Poor Planning

How to achieve the miracle of poverty

Ronald Bailey | September 18, 2002

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Some Last Advice

Another popular policy is confiscatory taxes. This strategy, which allows you to claim that you are soaking the rich in the name of equity, has long been fashionable among the genteelly stagnating economies of Europe.

Finally, you may have missed the golden age of international graft, when the World Bank and even commercial banks showered the governments of poor countries with loans. But if the opportunity arises, you should follow in the footsteps of two deceased leaders whose fortunes are now being divvied up in "Please Help" spams: Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and Nigerian General Sani Abacha. Take a page from their book by redirecting international loans directly to your Swiss bank accounts, sticking your citizens with the bill.

Unlike Mobutu, however, make sure to give up the pleasures of arbitrary power before you're old (or overthrown in a coup), and move to Provence to enjoy your ill-gotten gains. Of course, be sure to invest your purloined riches only in countries with stable money, strong property rights, and honest bureaucracies.

Keeping people poor is hard work, but following the above policies will achieve that goal. Modern poverty is a miracle that only you can make happen.