3 ms·

> Doesn't it? I suspect almost every country (in Africa especially) has a wealth of some resource, they just don't know it's there and don't have the technology

> Doesn't it? I suspect almost every country (in Africa especially) has a wealth of some resource, they just don't know it's there and don't have the technology to mine it. Perhaps the smart educated folks may discover it occasionally. The problem is quality government. I live in Norway which is big on resources too and work with people who are geologists and do surveying. Norway is insanely expensive to do mining compared to Africa in terms of labor costs, environmental protection laws etc. However many mining companies would still pick Norway over Africa. Why? Very stable high quality government. Mining requires large investments for years. You don't want to lose those investments because of civil war, or some dictator takes power, or a populists nationalize mine without compensation. And even if an African country gets a mine, they run the risk of it not helping the country develop much. Because: 1) A western company may extract most of the wealth. In principle that could happen in Norway too, but Norwegian government will tax these companies far more. A western company can often squeeze poor African governments to get very low tax deals. Or they simply bribe officials. 2) Government corruption. There may be a lot of wealth, but it may end up in the pockets of corrupt officials who use it to buy foreign luxury products hence it benefits the local economy very little. My point is that developing a country is a very complex task, because they tend to have a whole cocktail of problems that reinforce each other. Often many approaches to solving these problems make matters worse. Zero tolerance towards corruption e.g. tends to make things worse. That allows corruption charges to be used selectively to imprison political opponents.

qwerty456127 7y ago
> There may be a lot of wealth, but it may end up in the pockets of corrupt officials who use it to buy foreign luxury products That's what came into my mind an hour ago: it probably is easy to inhibit corruption in developing countries if every developed country would ban their citizens from purchasing luxury and making huge investments abroad. E.g. if a Kenyan or a Russian citizen (let alone an official/politician) wants to buy a humble middle-class living or start a small business in the EU/US/UK/etc - that's Ok but as soon as they try to buy a luxury penthouse, a castle or otherwise invest money which exceeds their country richest city median annual wage by an order or magnitude or more - this transaction should be blocked and investigated.
- pjc50 7y ago
  That's a bit "run before you can walk"; most places are only just putting in the required beneficial owner rules in order to know that an e.g. Cayman Islands limited company isn't a front for someone on the US proscribed persons list, let alone that they're taking bribes in Kenya. There is a tremendous paper that takes advantage of the fact that a lot of debt is public in its amount but not owners to quantify the "missing trillions". The global sums of "amount owed to me" and "amount owed by me" should sum to zero, but there's a huge gap. That's money owed (bonds) to the invisible rich. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/05/heres-the-price-countries-pay-for-tax-evasion-exposed-in-panama-papers/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/05/heres-the-price-countrie...
- socialdemocrat 7y ago
  I don't think you can solve these problems with a stick. Quite the contrary I think that is part of the problem. The more laws and rules you enact, the more laws and rules you see people ignore and break. This just undermines totally respect for law and order. I believe in what economist Hernando de Soto has said about laws: Laws are discovered not made. You need to align laws with what is actually acceptable in your country at the moment. You cannot escape into a rosy Utopia where your underdeveloped country is going to somehow emulate a rich well developed democracy over night, by enacting the same laws. How a country works, and its laws are two different things. On paper Russia is an amazing democracy. In practice not so much. I see developing trust and confidence in the laws of the land is the most important thing you can do. For that to happen I think you simply need to legalize a lot of the crimes everybody does. Once you get people to actually respect and follow the laws you have, you gradually start tightening those laws. You gradually try to nudge people towards better behavior. Transparency is more important than strict laws IMHO. If e.g. a particular government official takes a $5 bribe for every application, then make it public and legal. Post a note that says you pay him or her $5 for the application. You know that fees where originally illegal bribes?

qwerty456127 7y ago

> There may be a lot of wealth, but it may end up in the pockets of corrupt officials who use it to buy foreign luxury products That's what came into my mind an hour ago: it probably is easy to inhibit corruption in developing countries if every developed country would ban their citizens from purchasing luxury and making huge investments abroad. E.g. if a Kenyan or a Russian citizen (let alone an official/politician) wants to buy a humble middle-class living or start a small business in the EU/US/UK/etc - that's Ok but as soon as they try to buy a luxury penthouse, a castle or otherwise invest money which exceeds their country richest city median annual wage by an order or magnitude or more - this transaction should be blocked and investigated.

pjc50 7y ago
That's a bit "run before you can walk"; most places are only just putting in the required beneficial owner rules in order to know that an e.g. Cayman Islands limited company isn't a front for someone on the US proscribed persons list, let alone that they're taking bribes in Kenya. There is a tremendous paper that takes advantage of the fact that a lot of debt is public in its amount but not owners to quantify the "missing trillions". The global sums of "amount owed to me" and "amount owed by me" should sum to zero, but there's a huge gap. That's money owed (bonds) to the invisible rich. https://theintercept.com/2016/04/05/heres-the-price-countries-pay-for-tax-evasion-exposed-in-panama-papers/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/05/heres-the-price-countrie...
socialdemocrat 7y ago
I don't think you can solve these problems with a stick. Quite the contrary I think that is part of the problem. The more laws and rules you enact, the more laws and rules you see people ignore and break. This just undermines totally respect for law and order. I believe in what economist Hernando de Soto has said about laws: Laws are discovered not made. You need to align laws with what is actually acceptable in your country at the moment. You cannot escape into a rosy Utopia where your underdeveloped country is going to somehow emulate a rich well developed democracy over night, by enacting the same laws. How a country works, and its laws are two different things. On paper Russia is an amazing democracy. In practice not so much. I see developing trust and confidence in the laws of the land is the most important thing you can do. For that to happen I think you simply need to legalize a lot of the crimes everybody does. Once you get people to actually respect and follow the laws you have, you gradually start tightening those laws. You gradually try to nudge people towards better behavior. Transparency is more important than strict laws IMHO. If e.g. a particular government official takes a $5 bribe for every application, then make it public and legal. Post a note that says you pay him or her $5 for the application. You know that fees where originally illegal bribes?