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This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped re

This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions. I could not disagree more strongly regarding vaccinations not being an effective economic development tool. Take the polio vaccination program for instance. Polio. Polio doesn't often kill people, but it does often make them lame for the rest of their lives. So, for every person that gets polio, they are extremely limited in the economic goods that they can produce, but they are also an economic drag on the family, because they are a financial burden rather than producing income. Polio has been almost eradicated, and the economic benefits to poverty stricken countries has been huge. Small Pox is another example. It has all been eradicated, life expectancies have gone up in the third world because of it, and more people are able to produce income for longer. Other diseases like Malaria, Cholera, Dengue affect hundreds of millions of people world wide each year, and they aren't necessarily killer diseases. And, millions and millions of people are affected by these diseased, and when they are infected, they are an economic drain. Preventing these diseases with a simple vaccine is going to give a much greater economic boost to poor countries than giving them clean energy technologies or superhighways. Keep in mind that in these countries, with no real legal system, unskilled labor doesn't mean gardening like it does in California but violence in the form of gangs/thug-ocracies who typically control access to natural resources or drug running routes That, sir borders on the racist. What countries are you referring to? There are well over a hundred developing countries with various levels of legal systems and economies. Are you saying that all developing nations are thugocracies? Are you suggesting that any and all unskilled labor in developing nations ends up leading to gangs?

marciovm123 17y ago
I'm not saying we don't need $3 or $30 or $300 life saving treatments. If the treatment is worth it - if a living person generates enough wealth to cover the treatment - then of course it's good for the economy. The fact that the polio vaccine was worth the investment is why people in America chose to put money into it. But an outside force artificially lowering the cost of the treatment to basically zero means that you are keeping people alive that are not able to generate any wealth at all. In fact, in a place with too many people and not enough ways for them to generate wealth (land or jobs), you are perpetuating conditions that breed violence and corruption, leading to negative wealth creation through your actions. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help, if possible - but we need to attack the right problem. The reason we don't is that because there is a real cost to us to do so. People who are all for money towards cheap vaccines want to help as long as it doesn't cost them anything other then their admiration. "Preventing these diseases with a simple vaccine is going to give a much greater economic boost to poor countries than giving them clean energy technologies or superhighways." If America continues polluting the world to the point where temperatures rise above 2C and global climate patterns are disrupted, we will have directly caused the deaths and suffering of tens or hundreds of millions of people. Not causing those deaths is indeed a greater economic boost then cheaper vaccines. We need clean energy everywhere, starting with the US and China. Infrastructure that supports trade is an excellent investment. Superhighways? That makes it sound like you've never left the suburbs, man. These places need a road connecting their capital to everywhere else that can handle 2 lanes of traffic each way, and a port that can handle a decent size ship. No, they don't already have that. "That, sir borders on the racist. What countries are you referring to?" Who said anything about races? I'm referring to any country where managing natural resources is a substantially larger portion of the economy then leveraging human capital. In that case, ruling elites have huge financial incentives to actively deter development of human capital. That would be a challenge to their rule. Their government might have "democracy" and laws that sound great, but at the end of the day the job of the police and military is to keep the powerful in power, and in that sense they are nothing more then a glorified gang. I would believe Bill Gate's sincerity if he permanently moved to a developing country and tried building a profitable business (any business!) there. If you want people to live a wealthy lifestyle, they need a way to generate that wealth themselves.

marciovm123 17y ago

I'm not saying we don't need $3 or $30 or $300 life saving treatments. If the treatment is worth it - if a living person generates enough wealth to cover the treatment - then of course it's good for the economy. The fact that the polio vaccine was worth the investment is why people in America chose to put money into it. But an outside force artificially lowering the cost of the treatment to basically zero means that you are keeping people alive that are not able to generate any wealth at all. In fact, in a place with too many people and not enough ways for them to generate wealth (land or jobs), you are perpetuating conditions that breed violence and corruption, leading to negative wealth creation through your actions. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to help, if possible - but we need to attack the right problem. The reason we don't is that because there is a real cost to us to do so. People who are all for money towards cheap vaccines want to help as long as it doesn't cost them anything other then their admiration. "Preventing these diseases with a simple vaccine is going to give a much greater economic boost to poor countries than giving them clean energy technologies or superhighways." If America continues polluting the world to the point where temperatures rise above 2C and global climate patterns are disrupted, we will have directly caused the deaths and suffering of tens or hundreds of millions of people. Not causing those deaths is indeed a greater economic boost then cheaper vaccines. We need clean energy everywhere, starting with the US and China. Infrastructure that supports trade is an excellent investment. Superhighways? That makes it sound like you've never left the suburbs, man. These places need a road connecting their capital to everywhere else that can handle 2 lanes of traffic each way, and a port that can handle a decent size ship. No, they don't already have that. "That, sir borders on the racist. What countries are you referring to?" Who said anything about races? I'm referring to any country where managing natural resources is a substantially larger portion of the economy then leveraging human capital. In that case, ruling elites have huge financial incentives to actively deter development of human capital. That would be a challenge to their rule. Their government might have "democracy" and laws that sound great, but at the end of the day the job of the police and military is to keep the powerful in power, and in that sense they are nothing more then a glorified gang. I would believe Bill Gate's sincerity if he permanently moved to a developing country and tried building a profitable business (any business!) there. If you want people to live a wealthy lifestyle, they need a way to generate that wealth themselves.