Well, it’s time to follow a developing story again, at least for a while. I should probably update an older developing story, too, but I’ll do it when I bloody well feel like it, thank you very much.
It is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that the state of Florida’s method of drawing political boundaries is broken. The same could be said for, oh, about 40 other states as well, almost certainly including your own state, dear reader. (Don’t you hate it when columnists get all smarmy and address you as “dear reader?” What the hell is that all about anyway? I’m not Miss Manners. But I'll try to be better mannered after the jump.)
Here’s what happens. Every ten years, the legislature sits down with a bunch of census data and, these days, expensive computer programs, and commences to choose from among all the voters in the state those that each legislator would most like to have to face in elections for the next ten years. It doesn’t matter which party is in power; both parties do their best (some do better than others) to alleviate the common problem of competition during elections. In Florida during the 2004 elections, of 120 state representatives, 51 faced no opponents whatsoever; 8 faced only write-in opponents; 17 saw their election decided in the party primary; thus only 44 actually faced opponents who both had a chance of winning and who presented voters with an alternative.
Furthermore, of 20 state senators, 11 faced no opponent, and only 6 races featured members of the two major parties squaring off against one another.
Worse still, of the state’s 25 Congressmen, 4 faced no opponents (including, to no one’s surprise, Tom Feeney and Mario Diaz-Balart, who both drew their own districts in 2001), 5 faced only write-in or token opposition, and only 1 (that’s right, just one) faced an opponent who managed to gain more than 40% of the vote. That one, of course, was Krazy Kat Harris--her district is so Republican that only a clearly psychotic person who makes use of Homer Simpson's makeup shotgun could possibly do as poorly as... well, as Harris. No district in the state is designed to be competitive; on average, Republicans who faced "serious" opposition won their districts with 66% of the vote; the two Democrats who faced non-token opposition won with 65.9%.
Now, the jackanapes in Congress and the state leg of course claim that this is actually a GOOD thing, because it shows that the people in each district are happy with their Congressman or woman. This is a lie. No recent poll places national approval of Congress higher than 30%. What's more, few Congressmen can claim better than 50% name recognition in their own districts, so clearly the voters are not in love with their Congressmen. And in the current clime, it’s relatively rare to see a sitting member of either party face serious opposition to re-election in his or her primary; it does happen, absolutely, but only to a handful of office-holders. In short, folks who are in the minority party in any given Congressional or state house district face little to no chance of electing someone from their party. This is disenfranchisement.
So comes the idea, this year, of having an “independent” bipartisan commission draw up our legislative lines for future censuses. (I always think that word should be “censes.”)
Here is an exciting article about the effort from yesterday’s Times.
Let’s see, what does it say there… well, it seems the commission doing the line drawing would have six Republicans, six Democrats, and three members chosen by the state Supreme Court who must have no party affiliation or be members of third parties. That sounds reasonably fair.
Politicians immediately say, well, you can’t claim that a body chosen by politicians will be nonpolitical. Good point. And, by saying it, the politicians are admitting that redistricting is entirely a political process when they do it. So can it get any worse? Probably not.
Former supporters of independent redistricting, like current gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist and Congressman/beneficiary-of-partisan-redistricting Ander Crenshaw, no longer support the idea. Why? Because their party is now in power. Woo-hoo! Crist cravenly says, when questioned, “Can’t I change my mind?”
I don’t know, Charlie. You’ve been criticizing your opponent Tom Gallagher for changing his mind about abortion and other issues ever since you jumped into this race. So as far as I’m concerned, no, you can’t change your mind. You lost that right you cast the first stone at Gallagher for doing the same thing.
Meanwhile, our current governor Jeb Bush goes out to Miami to help Arnold Schwarzenegger raise money for his campaign to create an independent commission to redraw California’s districts—because an independent commission would likely give more seats in California to Republicans. But does Bush support the Florida plan?
No. Why not? Good question. We’re still waiting on a real answer.
Now today comes word that one of three separate ballot measures the group pushing independent redistricting (a branch of Common Cause) may not be legal in the first place. Why? Too many words.
Of course, the state division of elections, which is supposed to monitor for things like that, approved the ballot initiative’s wording months ago before the group could start collecting signatures (of which they have about 200,000, a third of what they need). Now, it’s too late; odds are the state Supreme Court will invalidate the ballot measure regardless of how many signatures they collect. The only way to fix the matter now is to resubmit the application with corrected wording (it’s only six words too long), get that approved by the state, and then go back and try to get the 200,000 people who already signed the thing to sign the revised petition. This is a massive expenditure of funds and, in the end, it’s more likely that the measure will simply be left off the ballot.
The measure that the six words will invalidate is a measure requiring that congressional and legislative districts be drawn so that they favor no one party or candidate. This is, of course, the most important of the three measures, as it would have come into effect with or without the bipartisan commission and would have permitted citizens to sue the state legislature if they drew districts blatantly favoring one candidate or party. This is, of course, also the most unpalatable of the three measures, as far as the state, the legislature, and the individual politicians, are concerned.
Now, it’s true that the state Supreme Court has never yet invalidated a ballot measure because of wordiness. That said, this is a very, very unpopular ballot measure among sitting officeholders. Almost every politician in the state is going to come out against it, and you can bet that the GOP guys will be criticizing those awful “activist judges” on the state Supreme Court if they don’t invalidate the measure, precedent be damned.
You know how when you see bug flipped over on its back, struggling to right itself, before you squish it you have to sort of watch for a minute? That’s what’s happening right now; the politicians are struggling to stop this thing, and before we squish them, we sort of want to watch them struggle.
23 August 2005
22 August 2005
No Child Left Behind?
So, Connecticut has filed suit against the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act. I'm surprised it took this long.
Listening to the report on this on NPR today on the way home, I found myself thinking once again what exactly made the party of smaller less centralized government decide to nationalize and socialise education.
Then I started writing something about it, and it turned into something really long and time-consuming and I was only halfway done with it. Not sure whether to continue, I decided that, at any rate, it's more a piece for the other blog, if I decide to finish it (I have more pressing things, believe it or not). So instead I leave just this little tantalizing post to get you to think about it and discuss the matter. Its okay to leave comments.
1. Whence came the myth that socialism brings everyone up to the same level? In most cases we've seen where socialism was applied on a grand scale, it brought everyone down to the same level. NCLB does essentially the same; Connecticut is suing because, the state claims, their own testing was more rigourous and produced better results than the mandated (and unfunded, which is the other reason they're suing) testing associated with NCLB. This has been my concern from the start: when you teach to the test, if the test is not set to a very high standard, you inevitably fail the exceptionally bright student. Where is the benefit here?
2. Whence came the myth that the states have done a great job with education already and NCLB is just mucking things up? Who seriously believes the majority of states were getting the job done before? A few were, sure, but not most. Not a bloody one south of the Mason-Dixon, either.
3. Given that, is there a better way? Does NCLB do a good job of bringing the underachievers up? Is mandatory standardized testing the only or best way of doing so? And is there a way to better serve those students who could pass most standardized tests hungover and half asleep (yours truly included)? Is the country well served by treating all students exactly the same, or should we instead work on two tracks: bring all students up to at least a minimum level a la NCLB, and present a second educational path for students who are genuinely exceptional. Is it okay in modern society to admit that some students are smarter than others?
Listening to the report on this on NPR today on the way home, I found myself thinking once again what exactly made the party of smaller less centralized government decide to nationalize and socialise education.
Then I started writing something about it, and it turned into something really long and time-consuming and I was only halfway done with it. Not sure whether to continue, I decided that, at any rate, it's more a piece for the other blog, if I decide to finish it (I have more pressing things, believe it or not). So instead I leave just this little tantalizing post to get you to think about it and discuss the matter. Its okay to leave comments.
1. Whence came the myth that socialism brings everyone up to the same level? In most cases we've seen where socialism was applied on a grand scale, it brought everyone down to the same level. NCLB does essentially the same; Connecticut is suing because, the state claims, their own testing was more rigourous and produced better results than the mandated (and unfunded, which is the other reason they're suing) testing associated with NCLB. This has been my concern from the start: when you teach to the test, if the test is not set to a very high standard, you inevitably fail the exceptionally bright student. Where is the benefit here?
2. Whence came the myth that the states have done a great job with education already and NCLB is just mucking things up? Who seriously believes the majority of states were getting the job done before? A few were, sure, but not most. Not a bloody one south of the Mason-Dixon, either.
3. Given that, is there a better way? Does NCLB do a good job of bringing the underachievers up? Is mandatory standardized testing the only or best way of doing so? And is there a way to better serve those students who could pass most standardized tests hungover and half asleep (yours truly included)? Is the country well served by treating all students exactly the same, or should we instead work on two tracks: bring all students up to at least a minimum level a la NCLB, and present a second educational path for students who are genuinely exceptional. Is it okay in modern society to admit that some students are smarter than others?
On bloggers
Stole this from Wonkette.
• Joel Achenbach, natural born blogger: "As an artist, my normal impulse is to write things that people don't care about and, ideally, can't even understand." Also, the blog is a harsh mistress: "I am constantly having to post something new just to make the blog interested in me again." [WP]
Yep. That's about right.
• Joel Achenbach, natural born blogger: "As an artist, my normal impulse is to write things that people don't care about and, ideally, can't even understand." Also, the blog is a harsh mistress: "I am constantly having to post something new just to make the blog interested in me again." [WP]
Yep. That's about right.
15 August 2005
Must...Resist...Meme...
Ah, forget it. Can't resist. After reading about everybody else’s spots, I had to go to Find Your Spot.com and find my spot. I’m not entirely sure I buy into this. My list has too few cities on the coast, and it includes Tulsa which is miles from any coast at all. I’ve noticed that everybody’s list includes Tulsa. I’m wondering if maybe the Tulsa chamber of commerce sponsors Find Your Spot.com to increase their visibility. Hmm…
1. Chattanooga – Okay, maybe.
2. Hickory – I think this is too small, but I might be wrong.
3. Clarksville, Tenn – Something about last trains… I’m not too sure. It’s not even in the mountains.
4. Tulsa – Yeah, sure. Nice try, Tulsa Chamber. Though southwestern Oklahoma is very nice.
5. Greenville – Ah, Greenville. Nice to know it ranks high. I don’t want to be the only democrat in whatever town I’m living in, though.
6. Gulfport-Biloxi – Finally, a place on the coast. Too many casinos, not enough real work being done. Maybe I could handle Pass Christian or Bay St. Louis. I just think Mississippi is too casino-happy for my tastes.
7. Johnson City-Bristol-Kingsport – My folks are smitten with this area, maybe it’s cool.
8. Tallahassee – Probably one of the few cities in FL I could tolerate. I could live down in St. Marks.
9. Olympia – Tyler once told me this was a nice place. I should check it out.
10. Knoxville – Might go to law school here.
11. Hampton, Va – probably my top choice of these cities, but there’s a lot of sprawl.
12. Bellingham – eh.
13. Tacoma – eh.
14. Jacksonville – done it. Probably don’t need to do it again. But it would be near the top of Florida places.
15. Norfolk – See above comments viz Hampton.
16. Gainesville – Not a bloody chance in hell.
17. Jackson – Are you kidding?
18. Asheville – Now we’re talking. Asheville I could handle.
19. Lynchburg – Again, another place I could definitely see myself living, especially on the north bank of the James at the top of the hill there.
20. Athens – I don’t know, I’ve never really been impressed by Athens.
21. Hattiesburg – I don’t think I could take a place named “Hattiesburg” seriously.
22. Tuscaloosa – I’d rather do Athens.
23. Palm Springs – Okay guys, put down the crack pipe. Good.
24. Kent, Wash – I’m sorry, this place just SOUNDS like a giant suburb. Forget it.
So that’s the list.
Funny.
I was thinking of a list about like this:
1. Tampa
2. Valdosta
3. Asheville
4. Clemson
5. Knoxville
6. Richmond
7. Hampton Roads (Norfolk/Hampton inclusive)
8. Maryland’s Eastern Shore/Sussex County, Delaware
9. Brunswick, Ga
10. Corpus Christi
11. Austin
12. Georgetown, S.C.
13. Shenandoah Valley
14. Birmingham
15. Lynchburg
16. Cumberland, Md.
17. Summers in someplace like Alpena or Cheboygan in northern Michigan, winters in maybe Mobile, or Tampa.
I note Find Your Spot doesn’t list Georgetown, or Valdosta, or Cumberland. Georgetown I can understand, but Valdosta’s an up and coming new metro city, and the place has Roswell Georgia, which is just a glorified suburb of Atlanta. And Cumberland is a cool place up there in the mountains. Ah, well.
1. Chattanooga – Okay, maybe.
2. Hickory – I think this is too small, but I might be wrong.
3. Clarksville, Tenn – Something about last trains… I’m not too sure. It’s not even in the mountains.
4. Tulsa – Yeah, sure. Nice try, Tulsa Chamber. Though southwestern Oklahoma is very nice.
5. Greenville – Ah, Greenville. Nice to know it ranks high. I don’t want to be the only democrat in whatever town I’m living in, though.
6. Gulfport-Biloxi – Finally, a place on the coast. Too many casinos, not enough real work being done. Maybe I could handle Pass Christian or Bay St. Louis. I just think Mississippi is too casino-happy for my tastes.
7. Johnson City-Bristol-Kingsport – My folks are smitten with this area, maybe it’s cool.
8. Tallahassee – Probably one of the few cities in FL I could tolerate. I could live down in St. Marks.
9. Olympia – Tyler once told me this was a nice place. I should check it out.
10. Knoxville – Might go to law school here.
11. Hampton, Va – probably my top choice of these cities, but there’s a lot of sprawl.
12. Bellingham – eh.
13. Tacoma – eh.
14. Jacksonville – done it. Probably don’t need to do it again. But it would be near the top of Florida places.
15. Norfolk – See above comments viz Hampton.
16. Gainesville – Not a bloody chance in hell.
17. Jackson – Are you kidding?
18. Asheville – Now we’re talking. Asheville I could handle.
19. Lynchburg – Again, another place I could definitely see myself living, especially on the north bank of the James at the top of the hill there.
20. Athens – I don’t know, I’ve never really been impressed by Athens.
21. Hattiesburg – I don’t think I could take a place named “Hattiesburg” seriously.
22. Tuscaloosa – I’d rather do Athens.
23. Palm Springs – Okay guys, put down the crack pipe. Good.
24. Kent, Wash – I’m sorry, this place just SOUNDS like a giant suburb. Forget it.
So that’s the list.
Funny.
I was thinking of a list about like this:
1. Tampa
2. Valdosta
3. Asheville
4. Clemson
5. Knoxville
6. Richmond
7. Hampton Roads (Norfolk/Hampton inclusive)
8. Maryland’s Eastern Shore/Sussex County, Delaware
9. Brunswick, Ga
10. Corpus Christi
11. Austin
12. Georgetown, S.C.
13. Shenandoah Valley
14. Birmingham
15. Lynchburg
16. Cumberland, Md.
17. Summers in someplace like Alpena or Cheboygan in northern Michigan, winters in maybe Mobile, or Tampa.
I note Find Your Spot doesn’t list Georgetown, or Valdosta, or Cumberland. Georgetown I can understand, but Valdosta’s an up and coming new metro city, and the place has Roswell Georgia, which is just a glorified suburb of Atlanta. And Cumberland is a cool place up there in the mountains. Ah, well.
14 August 2005
Sales and Marketing
Recently I said something about Christianity needing a better marketing campaign. Islam could probably use one, too. I'd like to suggest that this photo goes a long way towards making Shiite Islam about as friendly as Santa Claus.
In fact, the poster of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr looks about as much like a Muslim Santa Claus as I think would be possible (I'm sure the Grand Ayatollah is spinning in his grave). His right-hand man (and possible successor) Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, who is speaking, looks like he could sell auto insurance to children. This is marketing, people! This is great!
In fact, the poster of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr looks about as much like a Muslim Santa Claus as I think would be possible (I'm sure the Grand Ayatollah is spinning in his grave). His right-hand man (and possible successor) Sheik Abdul Hadi al-Daraji, who is speaking, looks like he could sell auto insurance to children. This is marketing, people! This is great!
Tentative hallelujah
Recently I celebrated the Supreme Court's decision in Granholm v. Heald, which paved the way for wineries to ship wines across state borders, heretofore illegal in most states, Florida among them.
Then, last week, a federal judge here in the Tampa area, James Whittemore (if his name sounds familiar, it's because you watched too much Teri Schiavo coverage) ruled Florida's ban on wine shipping unconstitutional in accordance with the ruling in Granholm.
That's as much as I know for sure. I heard about it last week, and, as you can read in this article from California, all the ruling did was eliminate an old law. As some Florida papers noted, this really doesn't mean the doors have been thrown open for legal wine shipping into the state. It means the state can no longer enforce its laws against doing so. But mail carriers may not care to risk handling wine shipments until the legislature has a chance to act on wine shipping generally, sometime next spring.
This is still good news. But then today I saw this little blurb on the local 24-hour news channel, Bay News 9. Bay News 9 is good for weather and has good coverage of local issues, but I'm not sure they do a lot of research into stories that come from beyond the Bay area.
In any event, BN9 is reporting that "State legislators made the change last week and now wine companies are gearing up for added sales." What change? How did legislators do anything when they're not in session? I don't know. My understanding has been that state Sen. Paula Dockery is planning to introduce legislation next session codifying the way wine can be shipped in the state. But the next session starts in March. What law, exactly, did legislators pass? Bay News 9 isn't telling.
They do say that, "Initially banned by the state of Florida because of the potential of underage purchasers, it's an effort by winery's to sell wine via the Internet then send it through the mail. A concern no more after the law was overturned." (This is a direct copy from the TelePrompTer, which means the guy writing the TelePrompTer text is an apostrophe abuser. Since he's probably also the station's news manager, that's sort of distressing.) They also note that, "With the House of Representatives passing the new law, it makes it reciprocal to where a state that ships wine to us, now we can ship to them."
Now, again, we have the question about what the House actually did, since most House members are at home in their districts, taking bribes under the table and pretending to go to their day jobs. But... well, if Bay News 9 is right, then I can't wait to start ordering wine over the internet. Probably tomorrow. 50 Wines from 50 States, I plan to call it. Yeehaw.
Then, last week, a federal judge here in the Tampa area, James Whittemore (if his name sounds familiar, it's because you watched too much Teri Schiavo coverage) ruled Florida's ban on wine shipping unconstitutional in accordance with the ruling in Granholm.
That's as much as I know for sure. I heard about it last week, and, as you can read in this article from California, all the ruling did was eliminate an old law. As some Florida papers noted, this really doesn't mean the doors have been thrown open for legal wine shipping into the state. It means the state can no longer enforce its laws against doing so. But mail carriers may not care to risk handling wine shipments until the legislature has a chance to act on wine shipping generally, sometime next spring.
This is still good news. But then today I saw this little blurb on the local 24-hour news channel, Bay News 9. Bay News 9 is good for weather and has good coverage of local issues, but I'm not sure they do a lot of research into stories that come from beyond the Bay area.
In any event, BN9 is reporting that "State legislators made the change last week and now wine companies are gearing up for added sales." What change? How did legislators do anything when they're not in session? I don't know. My understanding has been that state Sen. Paula Dockery is planning to introduce legislation next session codifying the way wine can be shipped in the state. But the next session starts in March. What law, exactly, did legislators pass? Bay News 9 isn't telling.
They do say that, "Initially banned by the state of Florida because of the potential of underage purchasers, it's an effort by winery's to sell wine via the Internet then send it through the mail. A concern no more after the law was overturned." (This is a direct copy from the TelePrompTer, which means the guy writing the TelePrompTer text is an apostrophe abuser. Since he's probably also the station's news manager, that's sort of distressing.) They also note that, "With the House of Representatives passing the new law, it makes it reciprocal to where a state that ships wine to us, now we can ship to them."
Now, again, we have the question about what the House actually did, since most House members are at home in their districts, taking bribes under the table and pretending to go to their day jobs. But... well, if Bay News 9 is right, then I can't wait to start ordering wine over the internet. Probably tomorrow. 50 Wines from 50 States, I plan to call it. Yeehaw.
12 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part VIII
Finally, we have the First World. Hooray for the First World!
Any reasonable government, and any reasonable person, in the First World should have as a goal the enlargement of the First World, to eventually include the Whole World. This may, and almost assuredly is, a pipe dream. But a world full of First World countries would be a much less violent place, and we can hardly argue against that.
The first world is capped, as it has been every year, by Luxembourg. Think of Luxembourg, a country of less than 500,000 people, as a particularly well-to-do American city. Say, Charlotte, North Carolina, or Stanford, California. This is basically the role Luxembourg fills in Europe. The GDP per capita there is nearly $60,000, and as Luxembourg has a strikingly even distribution of income, this translates to an average family income in the country on the order of 50 grand a year. That is significantly higher than any other country in the world.
Norway is next on the list, making this the first year that the United States has not been second. They leapt ahead of us on the strength of their life expectancy and infant mortality stats; in both of those areas the United States is among the lowest in the first world. The U.S. does hang in at number three and will probably remain there for some time as nobody is catching up too fast. In fourth is San Marino, a tiny enclave of Italy that is far richer than any part of that country.
The next ten or so countries on the list are unsurprising: Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Australia, Canada (a brand new trillion-dollar economy this year), Ireland (the fastest growing first world country for almost ten years running), Austria, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands.
Down in 16th place is the United Kingdom. The UK is one of the “big four” trillion-dollar economies of Europe, the others being France, Germany, and Italy. (Spain likely will hit that mark in the next few years.) In 1998, the UK was the lowest ranked of the big four. Since that time, privatization, entrepreneurship, and a housing boom have allowed the UK to jump ahead of the others. The French and Germans, who dislike the EU Constitution because they don’t think it adequately provides for massive social welfare like their governments do, have not yet realized that the British have caught up with and passed them by in the last few years by partially dismantling that massive social welfare system. The new Eastern Bloc countries in the EU are following the British model, rather than the French, since they’ve seen firsthand the effects of socialism and want no part of it. This is an interesting backstory playing out in the current European affair.
After the UK, we have Finland, Sweden, Andorra, and then finally France, Germany and Italy. Below these are Singapore and Monaco.
The rest of the list are what I would call second-tier First World countries. They’re still very nice places, democratic and friendly with rights and freedoms all over the place and plenty of money to keep the kids fed and clothed and take everyone out to a movie now and then. They are distinguished from the other first world countries by their lower inmigration rates and smaller per capita GDPs, though a handful of them also have substandard literacy or infant mortality rates and one of them has a substandard life expectancy.
Topping this list is Liechtenstein, which has not had a good decade so far. Unable to follow the lead of its fellow micro-states and sign an EU trade agreement (Liechtenstein’s preferential status with Switzerland would be nullified), the Liechtenstein economy has not grown at all. It’s still a comfortable place, but where San Marino has rocketed up right next to the U.S., Liechtenstein stays mired on the lower rungs of the ladder.
Next we have Spain, which is getting better but still lags behind its northern neighbors, and New Zealand, which is sort of like Australia’s Canada. Except with more sheep. New Zealand used to be the very last country in the First World, though, and they have moved up steadily.
Greece follows—we always knew they were near the bottom—with Slovenia (formerly a part of Yugoslavia) right behind. Slovenia is the latest country to become a creditor nation at the Paris Club, so they’ve come quite a long way since breaking from Yugoslavia in the early 90’s. Next is the Mediterranean island country of Malta, a new EU member, followed by “Old Europe” laggard Portugal.
Back in the days when the EU only had 12 members, Portugal got all the business from the other EU countries. Since Ireland began the whole “Celtic Tiger” thing, Portugal has by a fairly wide margin been the poorest country in the EU. It was only 31 years ago this year that Portugal threw off the yoke of fascism and central planning, so it’s not unusual that they’d be behind the rest of free Europe. But unlike the Irish, the Portuguese had no plans for rapid economic growth or liberalization, and when the EU expanded, the Portuguese suddenly became rich, relatively. Businesses no longer locate in Portugal looking for cheap labor, because they can go to Slovakia instead—and for the most part, they do.
Portuguese pride has played a role here. Unwilling to take Ireland or Slovakia as examples of how to drum up business, the country has continued to poke along, its primary products remaining cork and fortified wines. Slovenia and Malta have already leapt ahead of Portugal, and the Czech Republic is knocking at the door.
The Czech Republic (or “Czechia” as the government wants to be known; they should have chosen “Czeska,” which sounds better; nobody uses either one anyway) used to be the poster child for Eastern Europe. Actually, so did Hungary. The poster’s been redrawn a number of times. Czechia is beset by chronically high unemployment and disastrous environmental problems. Though the economy is still purring along, it’s no longer doing as well as Slovenia’s, and though Slovakia and Estonia are still poorer, both have much healthier economies. Czechia still has some problems to overcome.
The final four countries in the first world will undoubtedly come as surprises to some.
At the top is Barbados, a tiny Caribbean island sticking out into the Atlantic and taunting the hurricanes. Statiscally, Barbados looks much like Czechia, albeit with a slightly higher infant mortality rate. The country still sells a good bit of sugar on the world market, but tourism, offshore banking, and services provide more to the economy than sugar. Barbados is the first country in the Caribbean to post a positive net migration rate—while some Bajans are still emigrating to the U.S. and elsewhere, more people are moving into Barbados from elsewhere than are leaving. This is a lagging indicator of a country’s success. Once you become somebody else’s land of milk and honey, you’ve pretty much arrived.
Following Barbados is the Bahamas. The Bahamas used to rank much higher, but about four years ago the CIA revised their estimate of the size of the Bahamian economy sharply downward. The economy has been growing consistently since then, but from a lower base. The Bahamas has the highest AIDS infection rate in the First World, which results in the country also having the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates as well. The economy is structurally sound, but work needs to be done socially.
Finally we have two brand new entrants to the First World, Hungary and Uruguay. Hungary has been dithering about at the top of the Transition club for several years, but couldn’t get their act together until recently, when the unemployment rate started to come down. Hungary preceded Czechia as the Eastern Europe poster child, but with full EU membership and healthy economic numbers the place should be on the rise.
Uruguay is the first South American country to make the First World. This is a surprise; I had expected Argentina to win the race, but Uruguay recovered almost immediately from the Brazilian meltdown, and in the last three years the economy has grown 10% annually. The Uruguayan literacy rate and life expectancy are the best in South America and on par with the First World average. Though the Uruguayan GDP per capita came in this year at the absolute floor for First World admission, with the growth rate of the economy they should not be there for long.
Any reasonable government, and any reasonable person, in the First World should have as a goal the enlargement of the First World, to eventually include the Whole World. This may, and almost assuredly is, a pipe dream. But a world full of First World countries would be a much less violent place, and we can hardly argue against that.
The first world is capped, as it has been every year, by Luxembourg. Think of Luxembourg, a country of less than 500,000 people, as a particularly well-to-do American city. Say, Charlotte, North Carolina, or Stanford, California. This is basically the role Luxembourg fills in Europe. The GDP per capita there is nearly $60,000, and as Luxembourg has a strikingly even distribution of income, this translates to an average family income in the country on the order of 50 grand a year. That is significantly higher than any other country in the world.
Norway is next on the list, making this the first year that the United States has not been second. They leapt ahead of us on the strength of their life expectancy and infant mortality stats; in both of those areas the United States is among the lowest in the first world. The U.S. does hang in at number three and will probably remain there for some time as nobody is catching up too fast. In fourth is San Marino, a tiny enclave of Italy that is far richer than any part of that country.
The next ten or so countries on the list are unsurprising: Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, Australia, Canada (a brand new trillion-dollar economy this year), Ireland (the fastest growing first world country for almost ten years running), Austria, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands.
Down in 16th place is the United Kingdom. The UK is one of the “big four” trillion-dollar economies of Europe, the others being France, Germany, and Italy. (Spain likely will hit that mark in the next few years.) In 1998, the UK was the lowest ranked of the big four. Since that time, privatization, entrepreneurship, and a housing boom have allowed the UK to jump ahead of the others. The French and Germans, who dislike the EU Constitution because they don’t think it adequately provides for massive social welfare like their governments do, have not yet realized that the British have caught up with and passed them by in the last few years by partially dismantling that massive social welfare system. The new Eastern Bloc countries in the EU are following the British model, rather than the French, since they’ve seen firsthand the effects of socialism and want no part of it. This is an interesting backstory playing out in the current European affair.
After the UK, we have Finland, Sweden, Andorra, and then finally France, Germany and Italy. Below these are Singapore and Monaco.
The rest of the list are what I would call second-tier First World countries. They’re still very nice places, democratic and friendly with rights and freedoms all over the place and plenty of money to keep the kids fed and clothed and take everyone out to a movie now and then. They are distinguished from the other first world countries by their lower inmigration rates and smaller per capita GDPs, though a handful of them also have substandard literacy or infant mortality rates and one of them has a substandard life expectancy.
Topping this list is Liechtenstein, which has not had a good decade so far. Unable to follow the lead of its fellow micro-states and sign an EU trade agreement (Liechtenstein’s preferential status with Switzerland would be nullified), the Liechtenstein economy has not grown at all. It’s still a comfortable place, but where San Marino has rocketed up right next to the U.S., Liechtenstein stays mired on the lower rungs of the ladder.
Next we have Spain, which is getting better but still lags behind its northern neighbors, and New Zealand, which is sort of like Australia’s Canada. Except with more sheep. New Zealand used to be the very last country in the First World, though, and they have moved up steadily.
Greece follows—we always knew they were near the bottom—with Slovenia (formerly a part of Yugoslavia) right behind. Slovenia is the latest country to become a creditor nation at the Paris Club, so they’ve come quite a long way since breaking from Yugoslavia in the early 90’s. Next is the Mediterranean island country of Malta, a new EU member, followed by “Old Europe” laggard Portugal.
Back in the days when the EU only had 12 members, Portugal got all the business from the other EU countries. Since Ireland began the whole “Celtic Tiger” thing, Portugal has by a fairly wide margin been the poorest country in the EU. It was only 31 years ago this year that Portugal threw off the yoke of fascism and central planning, so it’s not unusual that they’d be behind the rest of free Europe. But unlike the Irish, the Portuguese had no plans for rapid economic growth or liberalization, and when the EU expanded, the Portuguese suddenly became rich, relatively. Businesses no longer locate in Portugal looking for cheap labor, because they can go to Slovakia instead—and for the most part, they do.
Portuguese pride has played a role here. Unwilling to take Ireland or Slovakia as examples of how to drum up business, the country has continued to poke along, its primary products remaining cork and fortified wines. Slovenia and Malta have already leapt ahead of Portugal, and the Czech Republic is knocking at the door.
The Czech Republic (or “Czechia” as the government wants to be known; they should have chosen “Czeska,” which sounds better; nobody uses either one anyway) used to be the poster child for Eastern Europe. Actually, so did Hungary. The poster’s been redrawn a number of times. Czechia is beset by chronically high unemployment and disastrous environmental problems. Though the economy is still purring along, it’s no longer doing as well as Slovenia’s, and though Slovakia and Estonia are still poorer, both have much healthier economies. Czechia still has some problems to overcome.
The final four countries in the first world will undoubtedly come as surprises to some.
At the top is Barbados, a tiny Caribbean island sticking out into the Atlantic and taunting the hurricanes. Statiscally, Barbados looks much like Czechia, albeit with a slightly higher infant mortality rate. The country still sells a good bit of sugar on the world market, but tourism, offshore banking, and services provide more to the economy than sugar. Barbados is the first country in the Caribbean to post a positive net migration rate—while some Bajans are still emigrating to the U.S. and elsewhere, more people are moving into Barbados from elsewhere than are leaving. This is a lagging indicator of a country’s success. Once you become somebody else’s land of milk and honey, you’ve pretty much arrived.
Following Barbados is the Bahamas. The Bahamas used to rank much higher, but about four years ago the CIA revised their estimate of the size of the Bahamian economy sharply downward. The economy has been growing consistently since then, but from a lower base. The Bahamas has the highest AIDS infection rate in the First World, which results in the country also having the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates as well. The economy is structurally sound, but work needs to be done socially.
Finally we have two brand new entrants to the First World, Hungary and Uruguay. Hungary has been dithering about at the top of the Transition club for several years, but couldn’t get their act together until recently, when the unemployment rate started to come down. Hungary preceded Czechia as the Eastern Europe poster child, but with full EU membership and healthy economic numbers the place should be on the rise.
Uruguay is the first South American country to make the First World. This is a surprise; I had expected Argentina to win the race, but Uruguay recovered almost immediately from the Brazilian meltdown, and in the last three years the economy has grown 10% annually. The Uruguayan literacy rate and life expectancy are the best in South America and on par with the First World average. Though the Uruguayan GDP per capita came in this year at the absolute floor for First World admission, with the growth rate of the economy they should not be there for long.
11 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part VII
Of course, there are places on Earth that are rich and reasonably pleasant places to live but can’t really be called First World. These are the Outliers. At present there are nine of them, and they can all be found after the jump.
The richest Outlier is Taiwan, which is at least as nice a place as Liechtenstein provided you like very tall buildings and humidity. It has a relatively stable democracy, although truly free elections only arrived in the last decade. It has a widely diversified modern economy and trades globally. But poor Taiwan, it’s not really a country. Or, is it?
The U.S. government does not have an answer. We don’t want to offend new best friend China lest they cut off the Wal-Mart supply chain and throw the American economy into complete disarray. Nearly every country in the world, and all the important ones, officially recognize the “one-China” policy, and proclaim that Taiwan should, at some point, reunify with China.
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement to make and I can’t possibly imagine anyone at all outside China actually believes it. Nonetheless, Taiwan has about 700 missiles pointed at it and could be wiped off the face of the earth in short order if they really pissed off their big angry neighbor, and without any real diplomatic recognition it must be argued that Taiwan is not stable or really free. So it’s an outlier.
Next down the list is Brunei, which is at least as nice as Greece, except Greek women look better than Bruneians, and again there’s that humidity factor (which may be why the Greeks are better looking). Brunei has made great strides in the last decade in improving literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality rates, and is starting to look like a First World country in areas other than sheer wealth (though the median age is only 27, which would be the lowest in the First World). This is a very positive development for Bruneians and proves that, human nature be damned, the Hobbesian Leviathan can occasionally exist in the world.
But there is the matter of that Leviathan. His name is Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, he’s the Sultan of Brunei (one of two real sultans left in the world), and he has total control over every aspect of daily life in his little Sultanate.
Given the size of his country, I sort of think that Sultan Hassanal’s day must be a lot like playing a very large game of SimCity. He’s doing a pretty good job; Brunei has no foreign debt and the government runs a half-billion dollar surplus every year, while providing cradle-to-grave health care and free education through the university level, and subsidizing housing and rice (that would be like Uncle Sam giving you a free loaf of Wonder Bread and $100 towards your mortgage every week).
Still, great guy though he may be, the Sultan is a Leviathan, and I don’t allow such places into the First World. Brunei has a handful of other problems, too. The economy, though diversifying, is still too resource-dependent to be considered fully modern; 50% of GDP is based on oil and gas, and though new reserves of these wonderful products have recently been found that should keep Brunei in fat times for decades, that’s a shaky way to build an economy—especially when nearly two-thirds of your citizens are college graduates. Brunei has an excellent independent judiciary (though judges, of course, serve at the pleasure of the Sultan), and a separate Shari’a court system for family matters for Muslims (who make up two-thirds of the population). The Sultan has considered merging these two judicial systems; and any country with a judicial system based purely on religious law is not going to be in the First World as long as I’m making the definitions. We’ll see how that goes.
Next on the list is Israel, which is as nice as Greece but hotter and drier. Like Taiwan, Israel has a stable democracy, a free press, and a fully modern integrated economy. But numerous groups and countries in Israel’s immediate neighborhood have as their stated goal the ultimate destruction of the Israeli state. Given that the first world is a place where we don’t expect states to collapse or be destroyed or attacked by other states, it’s hard to justify locating Israel there.
South Korea (as comfortable as Slovenia but without so many sunny alpine vistas; also George Bush knows where it is) suffers from much the same problem as Israel and Taiwan; namely, an unpleasant and well-armed enemy bent on its destruction. Someday I suspect the Koreas will unite; but given the horrific state of the North Korean economy and populace, it will be a much harder merger than the German one. Until that time, South Korea remains an outlier.
Cyprus is the bottom country on the list of outliers, with an overall standard of living somewhere between that of the Czech Republic and Barbados. Cyprus is a bizarre little place; two-thirds of the island is run by the official Cypriot government and is populated by Greeks; one third is run by a pariah government recognized only by Turkey, and is populated only by Turks. This situation results from Cyprus’ status as the Korea of the Greek-Turkish Cold War. Additionally, two sizeable chunks of Cyprus are operated by the United Kingdom as overseas colonies; there is also a DMZ/Neutral Zone between the Greek and Turkish halves. Bear in mind the island of Cyprus is half the size of Connecticut; there’s a lot going on in a small space and everyone’s a little edgy.
The Greek half (which is the part world leaders and the UN are referring to when they say “Cyprus”) has recently joined the EU and has rather a nice standard of living, better than that of Greece itself. The Turkish half wasn’t even offered EU membership, since no EU country recognizes it; the standard of living there is worse than in Turkey itself. Combined together you get a place at the lower edge of first world status, though obviously because of the divide it’s hardly rational to call Cyprus first world. Which part would we be talking about?
Last year the UN put forth the latest in a series of reunification plans that would have brought the two halves of the island together. The Greek Cypriot government accepted the plan, though most Greek Cypriots thought it was too generous to the Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish Cypriot government rejected the plan, though most Turkish Cypriots supported it because unification was expected to improve living standards (and included EU membership, always a nice bonus). This is a very confused place.
The remaining outliers are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. These are the wealthy oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. Only the UAE and Bahrain have made any effort whatsoever to diversify their economies away from total dependence on oil, and the results are decidedly mixed. At any rate more than two-thirds their GDPs come from oil, and as I mentioned above a resource-based economy such as these can’t be called modern, and a modern economy is a prerequisite for first world membership.
Of course, these states have other problems besides, among them the use of religion as the primary judicial basis; near universal gender segregation; the lack of any real political participation; and limited press freedom (Qatar being a notable exception).
Among this group, Bahrain is clearly the most progressive. Known in parts of the Muslim world as “The island that Allah cannot see,” Bahrain has developed a significant tourist business (most clients come from other Gulf states to get their drinking, gambling, and whoring done away from Allah’s watchful eyes), is creating an offshore banking sector, and is moving away from oil production and toward oil refining and shipping, a more stable source of foreign exchange. The country also now has a parliament, though the king can veto any of the parliament’s decrees if he doesn’t like them. Strides are being made, but these countries have a long way to go.
The richest Outlier is Taiwan, which is at least as nice a place as Liechtenstein provided you like very tall buildings and humidity. It has a relatively stable democracy, although truly free elections only arrived in the last decade. It has a widely diversified modern economy and trades globally. But poor Taiwan, it’s not really a country. Or, is it?
The U.S. government does not have an answer. We don’t want to offend new best friend China lest they cut off the Wal-Mart supply chain and throw the American economy into complete disarray. Nearly every country in the world, and all the important ones, officially recognize the “one-China” policy, and proclaim that Taiwan should, at some point, reunify with China.
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement to make and I can’t possibly imagine anyone at all outside China actually believes it. Nonetheless, Taiwan has about 700 missiles pointed at it and could be wiped off the face of the earth in short order if they really pissed off their big angry neighbor, and without any real diplomatic recognition it must be argued that Taiwan is not stable or really free. So it’s an outlier.
Next down the list is Brunei, which is at least as nice as Greece, except Greek women look better than Bruneians, and again there’s that humidity factor (which may be why the Greeks are better looking). Brunei has made great strides in the last decade in improving literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality rates, and is starting to look like a First World country in areas other than sheer wealth (though the median age is only 27, which would be the lowest in the First World). This is a very positive development for Bruneians and proves that, human nature be damned, the Hobbesian Leviathan can occasionally exist in the world.
But there is the matter of that Leviathan. His name is Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, he’s the Sultan of Brunei (one of two real sultans left in the world), and he has total control over every aspect of daily life in his little Sultanate.
Given the size of his country, I sort of think that Sultan Hassanal’s day must be a lot like playing a very large game of SimCity. He’s doing a pretty good job; Brunei has no foreign debt and the government runs a half-billion dollar surplus every year, while providing cradle-to-grave health care and free education through the university level, and subsidizing housing and rice (that would be like Uncle Sam giving you a free loaf of Wonder Bread and $100 towards your mortgage every week).
Still, great guy though he may be, the Sultan is a Leviathan, and I don’t allow such places into the First World. Brunei has a handful of other problems, too. The economy, though diversifying, is still too resource-dependent to be considered fully modern; 50% of GDP is based on oil and gas, and though new reserves of these wonderful products have recently been found that should keep Brunei in fat times for decades, that’s a shaky way to build an economy—especially when nearly two-thirds of your citizens are college graduates. Brunei has an excellent independent judiciary (though judges, of course, serve at the pleasure of the Sultan), and a separate Shari’a court system for family matters for Muslims (who make up two-thirds of the population). The Sultan has considered merging these two judicial systems; and any country with a judicial system based purely on religious law is not going to be in the First World as long as I’m making the definitions. We’ll see how that goes.
Next on the list is Israel, which is as nice as Greece but hotter and drier. Like Taiwan, Israel has a stable democracy, a free press, and a fully modern integrated economy. But numerous groups and countries in Israel’s immediate neighborhood have as their stated goal the ultimate destruction of the Israeli state. Given that the first world is a place where we don’t expect states to collapse or be destroyed or attacked by other states, it’s hard to justify locating Israel there.
South Korea (as comfortable as Slovenia but without so many sunny alpine vistas; also George Bush knows where it is) suffers from much the same problem as Israel and Taiwan; namely, an unpleasant and well-armed enemy bent on its destruction. Someday I suspect the Koreas will unite; but given the horrific state of the North Korean economy and populace, it will be a much harder merger than the German one. Until that time, South Korea remains an outlier.
Cyprus is the bottom country on the list of outliers, with an overall standard of living somewhere between that of the Czech Republic and Barbados. Cyprus is a bizarre little place; two-thirds of the island is run by the official Cypriot government and is populated by Greeks; one third is run by a pariah government recognized only by Turkey, and is populated only by Turks. This situation results from Cyprus’ status as the Korea of the Greek-Turkish Cold War. Additionally, two sizeable chunks of Cyprus are operated by the United Kingdom as overseas colonies; there is also a DMZ/Neutral Zone between the Greek and Turkish halves. Bear in mind the island of Cyprus is half the size of Connecticut; there’s a lot going on in a small space and everyone’s a little edgy.
The Greek half (which is the part world leaders and the UN are referring to when they say “Cyprus”) has recently joined the EU and has rather a nice standard of living, better than that of Greece itself. The Turkish half wasn’t even offered EU membership, since no EU country recognizes it; the standard of living there is worse than in Turkey itself. Combined together you get a place at the lower edge of first world status, though obviously because of the divide it’s hardly rational to call Cyprus first world. Which part would we be talking about?
Last year the UN put forth the latest in a series of reunification plans that would have brought the two halves of the island together. The Greek Cypriot government accepted the plan, though most Greek Cypriots thought it was too generous to the Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish Cypriot government rejected the plan, though most Turkish Cypriots supported it because unification was expected to improve living standards (and included EU membership, always a nice bonus). This is a very confused place.
The remaining outliers are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. These are the wealthy oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. Only the UAE and Bahrain have made any effort whatsoever to diversify their economies away from total dependence on oil, and the results are decidedly mixed. At any rate more than two-thirds their GDPs come from oil, and as I mentioned above a resource-based economy such as these can’t be called modern, and a modern economy is a prerequisite for first world membership.
Of course, these states have other problems besides, among them the use of religion as the primary judicial basis; near universal gender segregation; the lack of any real political participation; and limited press freedom (Qatar being a notable exception).
Among this group, Bahrain is clearly the most progressive. Known in parts of the Muslim world as “The island that Allah cannot see,” Bahrain has developed a significant tourist business (most clients come from other Gulf states to get their drinking, gambling, and whoring done away from Allah’s watchful eyes), is creating an offshore banking sector, and is moving away from oil production and toward oil refining and shipping, a more stable source of foreign exchange. The country also now has a parliament, though the king can veto any of the parliament’s decrees if he doesn’t like them. Strides are being made, but these countries have a long way to go.
10 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part VI
Stable third-world democracies, like India, Botswana, Turkey, and Brazil, stand a chance of moving out of the third world and joining the Transitional States. And quite a happy club this is. 20 states strong, every new first world country must toil for a time in the land of Transition.
From a practical point of view, any country that has made it to transitional status is a good credit risk and an excellent place to send official development aid, should it be needed. Like the First World states, these are not places where one would expect to see a civil war, nor should these states be expect to attack other states or be attacked by them. Their economies are reasonably diverse and modern, and they should not be so fragile as to be badly damaged by natural disasters or to suffer total collapse from financial problems. Examples follow the jump.
A case in point is Malaysia, which has been a Transition Club member at least since 1998. Back in those heady days before the Asian Financial Crisis, Indonesia was right there alongside Malaysia with roughly equivalent per capita GDP and similar if slightly lower quality of life indicators. But then came said crisis, which in fact began in Malaysia. The Malaysian economy slipped substantially, but on a fundamental level, Malaysia’s economy was able to hold together. Though the local currency had been badly oversold and the banks were on the verge of collapse, export manufacturing and consumer demand did not dry up. Malaysians were confident this was just a temporary problem; Malaysia recovered quickly.
Indonesia did not, and remains mired in the third world. Though Indonesia had significant problems with government control of numerous aspects of the economy (and the corruption that goes along with that), one of the main problems the country had was that income was so unevenly distributed that in the aftermath of the financial meltdown, the rest of the archipelago outside Java and Bali could not sustain the level of consumer demand needed to keep local manufacturers working during the export slowdown. Many Indonesian manufacturers went out of business, and few if any have come back on line.
The goal, then, with my screening process for the Transitional States, is to keep the Malaysias in and the Indonesias out. This is not always easy. Brazil has been bouncing around on the cusp of Transitional status for years now, but the sympathy recession Brazil suffered during the Asian crisis in the 1990s showed some of Brazil’s weaknesses. Income inequality is worse in Brazil than in most other South American countries, and as a result Brazil’s internal demand for products does not easily recover from financial shocks. Maybe they deserve to be in the club, maybe not. For now, they’re on the outside looking in.
Last year, in the hopes of keeping any potential Indonesias out of the club, I raised the required score for admission. In so doing I kicked out a number of questionable states (Brazil included), but also kicked out Romania and Thailand, which I thought looked strong enough to remain in the club. This year they both put together scores high enough for entry, so I’m happy to welcome them back. Their readmission prevented the club from getting any smaller, as two members finally attained the lofty status of First World.
Romania joins Bulgaria, both of which should enter the EU in 2007 or 2008. EU accession has been important for a number of other transitional and first world states, so I expect Romania and Bulgaria to move up swiftly in the years ahead.
Thailand joins Malaysia as the only Asian transitional states. However, they’ve helped bring along the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, which resides in the transitional area largely as a result of tourism receipts from rich Asians. The more rich Asians there are in places like Malaysia and Thailand, the better off Palau will be.
Eastern Europe is heavily represented here. At the top of the list are Slovakia, Estonia, and Lithuania, fast growing new EU members. Slovakia has made a name for itself in the last few years as the best country in eastern Europe in which to do business, and the country’s economy has grown by 5-7% every year this decade. George Bush may not know where Slovakia is, but plenty of other people do.
Poland is the next European country on the list. It has moved forward in fits and starts, sometimes seemingly near the cusp of first world membership, at other times back in the middle of the pack. Poland is the largest of the new EU members by a fairly wide margin, almost the size of Spain, but the economy does not yet reflect the size of the population. Poles were the butt of the anti-Constitution campaign’s jokes during the French referendum earlier this year, proof that the country has a ways to go to be accepted by its western neighbors.
Croatia and Latvia follow Poland on the list; Croatia is the only non-EU member without a target accession date on this list. All other non-EU member states in Europe remain in the third world, with the sole exception of Russia, which isn’t so much European as it is just plain Russian. While the Croats have made some gains without the EU, it is evident that the carrot of EU membership is one of the most effective ways to get a country to shape up yet seen and has been the driving force behind much of Croatia's economic reform. The carrot must continue to be extended. The Croats certainly hope it will be.
Russia is perhaps the most questionable country on the list. Is it really democratic? It certainly isn’t very libertarian. Corruption is rampant, and the government plays far too large a role in the economy. Their score, 781, is impressive, and while life expectancy is low the other quality of life indicators are all quite high. The economy has rebounded from the 1998 default and is now larger than it has been at any time since the Soviet Union collapsed. Some things are going well. But at present, even if the score reaches the first world threshold, Russia looks more like a potential Outlier than a real member of the First World.
A number of small island states are in the transition club. The highest ranking of these is Mauritius, a little island you’ve never heard of in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. Once a leading sugar producer, the Mauritian economy now includes large tourism, financial, and high-tech sectors, and the country recently concluded a free trade pact with India.
In the Caribbean, the ampersand countries are all in the club. Trinidad & Tobago is at the top, with tourism, mining, and petroleum refining important in the economy. Antigua & Barbuda remains the only Caribbean country who’s government has a detailed high-tech industry plan; while tourism will always be important, the country hopes the island of Antigua may some day be referred to as Silicon Island. Saint Kitts & Nevis has a solid financial industry and still remains one of the Caribbean’s largest sugar producers, on a per-capita basis (though Kittitian rum has yet to make a dent in the world market). A popular wide-scale secession movement on the island of Nevis may put a damper on economic growth on both islands in the near future.
The four remaining Transitional countries are all in Latin America. At the top is Argentina, with Chile not far behind. These two countries were both on the cusp of First World membership before Brazil’s economy went froot loops in 1998 and 1999 and took the rest of South America down with it. Chile and Argentina were particularly hard hit and have not recovered fully; many jobs have been created, macroeconomic policy has been revised to encourage greater stability, but incomes haven’t returned to late 1990s levels. Still, barring a global economic downturn these countries should be in the First World by the end of the decade.
Farther down the list is Costa Rica, the only Central American transitional country and a CAFTA member state. Costa Rica, unlike its neighbors, has seen 150 years of stable democratic government. Unfortunately, this stability was guaranteed in part by a large social welfare system, the bill for which is now coming due. Though Costa Rica has done much to diversify the economy in recent years and boasts a wider array of industries than all its neighbors combined, the government’s current internal debt is dangerously high and there is little political will to eliminate the annual deficit.
Finally we have Mexico, which for the first time this year is estimated to have a trillion-dollar economy, one of only a dozen worldwide. Mexico’s quality of life score is basically flat over the last five years, because although the economy is growing quite a bit faster than the population, not much of that money is making its way into the hands of Mexicans. NAFTA was a tremendous boon to the Mexican economy, but much of the money made by foreign investors there is not staying in Mexico. This trend has to be reversed for Mexico to see any real gains; still, it’s nice to know our next-door neighbor isn’t as dreadful a place as we all fear.
From a practical point of view, any country that has made it to transitional status is a good credit risk and an excellent place to send official development aid, should it be needed. Like the First World states, these are not places where one would expect to see a civil war, nor should these states be expect to attack other states or be attacked by them. Their economies are reasonably diverse and modern, and they should not be so fragile as to be badly damaged by natural disasters or to suffer total collapse from financial problems. Examples follow the jump.
A case in point is Malaysia, which has been a Transition Club member at least since 1998. Back in those heady days before the Asian Financial Crisis, Indonesia was right there alongside Malaysia with roughly equivalent per capita GDP and similar if slightly lower quality of life indicators. But then came said crisis, which in fact began in Malaysia. The Malaysian economy slipped substantially, but on a fundamental level, Malaysia’s economy was able to hold together. Though the local currency had been badly oversold and the banks were on the verge of collapse, export manufacturing and consumer demand did not dry up. Malaysians were confident this was just a temporary problem; Malaysia recovered quickly.
Indonesia did not, and remains mired in the third world. Though Indonesia had significant problems with government control of numerous aspects of the economy (and the corruption that goes along with that), one of the main problems the country had was that income was so unevenly distributed that in the aftermath of the financial meltdown, the rest of the archipelago outside Java and Bali could not sustain the level of consumer demand needed to keep local manufacturers working during the export slowdown. Many Indonesian manufacturers went out of business, and few if any have come back on line.
The goal, then, with my screening process for the Transitional States, is to keep the Malaysias in and the Indonesias out. This is not always easy. Brazil has been bouncing around on the cusp of Transitional status for years now, but the sympathy recession Brazil suffered during the Asian crisis in the 1990s showed some of Brazil’s weaknesses. Income inequality is worse in Brazil than in most other South American countries, and as a result Brazil’s internal demand for products does not easily recover from financial shocks. Maybe they deserve to be in the club, maybe not. For now, they’re on the outside looking in.
Last year, in the hopes of keeping any potential Indonesias out of the club, I raised the required score for admission. In so doing I kicked out a number of questionable states (Brazil included), but also kicked out Romania and Thailand, which I thought looked strong enough to remain in the club. This year they both put together scores high enough for entry, so I’m happy to welcome them back. Their readmission prevented the club from getting any smaller, as two members finally attained the lofty status of First World.
Romania joins Bulgaria, both of which should enter the EU in 2007 or 2008. EU accession has been important for a number of other transitional and first world states, so I expect Romania and Bulgaria to move up swiftly in the years ahead.
Thailand joins Malaysia as the only Asian transitional states. However, they’ve helped bring along the tiny Pacific nation of Palau, which resides in the transitional area largely as a result of tourism receipts from rich Asians. The more rich Asians there are in places like Malaysia and Thailand, the better off Palau will be.
Eastern Europe is heavily represented here. At the top of the list are Slovakia, Estonia, and Lithuania, fast growing new EU members. Slovakia has made a name for itself in the last few years as the best country in eastern Europe in which to do business, and the country’s economy has grown by 5-7% every year this decade. George Bush may not know where Slovakia is, but plenty of other people do.
Poland is the next European country on the list. It has moved forward in fits and starts, sometimes seemingly near the cusp of first world membership, at other times back in the middle of the pack. Poland is the largest of the new EU members by a fairly wide margin, almost the size of Spain, but the economy does not yet reflect the size of the population. Poles were the butt of the anti-Constitution campaign’s jokes during the French referendum earlier this year, proof that the country has a ways to go to be accepted by its western neighbors.
Croatia and Latvia follow Poland on the list; Croatia is the only non-EU member without a target accession date on this list. All other non-EU member states in Europe remain in the third world, with the sole exception of Russia, which isn’t so much European as it is just plain Russian. While the Croats have made some gains without the EU, it is evident that the carrot of EU membership is one of the most effective ways to get a country to shape up yet seen and has been the driving force behind much of Croatia's economic reform. The carrot must continue to be extended. The Croats certainly hope it will be.
Russia is perhaps the most questionable country on the list. Is it really democratic? It certainly isn’t very libertarian. Corruption is rampant, and the government plays far too large a role in the economy. Their score, 781, is impressive, and while life expectancy is low the other quality of life indicators are all quite high. The economy has rebounded from the 1998 default and is now larger than it has been at any time since the Soviet Union collapsed. Some things are going well. But at present, even if the score reaches the first world threshold, Russia looks more like a potential Outlier than a real member of the First World.
A number of small island states are in the transition club. The highest ranking of these is Mauritius, a little island you’ve never heard of in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. Once a leading sugar producer, the Mauritian economy now includes large tourism, financial, and high-tech sectors, and the country recently concluded a free trade pact with India.
In the Caribbean, the ampersand countries are all in the club. Trinidad & Tobago is at the top, with tourism, mining, and petroleum refining important in the economy. Antigua & Barbuda remains the only Caribbean country who’s government has a detailed high-tech industry plan; while tourism will always be important, the country hopes the island of Antigua may some day be referred to as Silicon Island. Saint Kitts & Nevis has a solid financial industry and still remains one of the Caribbean’s largest sugar producers, on a per-capita basis (though Kittitian rum has yet to make a dent in the world market). A popular wide-scale secession movement on the island of Nevis may put a damper on economic growth on both islands in the near future.
The four remaining Transitional countries are all in Latin America. At the top is Argentina, with Chile not far behind. These two countries were both on the cusp of First World membership before Brazil’s economy went froot loops in 1998 and 1999 and took the rest of South America down with it. Chile and Argentina were particularly hard hit and have not recovered fully; many jobs have been created, macroeconomic policy has been revised to encourage greater stability, but incomes haven’t returned to late 1990s levels. Still, barring a global economic downturn these countries should be in the First World by the end of the decade.
Farther down the list is Costa Rica, the only Central American transitional country and a CAFTA member state. Costa Rica, unlike its neighbors, has seen 150 years of stable democratic government. Unfortunately, this stability was guaranteed in part by a large social welfare system, the bill for which is now coming due. Though Costa Rica has done much to diversify the economy in recent years and boasts a wider array of industries than all its neighbors combined, the government’s current internal debt is dangerously high and there is little political will to eliminate the annual deficit.
Finally we have Mexico, which for the first time this year is estimated to have a trillion-dollar economy, one of only a dozen worldwide. Mexico’s quality of life score is basically flat over the last five years, because although the economy is growing quite a bit faster than the population, not much of that money is making its way into the hands of Mexicans. NAFTA was a tremendous boon to the Mexican economy, but much of the money made by foreign investors there is not staying in Mexico. This trend has to be reversed for Mexico to see any real gains; still, it’s nice to know our next-door neighbor isn’t as dreadful a place as we all fear.
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