Re: NYTimes.com Article: An Old Key to Why Countries Get Rich

Typical `pop', `quack' - or as George Bush Senior would have said - `voodoo'
economic - history - useful article though as it again makes clear what
rubbish is nowadays accepted as `serious' economic history in the media.

Note e.g. this remark:

"Why is the economy of South Korea 15 times as large as that of Ghana when
they were comparable less than 40 years ago?"

Well, in these same 40 years Ghana has turned into probably the most
fervently Protestant country in the World, so that if our `culturalists' had
any  courage they would say that if Ghana is ever to develop, it has to get
rid of PROTESTANISM lock. stock and barrel. And that the US should
immediately cease exporting protestantism worldwide too.

But of course the very same Protestantism as in Ghana  just HAPPENS to be
the religion of the USA - so everybody including Prof. Appiah - while
claiming to `speak on behalf of the Ghanaians' if he has a Ghanaian name -
is simply too cowardly to draw this obvious conclusion.

For remember this Golden Rule: if you want to get any media-coverage in the
US: NEVER, EVER say anything unfavorable about the Protestantist church, and
certainly NEVER, EVER  antagonize the TV-preachers, who dominate the US
media as much they do the Ghanaian.

R.J. Barendse