Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wise words from Hillary
Unlike most Secys of State, Hillary speaks in plain English sometimes. Her advice to the new nation of South Sudan yesterday was a good example of this:
Well said, and good advice.
Wiki claims that the idea of the Resource Curse began in the 1980s.
Not so. It was around in the '40s. It's possible that Clifton Fadiman was the first to state it publicly. In a 1944 episode of Info Please, he was handling a question about various quotes, one of which was "Happy is the nation with no history." Fadiman commented that the saying really should be revised to "Happy is the nation with no natural resources", considering the fate of countries like Romania and Malaya in WW2. ¶ 3:53 AM
We know that [oil] will either help your country finance its own path out of poverty, or you will fall prey to the natural resource curse, which will enrich a small elite, outside interests, corporations and countries, and leave your people hardly better off than when you started.
Well said, and good advice.
Wiki claims that the idea of the Resource Curse began in the 1980s.
Not so. It was around in the '40s. It's possible that Clifton Fadiman was the first to state it publicly. In a 1944 episode of Info Please, he was handling a question about various quotes, one of which was "Happy is the nation with no history." Fadiman commented that the saying really should be revised to "Happy is the nation with no natural resources", considering the fate of countries like Romania and Malaya in WW2. ¶ 3:53 AM
