David, the Arabs got a lot of money from oil. But for 15 years, oil has been just another commodity which doesn't really get people excited. The share of world GDP which is held by oil has dropped a lot since the good old days of 1974 when OPEC could stop the world by turning off a spigot or three.
The Asian Dragons learned, worked, earned, invented, saved and built serious wealth. That's how they narrowed the gap.
The Arabs didn't. They learned superstitious Islamic twaddle and have been trying to re-invent the dark ages.
<Capital should flow to the developing world and labor towards the developed world>
True, but the labour should flow in the form of goods rather than mass migration. I can understand that Japanese don't want to have hordes of heathens polluting their civilized way of life, stealing and marauding.
It's not really labour which moves, it's people. They have a lot of baggage with them. When we moved to Belgium, we added value in some ways, but detracted in others. If we could earn the money and they could get the service while we stayed in our village back home, it would be better all around.
With cyberspace, labour travels quickly and cheaply. No need to load up 747s with hundreds of tonnes of people and baggage.
The USA had better enjoy the cheap supplies while they last. They should last a while since there are 2 billion Chinese and Indians, let alone Indonesians and others, who would enjoy a standard of living improvement. Even with Walmart and Mastercard going flat out, it'll take a while to fill all the houses, garages, cars and cubicles in the USA. Kiwis want a bit of stuff in their sheds too.
Hu Jintao is taking over at a very fun time! He has a lot of levers to pull. I think North Korea with a nuke was one of the levers. It's in China's interests to keep the northern border secure while the USA is ranting on about Strategic Competition, Pre-emptive attacks, down with the United Nations, no habeas corpus for aliens, etc. North Korea and China are obvious allies.
I expect that those wonderful cdma2000 phragmented photons will work their soothing miracles on them all and peace, light, harmony, love, happiness, health and prosperity will reign. South Korea is flooded with them [like the inside of a microwave oven]. KDDI in Japan is booming, suffusing Japan with the blissful effects. China is producing petatrillions of them now. North Korea is thinking about it. Taiwan, Hainan, India and southern realms are also revving up cdma2000.
Mqurice |
