Economics or superheroes?

 my grandson was into Japanese superheroes, and here we have an entire TV station that shows these cartoons.

Alas, they are long and hard for me to get into them, and a lot of them are like the recent hit movie, Demon Slayer, where the plot is killing monsters.

Ah, but what do you think of a manga called How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom?

The plot? a small country needs to pay it's debt to a smaller country, but is given the option to use their magic power to summon a hero to destroy their common enemy. Since they don't have the money, they do the ritual... but they do it incorrectly and summon a student accountant by mistake.

who instead of deciding which magic sword will help him in the battle has a meeting

he then spends a lot of time looking at the books (finding a lot of corruption), 

Next step?

selling unneeded treasures owned by the king. Putting policies intact that will mean enough food will be planted to feed the people. Making the forests productive by thinning the trees and selling lumber. Asking a local gourmet to popularize new foods for people to eat. 

Oh yes, and of course this is a manga, so romance and fighting of course.

With my limited attention span, I probably won't get around to watching the entire manga (on line here to read).

But I find it interesting that it mixes magic with the very real problems of the world... 

the real skills needed in a country are not superhero skills but those of economics. 

Which is why Goldman Sachs has the ten thousand women initiative to teach and help local entrepeneurs like Joy, who I mentioned in a previous blogpost. 

Because give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish (and get him a loan to buy his own boat) and he feeds his family for decades.

Which is why I, a person who has worked as a missionary and in poor areas in what would be called charity work, am so angry when the Pope goes around saying live simply and help the poor.  

Saying things like that imply he only wants to preach to the upper middle class in rich countries.

Here, maybe better advice would be to invest your money in an industry that gives jobs to the unemployed instead of building chapels to celebrate the environment.

Maybe, even, you should teach the ten commandments to all those corrupt Catholic politicians. 

Here in the Philippines, corruption and nepotism are limiting the economic growth... so one tenth of the population work overseas, either as temporary OFW or as immigrants.

In other words, the Philippine economy is held up by wages sent back to families by their OFW, but a smarter country would keep them and find a way for them to use their skills to make the country rich.

Well, the Philippines has improved a lot in recent years thanks to Duterte whacking a lot of drug dealers. When he took over, there was danger of the Philippines becoming a narco state, something often ignored by the "human rights" NGOs.

We are like an old Jeepney: falling apart, slow but we get there.

Finally, I'd like to add that the press seems full of breathless (and admiring stories) about the Taliban's successes.

But I wonder: how will they run the place?

I saw Mozambique fall into mass starvation when the communists threw out all those with an education as colonialist exploiters. But then the place collapsed. 

I saw Zimbabwe go downhill and Mugabe persecuting not just the white farmers but the educated class who were terrorized by his green bomber gangs, so many fled to England or South Africa to be safe and to support their families, while Mugabe and his minions lived high off the hog during a major famine.

I left Liberia shortly before the coup that overthrew President Tolbert took place, and Sargent Doe took over. 

Someone from the American embassy tried to advise Sargent Doe about the problems of running the country, and explained what would happen if these things weren't taken care of: "Country Go Kaput"

So unless another country wants to go in and take the place over and run things, Afghanistan could very well go "kaput", meaning hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into Pakistan, Iran and other nearby countries, along with their criminal elements and heroin trade connections.

So who is running things in Afghanistan?

Russia?  (in the north)

The Turks? (running the airport)

The Chinese? (planning to take over their mineral resources, but since they probably won't hire locals to run the mines, this will mainly help the corrupt politicians).

Remember, there have been a drought in that area, and a lot of hunger in the remote villages this year could mean mass starvation and more refugees.

so the Taliban government can take all their weapons and shout in front of the cameras, but will they use their trucks and jeeps to take food to their villages? 

and in the capital: Who will keep the water running, clean up the garbage, keep the electricity on, keep the gas stations supplied, and of course stop the looters and criminals who will quickly start attacking normal people?

Will they end up selling the weapons for money? If so, that money, just like aid money, will probably go into the pockets of the corrupt leaders, not pay the salaries of experts to actually run these vital industries.

Then there is covid. Who will take care of the sick?

Who will get in supplies, especially when covid or more common disease like Dengue, dysentary, measles etc hit?

As I had mentioned in a previous post, two of the Filipinos who came back from Afghanistan were with Doctors without Borders, meaning they are leaving too... And of course the usual suspects (Christian churches who help out in disasters) will be forbidden.

So yes, I think Biden made a mistake in not withdrawing properly (strategic withdrawal is a skill that many civilians don't know about).

But the dirty little secret is that Americans have done a bit of building up the infrastructure, including educating people to run things, but without a culture that allows the growth of civil society, things will go to hell.

and outsiders, even those with the best intention, can't do that.

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update:

StrategyPage has an article on when extremists took over part of Iraq and tried to make it into a 7th century utopia.

Getting electricity, water and sanitation networks operating was a priority but crippled by lack of supplies (especially fuel) and spare parts as well as people qualified to repair, maintain or operate these utilities.

using foreigners was not done because it was't Islamic, so they tried to get modern Moslem workers from other countries. 

Few qualified foreign Moslems arrived and the result was intermittent water supplies, unreliable sanitation systems and lots of people using portable generators for power or just living in the dark like their 7th century ancestors....

and who took care of the sick?

the collapse of the medical care system has left most people with few useful options if they got sick or injured. ISIL considers such misfortunes “the will of God '' and complainers are regarded as heretics.

all of this while the leaders stole everything in site and laundered it with the help of Turkish and other international banks, of course.

Look for a similar thing to happen in Afghanistan.