[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

A decade or two ago, an economics historian made a most extraordinary discovery, something unique in economics. He discovered the one and only known 100% correlation between economic national prosperity, and economic national decline.

Mining. Nations and national groups that mine are prosperous. The more they mine, the more prosperous they are. As they mine less, their nation is in decline. The discovery that this has been true in all times and places that mined was unheard of, and he spent another decade trying to disprove the theory, which he could not.

This is because mining is at the center of economic development. In every direction it stimulates the surrounding economy many layers deep.

This bodes very well for Afghanistan.

[mick]

That's very interesting. Do you happen to have the name of the historian or a link where I could read more?

I always remember what an econ teacher told us about the creation of wealth.....only three ways...Mining, Manufacturing and Agriculture. I have been fascinated with this subject ever since.

[Noumenon]

The stunner for libs and progressives is to tell them that everything they have, everything they eat has either been produced on a farm or mined.

It’s fun to watch the name calling begin within 10-20 seconds. Every time.

[muawiyah]

It's also the other way around. Prosperous countries can afford to mine a wide variety of materials. Sometimes a society is up against the problem of having no sources whatsoever of an important material, e.g. TIN.

They then invent ocean going craft, or maybe even IRON WEAPONS and go get what they need from other places.