[extropy-chat] Re: riots in France

[Damien Broderick]

At 12:45 PM 11/10/2005 -0500, John K Clark wrote:

>>They want a house with a manicured lawn, a membership of the
>>golf club and an SUV.
>
>The people of South Korea have all that now, but 50 years ago they were on
>that infamous list of the poorest countries on the planet. Things changed
>when the Korean's complained about the injustice of it all so the rich
>countries piled gold onto huge cargo ships and sent it to Korea until
>everybody was equal. No wait, I misspoke that's not how it happened

Actually it sort of is. I thought for a giddy moment you were referring to, 
for example, the long history of pumping aid money into SK, such as this 
from 1997:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/12/24/korea.aid/

<

U.S. Prepares Korea Aid Package

By John King/CNN

WASHINGTON (Dec. 24) -- Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin announced today 
that a $1.7 billion loan will be made available to South Korea in January, 
to help the Seoul government bolster confidence in its financial markets.

The loan is part of a hastily arranged international effort to accelerate 
assistance to South Korea...

The commitment by the U.S. and other G-7 nations is in conjunction with an 
International Monetary Fund decision to also speed up loans to South Korea.

The centerpiece of the bailout package is a total of $57 billion in loans, 
most of them from the IMF and the World Bank.

South Korea has received $14 billion so far and today's announcement means 
another $10 billion in loans will be made available by early January.

As part of the bailout package, the United States pledged to make $5 
billion in loans available as a "second line of defense" in case IMF and 
other international assistance was not enough to stabilize South Korean 
markets.

Until now, the administration had resisted South Korea's calls for some of 
that money to be made available immediately. But the White House says it is 
now clear a more aggressive international response is necessary. >