An unfair, although useful, piece of advice is never to believe anything at all concerning economics which comes from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
For, sadly, this is the part of the University of London where all those who still believe in state-planning as a form of development fled when the real world disproved the idea.
Excellent article. How we all get wealthier simply explained. Only a university graduate could fail to understand.
It’s a slightly strange level of economics to be explaining there. Precisely because it’s to Bangladeshis who speak English they’re not that peasantry in the fields. But they may be economically ignorant all the same.
Still, the cash goes to feeding the street kids so that’s good.
A very well written article. Although I am sure that your readers are more economically literate than in the UK it will have greater resonance for them.
@JB It neatly explains how redundancy is how we get wealthier. Either the thing being done is being done more effectively or now doesn’t need doing at all. And is probably the opposite of what most people believe. Certainly a great deal of political activity is dedicated to preventing it happening. And my snide comment about graduates is actually directed at a truth. The more educated you are, the more determined you are to cling to the status quo.
A Twitter thread on the agricultural disaster in Sri Lanka by the Lankan cricket writer Andrew Fidel Fernando, with some interesting hard numbers on the chemical versus organic fertilizer question:
https://twitter.com/afidelf/status/1573953480607387651?cxt=HHwWhsC-ib-W59crAAAA
One quote stands out:
“… the organic experiment was so catastrophic that many farmers went into huge debt to cover losses. They have lost confidence that their work can turn a profit for them. Many are planning to keep whatever they grow for themselves, rather than sending to market.”
In other words, going by what Tim has written above, Sri Lanka has managed to overturn its entire economic development in one year.
The same author’s published article is full of the statistics and calculations, the government interventions and stories on the ground, to illustrate the scale of the disaster here:
https://fiftytwo.in/story/hunger/
Tim you spelt SOBs wrong.