The Bottom Billion: Post Three

Another trap that keeps low income countries poor are natural resources. On the surface it would seem as if the discovery of natural resources is a good thing for the country, because it brings in a lot of money. There are several problems with that train of thought though because as we know most of the diamond rich countries are in a perpetual state of unrest. The first problem being that since low income countries often have an increased rate of violence that there will be many people going to extremes to get their hands on the wealth that the resource provides. The second problem being a bit more complicated, since this resource most likely will become the countries main export all of the other products the country exports will lose their value. So while a few people are getting very very wealthy many others are falling further into poverty, creating an unstable environment. As members of America we should care about this because it directly affects us, if countries that supply us with much needed natural resources start to fail then it will hurt our economy, we should try our hardest not to let them fall into the natural resources trap.