

Every nation needs to copy others first to catch up. That was no different from Elizabethan Britain copying dutch and belgian cottage industries and textile mills, Germany copying british industrial revolution, the US copying Germany and Britain etc.

[Otherbrother]

This is the most idiotic, simpleminded video I have seen in a long time.
1) Corruption in wealthy countries is equivalent or worse than poor countries.
2) Keeping countries poor is done through international injection of funds/weapons/ideas to places they know will have devastating effects on the government and population.
3) Why is the US both religious and wealthy and other nations aren't? Because the US is an empire of corruption and warfare that preys on smaller nations and siphons anything that would give them an advantage back into its atmosphere of influence. If Somalia had military bases all over the world and had the international influence the US does, it would be exactly the same with few differences. One of those things would be pride, which is horribly obvious in the video.
4) Extremely believing... Does this guy believe what he says? Do Americans believe they are #1?
5) Materialistic religion? So he's saying that consumers build economies that then make a country all-powerful? It's no wonder that people living on a dollar a day or whatever the terms may be will have a difficult time becoming a great nation. Maybe if they weren't losing their land and resources to international thugs through corrupt terrorists (governments), they would have that opportunity. Religion and being extremely believing is not the cause of being unsuccessful and is a horrible causation argument. Being greedy, corrupt and internationally established through a military and business presence is definitely more important than who believes what in their spare time.
6) The tropics are destined for poverty? I didn't realize it was the carbohydrates that were causing out-of-control governments funded by international industrialists causing a lawlessness and atmosphere in an area of the world that is notoriously being polluted and destroyed as well as having human rights and working conditions terrorized by multinationalists.
7) Internationally speaking, and since the world has become a neo-liberal, globalist nightmare, these people so devastated by natural phenomenon, could have access to technology and information that the rest of the world has developed, but they are stagnant like the video says. Why is that? Is it because we haven't shared? Is it because they aren't being given the chance to grow?
8) Diseases are keeping the black man down... Unlike all the diseases and plagues that ravaged Europeans who were then falsely vaccinated by prideful "physicians" and "inventors" a couple hundred years ago who would experiment and murder people with bad data and an unrelenting pride that kept their elitest "medicine" in circulation. How many died during the black plague? Don't heart disease and strokes kill more people than anything? And again, international sharing and caring is selective in medicine as it is in technology. Money talks.
9) Landlocked nations are poor but open nations through globalism are also poor. Hmm. I wish there was a unified theory I could get behind.
10) "The poorest country in Asia is Afghanistan (landlocked)." Don't they sell a large amount of drugs now? Where is that money going? Last I heard, Americans guarded those crops with their military. They might be landlocked, but they are an international interest because they are being exploited. One of their leading exports, besides all the agricultural products, is scrap metal, because they've been a warzone for Russia, Britain and the US for centuries. The video narrator should look up The Great Game. I'm sure, right now, the CIA makes more money off of Afghanistan than the people there. Opium is a 4 billion dollar industry there and 75% of that goes to druglords who work for international interests. It's the same in tropical nations in South/Central America.
11) Natural resources. These poor countries have loads of them. That's why they are poor. Nice argument. America has a lot of resources and bad institutions but they go to international markets for their needs as well and it's cheap. I wonder why. Maybe because they are apart of the bad institutions in other nations allowing them to horde their own resources and reduce the cost of living and improve the quality of life on the backs of the world. Britain had an empire that spanned the world. The former British Empire, before they lost it through their own warmongering, held over 50 nations and all of them were either poor, or helping to extend British, imperialist influence. They held a huge percentage of the world's land mass and GNP. The commonwealth still exists today but it's an international cooperation that instills control and morality over the rest of the world while exploiting it.
Elites grab money in any society. They also grab money in other societies thanks for globalism which leads to absolute corruption in poorer nations where they are out of sight and unimportant to those in developed countries. That's why slave labour overseas is more popular than it has ever been. Masking it as globalism doesn't change the fact that the elites of today and in the West are no different than they were 2000 years ago and in the East.
I love how he mentions high technology requiring raw resources and draws the correlation between the developed and the undeveloped and the corrupt, but doesn't see how international markets are designed to support the thugs he mentions who gather these resources for the elites. What an imbecile.

I agree with this redditor.
This video made me cring from early. Such a stupid and simple minded way of seeing thing.

Doesn't mention anything of foreign policies, aid trap etc. lol at people watching a 6min video and believing it hook line and sinker.

Religiosity of a state has nothing to do with its development. What bullshit.

[Otherbrother]

This fucktard actually said that the richest countries are the least corrupt....

[PrinceDaadi]

If the participants of this thread are ready to be catalyst of the change Somalis need then maybe we can start something even if it is small.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

This fucktard actually said that the richest countries are the least corrupt....

Unfortunately, ignorant Africans, Asians and South Americans will listen to these lying snakes or they will be bombed to give them freedom and human rights.

[Jabuutawi]

There are many factors that contribute to a country's richness (or poverty). Watch video below, two of these factors, health and education, play major role in a country's success story.

Also, Africa does not need strong-armed leadership, but strong and independent institutions.

That said, I truly enjoyed this Swedish professor's engaging mannerism, wish some of my professors were just like him.