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Well, this particular economist's first priority is the poverty of the third world.

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His first experiment in combating poverty was during the hyperinflationary period in Bolivia, when over the course of just two years the peso rose from 5000 per dollar to 2 million per dollar. He helped to successfully stop inflation there, the result of a huge budget deficit financed by loans from the central bank (AKA printing money).

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With Deng Xioping's reforms in 1978...the economy picked up pace substantially, and by 2000 had quadrupled GDP per capita.

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However, by 1995, GDP per capita was higher than it had been in 1989, and what's more, it continued to grow steadily, until by 2000, GDP per capita was 40% higher than it had been in 1989. As well, the number of people living in extreme (0-$1 a day) and moderate ($1-$2 a day) poverty declined by about 25%

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Price controls were stopped, commercial law now allowed the opening of private businesses, and the unprofitable state enterprises were closed or sold off.

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During the days of price controls, the price was artificially set low and so you had to arrive early in the morning or you wouldn't get any sausage at all. Eventually, you could get sausages later and later (both as a result of increased supply, and lowered demand) until finally about a year after the reforms, (started Jan.1,1990), on most days, you could get them all the time.

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In short, we as human beings have in our hands the tools to break years of extreme poverty which exist as a result of ignorance, both in policy and economy.

If you have any interest at all in helping the society in which you live or any other (particularly other societies) then pick up the book The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities For Our Time by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Phd

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Your problem is that you define poverty as the losers. They are only "losers" in a relative sense compared to others, usually in the same nation.

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Should we not engage in sports? Now that is clearly a system that produces winners and losers.

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Do you honestly think I'm stupid?

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A year ago I was your fucking disciple.

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But you know what, since then, I've seen real revolutions. Cedar Revolution, Lebanon 2005, Orange Revolution, Ukraine 2004, Rose Revolution, Georgia 2002(?).

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And what those have proven to me is the folly of a Bolivarian revolution...

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...with a bunch a folks sitting in computer chairs talking about how they can make a revolution.

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It's sad that you would belittle someone who wants to help the world as much as you do, and unlike you, has actually been a force for positive change.

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I wouldn't say [Bolivia] was as bad as all that.

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Have you ever been [there]?

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So, without any real experience other than what you read, you're going to criticize the driving force of the world economy?

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Sorry, how many phds do you have again?

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One thing that I didn't make clear about Sachs is that he believes...that the developed nations must underwrite the costs of the transition so as to alleviate the suffering of the population.

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Again, though, another country you've never been to and he has.

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And they started eating more fruits and vegetables leading to a 13% decline in heart disease since the end of CP rule in that country.

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It has a foreword by Bono.

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You know what, don't confuse relative losers (American service workers who make 7 bucks an hour) with the real losers of this world, the billion people who live on a dollar or less a day, and the 1.5 billion who live on between 1 and 2 bucks a day.

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I have to critically examine your propositions: that the world is getting worse for most people as a result of the capitalist economic system. But the thing is, that just isn't true. The number of people living in extreme and moderate poverty is declining, and you know what, people living in relative poverty are really not that bad off.

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I'm sorry that they couldn't make one giant leap from being poor unindustrialized nations to awesome and 100 percent successful communist ones.

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You should check out some info on the Slum Dwellers Associations of India.

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MYSORE, NOV. 20. The Federation of Slum Dwellers' Associations today urged the Government to extend basic amenities and free education to help slum dwellers ameliorate their living condition.

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It's where useless talk about revolution takes place...You can talk all you want, but the next revolution that comes won't be yours, and most of the people who make it won't have read this site, and you'll probably find them hostile to a number of your ideas.

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How so? [Sachs] was against the war in Iraq, he's pro-debt cancellation, he's anti-IMF and World Bank, pro-UN. God damn! He's starting to sound like Wolfowitz or Cheney, ain't he?

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But I bet that there parents will tell them of a land [Bolivia] that was a hell of a lot worse.

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He talks about in China where he saw what 8% growth really means: buildings going up everywhere the eye can see, and not with cranes but with bare hands and bamboo scaffolding. They are being built 24 hours a day.

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Again, unlike you, he has sat down and talked to these people.

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And, a word to the wise, Poland certainly didn't have 'plush' government offices, especially the newly legalized solidarity.

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Have you? Do you know what it's like to live in real poverty?

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If you're willing to take a lot of shit, and sometimes you gotta, there are places out there.

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Well, it is in their economic interests, and occasionally they can be convinced of that.

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In fact, whatever you say about the transitional economy, Poland today is the best Eastern European country to live in, bar none.

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Bono might be a fool, but I think he's genuine.

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Do you think that by sitting around talking about revolution, that you will?

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You don't even know what a revolution is...They don't have to burn the place to the ground, they don't have to kill a bunch of people, but they do have to make a significant difference, and that is exactly what happened in all those situations.

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They have in the past and they will in the future.

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Someone who believes enough in their ideas to kill for them but who, ultimately, didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.

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For which Sachs also criticized the US government.

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The brutality of the Chinese government has nothing to do with their economic growth, nor does it disprove the success of their market reforms.

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You see, English is what they speak in Kenya, where he did the main research for his solutions for ending rural poverty there.

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Exactly. In fact, your only solution is that they should overthrow the government. Realistically though, without any kind of popular support, that will only result in an insurgency or a civil war which will destroy a lot of lives and livelihoods, but ultimately be defeated.

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What I'm getting at here is that it is easy to criticize when you have no viable alternative to present.

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Shit will be on humanity's menu for a few generations to come at least, and that's if we do things right.

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The point is, what would have happened if they continued to live like they were?

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Well, that's interesting, because the main point you make is that we have to wait for the revolution to come. You say that we have to do what we can while we can, but according to you, what we can do for the third world right now is nothing.

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Which would you do if you were me?

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Most people around here seem to think that when a nation is underdeveloped, it is owing to something called 'capitalist underdevelopment'.

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But no one ever says anything about geographic underdevelopment, which is a large part of Sachs' 'clinical economics' theory.

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Islands tend to be very easy to develop and grow much faster than other environments.

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I can't even remember what I read anymore.

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An autoplant would increase technical knowledge in the area quite widely, and would begin to bring some wealth into a few more peoples hands.

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If South Carolina is wretched, then the Ukraine and 70% of all other countries are the living incarnations of hell on earth.

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Do you think it was possible for the French to actually come out of their revolution victorious?

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What you have to understand is, your ideas aren't even popular enough to be talked about in the salons yet.

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So what we have to do, what humanity will always have to do if they are not strong enough to overthrow the powers that be, is to work with them.

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What you are suggesting is that we rise up and smash a near-invincible giant, or if we can't do that, we hurt the giant any way we can, even if through our ignorance of their plight, or even from our direct actions, we will bring harm to billions of people. I just think it's unfeasible. Excuse me if I think it's unrealistic.

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Except that [Sachs] is known by statesman all across the world, and some of them I'm sure even respect him (maybe).

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In Africa in 1820, GDP per capita was one-third of that in North America...

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What about the third world countries that are already as democratic as France in the age of the National Directory?

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Then explain to me Blair's championing of the debt cancellation in Africa and Bush's tacit support of it. What sinister plan is it a mere footnote to?

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How indefinite is your period of resistance to capital?

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Or do we help who needs help now, and make revolution when the time is right.

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Economic systems that don't take into account how much it costs to make something won't ever be able to make enough to satisfy everybody.

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What I advocate is village capitalism, and imperialist intervention in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA).

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How did you know that I'm a massive fraud?

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What do we do when we've built an anti-war movement that ensures a lack of military intervention?

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Wouldn't it be plausible to build a movement for increased foreign aid, responsible foreign aid to Africa and the rest of the stagnating world?

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Of course, that armchair is a little too comfortable to ever accept the possibility that you could be wrong about some things.

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What I was referring to was a revolution created by people sitting around drinking cognac and planning a revolution.

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But yes, to answer your question, Sachs not only advocates the cancellation of debt, he succeeded in getting half of Poland's debt canceled, and I believe all of Bolivia's as well.

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And the money coming from those industries finances the domestic capitalists, who expand into other markets that they find particularly profitable. Just like happened in all of the 'Asian Tiger' countries.

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I mean, you agree obviously with Diamond's theory, and yet, you won't apply it to the modern world. The less people that have to grow food (Western Europe being one of the most fertile regions on the earth), the more people there are to innovate, to build, in short a better future.

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In places like Africa, where almost every person, with few exceptions gets an anemic bout of malaria every single year, there are an overwhelming number of factors of geography that inhibit economic development.

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Yeah, they are probably going to put the factory on the back of a truck and just send it out there.

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I'd take ineffectual influence over futile resistance anyday.

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Apparently, Japan, SK, Taiwan et alia were puppets of the US, and we know (or presume) that puppets lack the ' national autonomy to make development possible', and yet, their economies seem to have expanded. Go on, what magic bullet of causality do you have for me now?

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There is the possibility, however slight, that they could acquire the capital through aid. In fact, I would say that that is more likely than anyone rising up and overthrowing any country's government.

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How do you expect them to combat AIDS or malaria without medicine? Oh, they'll make it themselves? With what?

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If there is one thing that has been proved a hundred times over in our lifetimes, let alone the last century, it is that notions of autarky are rewarded with poverty, isolation, both economic and political, the results of which are devastating to a nation's citizens.

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You're not an expert on poverty, nor on Africa and you don't even know what Sachs' strategy is, and yet, you know, you are so confident in your ignorance that no matter what he says, it won't work.

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And during this period, Africans and Asians should suffer unimaginable evils while you tell everyone to focus on strikes and other first world bullshit?

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That you would even dare call into question my morals just shows how little you know me.

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People who steal are hemmed in by notions of just how much they can steal without getting caught.

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Have you ever tried to predict anybody's behaviour with class?

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You can't predict someone's politics, or their attitudes, or anything else about them based on useless notions of economic class.

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Why will Tibet almost always be poor?

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Let me guess, you're an expert on anemia now too? Yes, [malaria] causes underdevelopment!

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It has been estimated in a retrospective analysis that economic growth per year of countries with intensive malaria was 1.3% lower than that of countries without malaria.

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You're telling me that the Japanese successfully plundered and hid from the Americans billions of dollars of Chinese wealth?

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And there you have the cusp of the argument for limited liberalization. No matter how much influence or control the foreigners have, you will be enriching a people, and they will save that money and then they will start their own businesses, or find other ways of expanding that capital to their own benefit, and indirectly to the benefit of others around them.

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Not only did you admit the possibility of growth from FDI (foreign direct investment) given the right circumstances, you also admitted that people will be enriched in the country, no matter what the imperialists try to do. That is all I could ever ask of you. Because while these things seem to pale in comparison with our standard of living, they are the beginnings of a real domestic economy, well-rounded, and serving the citizens, not the foreigners(though no doubt they too will derive some benefit).

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Did no one on this site read about the Gleneagles G8 Summit that decided on a policy of debt cancellation for Africa?

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As long as we proceed with exactly the right amount of cynicism about the motivation of politicians, they can be goaded into doing what we want.

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Isolating yourself from the world won't exactly cause an intellectual revolution. The best way to learn how to make something is to have someone come over and invest the money in these technologies, which the workers then become proficient in.

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If you read it though, and come up with specific points about it, then that will mean something to me. But basically, you can't refute what you don't understand.

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I mean, I know people who spend $2000 a year on fuckin cigarettes, or weed or booze or whatever else and then complain that they don't have enough money.

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