Well, yes there are counterexamples I guess. The kind of retardation I'm talking about seems to happen when the influence in through covert, destabilising channels. Taiwan is a particularly odd example...it definitely has started forming a modern economy, but then again it had many decades of oppression. It also had swiped billions upon billions of dollars of gold and other substances that backed the Chinese monetary system prior to 1949, so arguably that money had to go somewhere. -TD

From: John Kelsey Reply-To: John Kelsey To: Tyler Durden , jamesd@echeque.com, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: Re: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:59:26 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

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From: Tyler Durden Sent: Oct 19, 2004 10:23 AM To: jamesd@echeque.com, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: US Retardation of Free Markets (was Airport insanity)

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In developing markets the US track record is terrible. The more we interfere and set up puppet governments and petty dictators, the result has always been the near elimination of any kind of real modern economy.

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More than that, some of the countries we've been kicked out or prevented from influencing have been modernizing rapidly, the most obvious example is China and Vietnam. Bolivia is interesting to watch.

So, Taiwan and South Korea seem like rather obvious counterexamples.

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-TD

--John (Not a fan of interventionist foreign policy, FWIW)

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