Message-ID: <ADB-zHt0jU@mb.sorostm.ro> Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 10:59:23 +0400 From: Florin Jurcovici <mailto:fljurcovici@MB.SOROSTM.RO> Subject: Re: Boring reply & sustainable IT -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Jon Sanford wrote: > Should they insist that they be compensated financially for presumptive
> losses in the past or should they organize their economies in ways that take
> advantage of commercial opportunities now before them? Even if they got a
> big compensation payment to put them back on an equal footing with the
> developed countries in terms of asset levels, would they be able to stay there
> if they lack requisite skills and they invest the money badly?
I agree that "a big compensation payment" won't be of much help, because the lack of knowledge to keep in line with more developed countries and economies wouldn't be resolved by this. IMO it's a complex problem to direct the (financial) aid towards the transfer of know-how to the less developed countries. But you see, money is the blood of economy. If the economy of a country is going bad, because of lack of money, then I think that money should be imported to this country until it is able to do well on it's own. See, it's allways so that an ill person causes more expenses than a healthy one. I think it's the same with economy. Besides, You cannot ask performance in any direction from an ill man. A possible sollution for this problem - the healing of ill economies - might be huge investments in education of people involved in management and leadership in order to transmit the know-how to the places were it is needed - I figured out that effective management skills are one of the biggest problems in less developed countries. But I can see it every day that these people have a too good opinion about themselves in order to accept advice from any other person - not generalized, but in many cases. Since all people over thirdy in Romania completely grew up and formed themselves in an comunist educational system, think about what effort would be needed in order to retrain these people! It is very much alike with putting them into a madhouse and healing them what has to be done.
> Maybe the world would be better
> if the Europeans and North Americans reduced their consumption of the
> world's resources, as you suggest. However, they'll just build lighter products
> and their living standards won't go down much if at all.
An economy based on raw materials export cannot be performant, I think that's obvious. But politics in the developed countries goes like this (I have to underline: it's only a personal opinion): if the living standards go down, the leading party looses votes. The simplest way for the opposition is to promise the raising of living standards. Who cares (amongst the politicians, I mean), who is going to pay for this raising of living standards? - especially if it is going to be some country situated far away from the "civilized" world? After all, politics is a game were you win or loose, and who wants to be the looser? And unfortunately politics leads the world.
-- Jurcovici Florin mailto:fljurcovici@mb.sorostm.ro