Why are Poor Countries Poor?

I think we need to throw political corruption in there somewhere.

 

...because they don't kick ass like us!

Actually, it has a lot to do with the name of the country. I mean, who wants to live in some place called Ethiopia or Zimbabwe. If they changed their name to something like kickassland or Chucknorristan, they would be much cooler places to live, thus reviving their economy...

 

To me the most important reason is most of the people in those country are not educated. You can have a country without much resources (Japan and South Korea comes to mind) and still be a very rich nation, but the pouplation has to be educated. How did China went from piss poor in the 70's to the economical power( still have many poor people though) today? It is because there is a culture of treating education as being very important in place and it didn't take long for a good portion of the country to become well educated.

 

I think the problem is we need to quit sending them food and start sending them Winnebagos. They need to move to where the food is. They live in the middle of a freeking desert. See this? It's sand ! You know what it's going to be 10,000 years from now? SAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOTHING GROWS IN SAND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS !!!!!!!!!!!!!MOVE!!!!!! MOVE!!!!!!

 

because they are lazy. Anytime someone is poor, it is always because they just didn't work hard enough to get where people like G.W. Bush have. That guy worked his way up from nothing to earn his money.

 

But many times they don't have the system like ours to reward hard working.

 

You can make excuses if you want, but when times are hard, they should do what they need to get a system so they could go to school to get the job. If they are too lazy to do that then they are just getting what they deserve.

 

because you touch yourself at night.

 

If forced to use a broad brush, I would say 1 political corruption and oppression and/or 2 local traditions are huge obstacles to prosperity in many places. For #1, try thinking of any poor country that isn't ruled by incredibly corrupt leadership. For #2, some local or regional traditions place little value on education and the educational systems of some countries is pathetic. There are other reasons for poverty, but these two came to mind right away. Climate is also a factor some places.

 

Bad economic policies.

 

because rich countries screw them over by perpetually "bailing" them out on high interest loans and leaving them forever indebted, not to mention that certain countries like to go and destroy/take over/put up puppet governments in countries where the national resources are rich in commodities such as oil.

 

If you break it down to baseline, most of it is because of a lack of natural resources, which spawn industry.

Once you have something that others want, you can base your economy around that...and if you have a lot of that something, you can prosper.

Look at the Middle East, most of that is desolate country, and is the armpit of the world, but they have oil....and now they have an economy.

DD

 

Of course these countries were rich and prospering before the alleged loans and "puppet" governments, right?

 

For some countries, it's because those with power have either robbed the country of it's natural resources in the past (see Africa) or are in control of them now, and the vast majority of the people don't benefit (see Iraq). Educational opportunities make a difference too.

 

Eastern Europe, Russia, India, etc. have very educated citizens.

 

There are many different reasons. One is that many countries have recently followed the neoiberal model of letting the US drive their farmers out of business with "free trade" of tax payer subsidized food from the much more fertile Midwest United States. Then per the IMF we require them to send us low margin handcrafts or assembled products to pay for their food or large construction projects of dubious value built by Western countries. . When it isn't enough, we demand that they cut spending for education and health, thus insuring additional dependence.

Fortunately some countries like in Asia did not accept many aspects of the "free trade"with no barriers model and protected their industiries with tariffs till they grew strong enough to compete with the West. Why this was done there, but not in Africa or Latin America is not clear. It isn't because the starving peasants of Africa and Latin America don't work as hard as those in Aisia. I think comparing the "Asian tigers" with these other countries is important.

It would also be helpful if Americans for instance would demand that their leaders actually try to help thses countries instead of following the existing trade and aid models.

 

yeah but the problems go back to tribalism in africa (which is what i guess you are refering to) and the original nation building back during the days of euro colonialism. i really don't feel like going into a windbag response, but that is the origins of it. plus tribalism is still the thing that governs africa and not nationalism.

 

its good that we have poor countries. its like a natural way of controlling the population.

plus they probably hate america.