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It is my impression that Rwanda has been improving under the Kagame rule, but that the improvement is still precarious.

boeingUH60 4y ago
Rwanda's GDP per capita is $834 [1]. That's way worse than my poor country (Nigeria) at $2,085 [2], so that improvement is very much in question and under a dictator nonetheless. Edit: Removed the part describing Kagame as genocidal because I mixed up his identity. He's still corrupt and power-drunk though. 1- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=RW https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... 2- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=NG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  I am ignorant about the details in case of Nigeria and Rwanda, but GDP per capita may not be a good measure of living standards in nations with massive inequality. A couple of ultra-rich oil tycoons in an otherwise poor country will artificially increase the per capita figure.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    To boost the per capita GDP of Nigeria from $834 to $2085, your two oil tycoons would need to have annual income of more than 130 billion dollars each. A couple of ultra-rich people can't really move GDP per capita figures anywhere; that's not how averages work.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      By "a couple" I meant something like several thousand. A tiny minority within the entire population. How many are, for example, the Saudi princes? Five thousand or so?
      - rsj_hn 4y ago
        First, you are getting this casualty reversed if you think a few thousand billionaires just drop on a poor country, raising GDP. What happens is wealthy countries give rise to wealthy elite, and poor countries have poorer elite. The billionaire's income cannot just be added to GDP, and removing the billionaire does not reduce GDP by the amount of his income. We can do a thought experiment -- let's say Taylor Swift makes $100 million. Does that mean she increases GDP by $100 million? No, because part of that $100 million is taking money away from other uses, e.g. someone with a fixed entertainment budget going to see her instead of doing something else. Only the resulting increase in overall income -- if any -- is the measure of how much Taylor adds to GDP. GDP is the sum of total final production in an economy, and while a billionaire may play an important role in organizing production and encouraging more production to happen, it's usually the case that if they were never born or left, the economy would continue with other replacements for the billionaire's contribution. The replacements would be less efficient and so output would be a bit smaller. That difference is the contribution to GDP, not the billionaire's entire income. And if you talk about Saudi oil princes, then they are not producing anything at all. Make those Oil princes disappear, and Saudi Arabia's GDP would be unchanged. Actually it would certainly increase, since imports subtract from GDP and those oil princes like to stash their wealth overseas and import luxury goods. Bottom line, please don't confuse household income with national income, they are different beasts, and you cannot increase or decrease national income in a material way by adding or removing rich households to the country, anymore than you can make a business increase or decrease in revenue by paying the CEO more. Rather, CEOs of high revenue companies earn more, and those of lower revenue companies earn less. You can't just look at a company that is earning less revenue and say "Oh, just add a few thousand highly paid executives to the company, and the revenue will be way up".
        kragen 4y ago
        > What happens is wealthy countries give rise to wealthy elite, and poor countries have poorer elite. This does occasionally happen, and by choosing your definition of "elite" carefully enough you can make it happen in more cases, but it is generally not the case. Poor countries generally have much greater inequality than wealthy countries, with the result that elites in poor countries (say, top 1%, 5%, or 10% by either net worth or income) are often wealthier than elites in richer countries. > let's say Taylor Swift makes $100 million. Does that mean she increases GDP by $100 million? Generally, the answer in cases like this is "almost". Your explanation leaves out what she does with the money after she gets it. If she spends it all immediately on domestic products and services, then yes, she does increase GDP by her earnings, because her spending replaces the forgone spending you correctly identify on the part of her fans. Similarly if she lends it to businesses who use it to buy domestic products and services, or if she buys their stock from them or from other shareholders who then go on to use it in the same way. So-called "entertainers" tend to be quite spendthrift, and those from the US mostly spend their money in the US. To some degree Ms. Swift is an exception on this count, known for her wise investing, estimates are that she's grown her net worth to only US$450 million over her 18-year music career, despite currently earning US$150 million per year from her work; as a very rough approximation that means she's spent the first 15 of her 18 years of showbiz earnings already, and most of her savings are probably also in US stock markets and money markets.
- SamReidHughes 4y ago
  Kagame being genocidal is news to me.
  - boeingUH60 4y ago
    Mistake...was thinking of someone else. I stand corrected.

Rwanda's GDP per capita is $834 [1]. That's way worse than my poor country (Nigeria) at $2,085 [2], so that improvement is very much in question and under a dictator nonetheless. Edit: Removed the part describing Kagame as genocidal because I mixed up his identity. He's still corrupt and power-drunk though. 1- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=RW https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... 2- https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=NG https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...

inglor_cz 4y ago
I am ignorant about the details in case of Nigeria and Rwanda, but GDP per capita may not be a good measure of living standards in nations with massive inequality. A couple of ultra-rich oil tycoons in an otherwise poor country will artificially increase the per capita figure.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  To boost the per capita GDP of Nigeria from $834 to $2085, your two oil tycoons would need to have annual income of more than 130 billion dollars each. A couple of ultra-rich people can't really move GDP per capita figures anywhere; that's not how averages work.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    By "a couple" I meant something like several thousand. A tiny minority within the entire population. How many are, for example, the Saudi princes? Five thousand or so?
    - rsj_hn 4y ago
      First, you are getting this casualty reversed if you think a few thousand billionaires just drop on a poor country, raising GDP. What happens is wealthy countries give rise to wealthy elite, and poor countries have poorer elite. The billionaire's income cannot just be added to GDP, and removing the billionaire does not reduce GDP by the amount of his income. We can do a thought experiment -- let's say Taylor Swift makes $100 million. Does that mean she increases GDP by $100 million? No, because part of that $100 million is taking money away from other uses, e.g. someone with a fixed entertainment budget going to see her instead of doing something else. Only the resulting increase in overall income -- if any -- is the measure of how much Taylor adds to GDP. GDP is the sum of total final production in an economy, and while a billionaire may play an important role in organizing production and encouraging more production to happen, it's usually the case that if they were never born or left, the economy would continue with other replacements for the billionaire's contribution. The replacements would be less efficient and so output would be a bit smaller. That difference is the contribution to GDP, not the billionaire's entire income. And if you talk about Saudi oil princes, then they are not producing anything at all. Make those Oil princes disappear, and Saudi Arabia's GDP would be unchanged. Actually it would certainly increase, since imports subtract from GDP and those oil princes like to stash their wealth overseas and import luxury goods. Bottom line, please don't confuse household income with national income, they are different beasts, and you cannot increase or decrease national income in a material way by adding or removing rich households to the country, anymore than you can make a business increase or decrease in revenue by paying the CEO more. Rather, CEOs of high revenue companies earn more, and those of lower revenue companies earn less. You can't just look at a company that is earning less revenue and say "Oh, just add a few thousand highly paid executives to the company, and the revenue will be way up".
      - kragen 4y ago
        > What happens is wealthy countries give rise to wealthy elite, and poor countries have poorer elite. This does occasionally happen, and by choosing your definition of "elite" carefully enough you can make it happen in more cases, but it is generally not the case. Poor countries generally have much greater inequality than wealthy countries, with the result that elites in poor countries (say, top 1%, 5%, or 10% by either net worth or income) are often wealthier than elites in richer countries. > let's say Taylor Swift makes $100 million. Does that mean she increases GDP by $100 million? Generally, the answer in cases like this is "almost". Your explanation leaves out what she does with the money after she gets it. If she spends it all immediately on domestic products and services, then yes, she does increase GDP by her earnings, because her spending replaces the forgone spending you correctly identify on the part of her fans. Similarly if she lends it to businesses who use it to buy domestic products and services, or if she buys their stock from them or from other shareholders who then go on to use it in the same way. So-called "entertainers" tend to be quite spendthrift, and those from the US mostly spend their money in the US. To some degree Ms. Swift is an exception on this count, known for her wise investing, estimates are that she's grown her net worth to only US$450 million over her 18-year music career, despite currently earning US$150 million per year from her work; as a very rough approximation that means she's spent the first 15 of her 18 years of showbiz earnings already, and most of her savings are probably also in US stock markets and money markets.
SamReidHughes 4y ago
Kagame being genocidal is news to me.
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  Mistake...was thinking of someone else. I stand corrected.