On Thu, 24 Jul 2003, John Pedersen wrote:
> I think of it this way: You have a bathtub with a quarter inch of
> water in
> it. You also have a bucket, which is full (say, a nice 12 inches depth of
> water).
>
> Now we are going to pour water from the bucket to the bathtub, to
> get equality. Hmmmm, looks like we get equality at about the time
> that the bucket has one inch of water in it.
>
> Draw your own conclusions.
OK. It is more like the bucket is sitting in the tub and there is a
hole (called the international, global, internet connected economy) in
the bottom of the bucket. And we all know what happens. We (the
industrialized 'West') have been able to have a higher standard of
living than the rest of the world because of the confluence of a lot of
events such as:
1) Recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the individual
2) Stable governments leading to stable economies
3) Abundant natural resources
4) Natural defenses (in the case of the US in particular oceans, rivers,
mountains, deserts)
We can debate the 'why' of those some other time. (I ascribe them to
God's blessing.)
With the development of the Internet and modern transportation, the
advantages of 3 and 4 have diminished (I can get stuff from anywhere. I
have to protect myself from everyone). We ourselves are insisting that
1 and 2 be implemented whereever we go (even if that is counter to the
local culture as in say, central Africa). So now the field is leveling,
and the unusually high standards in the US (and to a slightly lesser
measure) the rest of the 'West' are going to fall _relative_ to the
rest of the world. Just as surely as water flows down hill. The
question is will the US develop some other means of staying on top? Of
course this seems even worse because we have a 1/2 generation who thinks
<5% unemployment and 10-30% stock market growth per year is _normal_!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE jim@rossberry.com
http://www.rossberry.com
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