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I wonder if the planners in America are going to take credit for this awesomeness (and I mean it!):

Measures of real consumption based upon the ownership of durable goods, the quality of housing, the health and mortality of children, the education of youth and the allocation of female time in the household indicate that sub-Saharan living standards have, for the past two decades, been growing about 3.4 to 3.7 percent per annum, i.e. three and a half to four times the rate indicated in international data sets.

There are two “downsides” to an African growth miracle:

  1. Where will the poverty tourists get to go once Africa gets rich?
  2. How will America use “foreign aid” as a way to discretely provide corporate welfare to American corporations and to provide “jobs” to so many well-intentioned recent college graduates?

Or even worse, imagine the fate of the World Bank. Under what conditions do you think the world bank would ever shut its own doors? If you can answer that question without laughing then you don’t understand how “government” works.

2 Responses to “And This Week’s Sign of the NOT-Apocalypse”

  1. sherlock says:

    Hah! Dying at the “poverty tourist” term.

    -Still rocking power in central CT. Just thought of this, but this power could go at any second and I log on to unbrokenwindow. Props! Or a “fist bump”. Or just a +1.

  2. Dan Even says:

    Hmm. 3.4% for 20 years is pretty nearly one doubling. Hmm. I’m trying to think exactly how impressed I should be that what folks had in Africa in 1990, they now have twice as much of. I guess I’d have to check some stats to see how big a deal that is.

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