With all that oil $, why arent the Arab nations more technologically advanced?

[fallenangel99]

Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar (basically the smaller Gulf states that don't cause trouble) are wealthy and they are technologically advanced. They don't spend a lot on military because the U.S. will protect them. The people of those states are well taken care of. There is virtually no income tax, free healthcare and I think education too.

If you ever visit those countries, you will be amazed at some of the stuff there. The shopping malls make Mall of America look like a strip mall. People are well off in those states, they don't have to show it off.


Oh. Kuwait just gave ALL its citizens (non-foreign) a $600 check because it had a huge surplus.


P.S.: none of the above countries (I think) are democratic.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Originally posted by: fallenangel99
P.S.: none of the above countries (I think) are democratic.

Kuwait is. UAE is about as absolute as you can get while still maintaining some sort of balance of power (council of individual emirate leaders). Qatar and Bahrain aren't as wealthy or industrial as the other two, but they definitely make up the wealthiest of the arab states.

 

[HombrePequeno]

Originally posted by: Aimster

Originally posted by: Witling
Here's something that was a shocker for me. In 1954, South Korea and Egypt had comparable economies. Approximately the same size, approximately the same technological structure. Today, there is not one factory in Egypt that can make a light bulb.

Egypt has factories that build military equipment so I am sure they can build a light bulb.

1950 Egypt's population: 20 million. 2005: 70 million
1950 South Korea's population: 20 million. 2005: 46 million.

When population's grow at such fast rates.. economies tend to decrease or halt.

Plus Egypt has no significant oil revenue. Their economy is not an oil-based economy.

Egypt is also run by a dictator.

It's not because of high growth rates that economies don't grow...It's because of a growing economy that high population growth rates decrease. Countries with high population growth rates tend to have high infant mortality rates. This leads parents to overcompensate when having children (kind of like a risk premium). When a country starts to hit a point where the GDP/capita starts to grow (past abject poverty levels), you start seeing birth rates decline fairly quickly. For instance, that happened in Bangledesh where 20 years ago having 6 children per family was the norm but now it's around 3 due to the green revolution in south Asia.

Having a country ruled by a dictator doesn't necessarily impede growth. Taiwan and even South Korea weren't really democracies until the '90s. Chile also grew quite a bit under the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet.

You really don't need oil revenue for economic growth. Countries that focus on commodities usually fail to diversify. This means that if the price of the commodity goes down the sh!tter, so does their economy.

Most Arab countries are not rolling in the money from oil. The Gulf states that are getting buttloads of money from oil are fairly technologically advanced.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: JEDI
Is it because the fundamentalist thinking thats holding them back?

Or... ?

Google the emirates and Dubai in particular, you might be surprised

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21

Originally posted by: fallenangel99
P.S.: none of the above countries (I think) are democratic.

Kuwait is. UAE is about as absolute as you can get while still maintaining some sort of balance of power (council of individual emirate leaders). Qatar and Bahrain aren't as wealthy or industrial as the other two, but they definitely make up the wealthiest of the arab states.

Kuwait is more democratic than most in the region, and possibly even the most among Arab countries, but it is not a democracy.

 

[replicator]

The US exploits the oil resources in the middle-east, leaving a handful of the people in power (eg. Saudi's) very rich, while the rest of the population struggles to make ends meet.

The Arabs aren't getting rich. The US based oil companies are, espeically with the crisis in the middle east. Exxon Mobil posted the largest quarterly profit ever in US history. Over $10 billion in the second quarter.

More bloodshed in the ME = higher profits.