Journal Entry 8

Summary and Response to “A Development Nightmare” by Kenneth Rogoff
“A Development Nightmare” is an essay by Kenneth Rogoff that discusses the issue of global economical development. He talks about possible outcomes, the upside and downside of it. Some possible outcomes he talks about are raise price of oil, change in dominant currency, greater productivity growth, and ultimate source of wealth for everyone. Rogoff also points out the issue that the rich fear this because if everyone is rich, they wouldn’t feel rich. This has lead to counties being stingy on the fact of trying to help the world economy. The point is that the nightmare that people fear is far from happening and it shouldn’t cause stinginess.
I would have to agree most of the problems that Rogoff point out that he says people fear are unrealistic. The fact is that there will always be an upper and middle class. Human nature will not allow us to all become rich. Greed and corruption will always exist in the world and someone will always be exploited. We can see the affects today. People are concerned with mostly money. There are people out there who live with more than enough money than is necessary to live with. We pay movie stars and athletes a lot of money, while children around the world don’t receive education or a meal. Sure the rich life is nice, but is it a necessity.
The fear is only hurting the world, not helping it. Is too much to ask to have all countries up to the same education standard or make it able so that everyone has enough food. By developing education everywhere, it allows there to be more people in different fields, and allows there to be more ingenuity in the creation of new technologies. These new technologies could possibly fix the problems that the rich fear.
Overall the main point that Rogoff is trying to make is that the world will not rapidly become developed. It is pretty much impossible for this to happen because it takes time and money and there are too many unknowns to predict what would happen. He says this should not stand in the way of sensible and generous development and I agree with this.