Tag Archives: Uncategorized

World Investment Fell Everywhere But Central and Eastern Europe in 2002

In early September the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development released the World Investment Report 2003. Not surprisingly, it found that global foreign direct investments dropped by 21 percent in 2002 to just $651 billion — the lowest level of … Continue reading

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Technology to Make Farming More Profitable? Not Likely

The Associated Press reported back in May on technological advances in farming that would supposedly help make farming more profitable. Any and all technological advances in farming are certainly welcome, but the effect of such innovations has historically been — … Continue reading

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World Trade Organization Brokers Deal to Provide Cheap Generic Drugs

In August, the World Trade Organization brokered a final deal to bring cheaper generic drugs to the developing world. Poverty in developing countries makes it difficult for individuals and governments there to afford expensive medications that fight diseases such as … Continue reading

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Globalization Is Good For Us

In an article published on the web site of the Cato Institute, Johan Norberg makes the case that globalization is the key to reducing poverty and that rather than limit it, as anti-globalization activists would have us do, we should … Continue reading

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Zanzibar Embraces Mobile Phones

The BBC reported in August that Zanzibar is the latest developing country to take advantage of cellular phones to route around unreliable, expensive state-run phone systems. According to BBC reporter Daniel Dickinson, Zanzibar cell phone company Zantel has enrolled 45,000 … Continue reading

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Ronald Bailey’s Takedown of Ishmael

Like Ronald Bailey, I occasionally receive e-mails from people urging me to read Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. The short version is I’ve read it and Quinn doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Bailey has written a lengthy look at some of … Continue reading

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Help Poor People — Repeal Trade Barriers

Reason’s Ronald Bailey had an interesting summary of a series of New York Times articles about the developed world’s still obscenely-high tariffs on food imported from developing countries. One of the more egregious examples is the case of Vietnamese cat … Continue reading

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More Stating the Obvious about Africa

Again this summer, African nations held a summit where they give nice speeches about what’s wrong with the continent, but nothing will actually change. This year, Ghanian Private Sector Development Minister Kwamena Bartels shocked the World Economic Forum’s Africa Economic … Continue reading

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European Farmers Want More Aid?

European farmers who have been hit by drought accompany this summer’s heat wave are asking the European Union for more aid. That’s right, the most excessively subsidized farmers in the world want even more financial help from the state. Copa-Cogeca, … Continue reading

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Researchers Discover Potato Blight-Resistant Gene

In an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Wisconsin researchers announced they had discovered a gene that confers blight resistance on potatoes. The late blight fungus was partly responsible for the great Irish … Continue reading

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