Dude

There was a guy from Bear Stearns, or one of the biggies on TV the other day bemoaning that the US was now borrowing from developing countries and at their mercy over conditions they might set to let us borrow--just as we used to set the terms when we lent money out.

Dude!

What I find amazing is that no one questions that economic development has reached a dead end. Why on earth should oil countries be growing faster than fully diversified economies (with enormous oil reserves)? That's like a kid with an MBA, who also works out, growing more slowly than the star linebacker.

Sure--maybe for five or ten years--while the linebacker goes pro, blows his brains out with coke and does steroids..

But after 20, 30, 40 years?

And off into the forseeable future?

No, no , no, no.

After 20 years the linebacker is arthritic with an enlarged heart and fat deposits. His ex has half the money and his income has tanked. He's selling tires at best. Maybe has a car dealership. Hundred of thousands a year--maybe.

The MBA, on the other hand, is just getting into the real money. Making a couple mil. a month if he's really leveraged his shit right--taken as significant mental and emotional chances as the linebacker took physical ones.

Developed economies have better networking, better infrastructure--everything.

So why on earth don't they grow faster?

Don't scientists who start off with the most current knowledge have the most to gain from new developments? Why don't inventors--who are right (not the quacks)--make more than those who are just churning stuff out? Going through the motions?

Isn't what the 20th century proved is that brains are more valuable than muscles?

So why is the developed world falling behind? (And it's not just in $$--we also aren't any happier than Masai tribesmen in Kenya according to recent studies.)

So what the fuck are we working so hard for?

--If we're falling behind economically and haven't gained anything spiritually!!?

Dude.

From a Germs, Guns and Steel perspective, what the world is learning--is competing on--is not technology, or money, or brawn, or natural resources--but on life.

On everything.

So why shouldn't a newer culture reflect that better like a new car has better gas mileage, fewer emissions and lasts longer?

Why shouldn't a developed nation be better in every respect?

And--even more importantly--why shouldn't backward polities like China and Saudi Arabia want to enter the modern world? And why should they get a pass with manufacturing and oil money while their cultures remain woefully anti-human?

(Saudi Arabia, in case you're having a sensitive moment, still sentences rape victims to beatings--as in a recent case where a gang rape victim was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in a car with a non-male relative.)

Why should cultures like this get any part of modernity's money?

More to the point--why shouldn't a culture with democracy built-in do better--by every measure--than a state run dictatorship that kills people, restricts their movements, encourages them to inform on each other and in general is small-minded, petty, crass, fearful and crazy?

It's not like they're just trying new stuff out. The rest of the world has been there and fought person by person to extricate themselves from that position. Often at great personal risk.

The answer is that we've allowed humanities most highly valued offerings to slip through the economy.

That is, we don't economically value what we spiritually value.

And that is art.

Without the world valuing art as highly as it does even socks (hit song .99, cheapo socks $2.99) the Chinas of the world must win.

Control and authority must win--because it makes for more efficient material production and more stable natural resource extraction. Not higher quality, but more efficient and stable. Meaning that if they take our continuing mechanical advancements and implement them, they'll beat us who develop primarily advancements and have the additional costs of freedom, elections, environmental protections, etc.

Cultural advancements are sold at $14.99 per book and .99 a song no matter how valuable they are to others and the material goods that cultural advancements end up improving are valued at market rates.

If the economy has gone from agricultural to industrial, and physics from Newtonian to quantum--then the next age is creative.

Cultural if you will.

Developed nations already produce the most important, most highly valued and most influential modern culture in the world--it's just that they're sold off at break-even prices.

I'm surprised that China and India don't accuse us of dumping!

What with all the cheap, crappy movies, songs and slopped together tween lifestyles we fart around the world.

Why not make some real shit, yo?!

We've got the Hyundais and Chery's--why not make a Lexus? Or a Lambo?

Then no one will be talking about the poor developed nations at the mercy of fucking China of all places.

They don't even let people move there. (Move there as in a Chinese person moving to another city--no one wants to go live there--because they're fucked socially and politically. Why do you think people are hiding themselves in storage containers to get out?)