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A comment on The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010). Parent comment

Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by rayiner on Sunday July 17, 2016 @01:37PM (#12110928)
That's not what he's proposing at all. There is a whole paragraph in the article about how Romer is not a libertarian and recognizes the importance of rules. But some rules are good and some are bad. The electric utility example is a good one: price controls are very popular in third world countries, but just about the worst way to meet whatever objective you want.

Getting the government out of the way can also help in countries that have ingrained cultures of low-level corruption. One of the things that drove my dad to leave Bangladesh and move to the other side of the world was having to pay a bribe to a functionary for the phone company to hook up a new phone line in our house.

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Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by aminok on Monday July 18, 2016 @06:52AM (#12114288)
Which just sounds like the author trying to make the proposal palatable to non-libertarians (or more precisely, ideological opponents of libertarians) by framing Romer's views as anti-libertarians. Rules are absolutely important to libertarians.
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Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by CPLX on Sunday July 17, 2016 @03:01PM (#12111283)
> That's not what he's proposing at all.

Of course. But it's almost certainly the end result.

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Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by Sniffnoy on Sunday July 17, 2016 @03:23PM (#12111371)
If that's your claim, then you should say that explicitly, and make it clear what your criticism is, rather than making it look like you failed to read the article. "While the intent may be ..., the end result will almost certainly be ..."
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Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by rayiner on Sunday July 17, 2016 @03:11PM (#12111325)
That wasn't the end result in Hong Kong.
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Re:The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) by CPLX on Sunday July 17, 2016 @03:38PM (#12111431)
All we have to do is figure out how to replicate the efficiency and relative lack of corruption of the British civil service, the relative military superiority of their Navy, the untapped economic power of China, and the political ability to kick the project off with a racist narco-trafficking based trade arrangement enforced with weapons, and just sit back and watch as we yield great benefits in about 100 years.
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