You have a good sense of economics Leroy, you should what I do and play mostly currencies. That is where the econ inclined can beat the market of business that doesn't really care much about the rates, they just care about the fact that they need X currency and currently have Y in their accounts.


As for your post, I think an important thing to remember is that one of the key not so publicized benefits of globalization is that as people (especially women) gain in earnings power and financial condition, their propensity to have children drastically falls. Now obviously the poorest people are in farming and they need the children more, but even for city families it has proven itself true. This is hugely important because the western world is trying to reduce the population growth which taxes world resources for one, but also to turn back the tide of incessant economic immigration (while of course conveniently ignoring its positive benefits to a society). The best example is of Mexico where despite all its troubles, economically it has made great strides and what used to be alarming growth of immigrants each year has fallen off. Further the birth rate of mothers has gone down quite a bit in just a 15 year span. This last factor is most important of all, the problems most developing countries have is not in their lack of growth, its in their lack of growing enough to provide opportunities for their booming populations that keep producing unsustainable levels of children each year. You can send all the family planning experts in the world to a country, warn its governments and people the dangers of high birth rates, etc...but in the end the only thing that ever seems to work is simply making the people wealthier. These benefits don't materialize in 5 years though, they are generational changes. When Vicente Fox claims he wants an open border in a generation most Americans scoff, but I think if Mexico continues on its current path and the US maintains policies that allow for it, this is a reasonable goal and its quite likely that Mexico will be a G-7 caliber country within that generation...solely because of trade and its wealth creation.