Of Trade and Terror

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Sherry Darling,

The East Asian Tigers are doing just fine. The Human Development Report 2003 shows that their standard of living continues to be among the highest in the world. My good friend who is a Marine was in Soul back in 2002 and he feels the standard of living there is better than San Diego.

Ireland was the perhaps the poorest country in 1845, and now it is nearly the richest. Free Trade is an important part of that fact. Ireland is an example that free trade and industrialization can develop a dirt poor country into an economic paradise. Ireland success has very little to do with the exceptions you state, and more to do with the fundamental facts that free trade and industrialization do work, it just takes time. Of course political stability is an enormous factor as well.

"If you're wondering what I mean when I say "economic colonization", consider the destructive policies of the IMF and World Bank. You can learn about them in a ton of places, if you choose to educate yourself about it. The best place to start, I think is a book by a former chief economist at the bank, Joe Stigletz (author of above article, too), called Globalization and Its Discontents"opinions on Globalization"

There are plenty of economist out there that do not agree with your opinion on the issue or Stigletz view of Globalization.

"Remember next that it is a myth that the currently rich nations got rich via free trade. Documents prove that we and Europe used tarrifs, trade barriers, gov't subsidies and other forms of protection to guide and strengthen infant industries and we also colonized much of the Global South to force them to give us access to their resources and markets (see Ha Joon Chang's Kicking Away the Ladder--that book has copies of the documents I'm talking about."

Remember thats your opinion. The Economics proffesors I have learned from at University have emphasised the damaging role that tarrifs and trade barriers have played in international trade. The Great Depression of the 1930s would have only been a recession if States had not raised trade tarrifs and barriers.

The majority of the colonization that took place in Africa did take place along time ago and is a poor explanation for the poverty that exist there. There is an anti-rich, anti-first world view that says the first world is responsible for all the problems in the third world, but from what I have seen in many cases, this is simply not true. That does not change the fact that we have the capacity to improve conditions in the third world, but its wrong to say the problems in the third world are mainly the fault of the first world. A left of left Liberals fantasy, but not a fact. The WTO protest crowd has it wrong.

"but a nation has to get to a certain point of development before they can play with the big boys."

Ireland would not be where it is today if it believed that.

"But the fact is, our policies *deepen* and *perpetuate* poverty at a time in history when the world has enough wealth to make one hell of a dent in it."

The policies of the USA and the first world countries continue to help raise the standard of living, over all, around the world.

"And I agree with Bono wholeheartedly when he says that God will judge us for that."

WTO protesters should remember this.
 
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