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标题: Romney's Remark at a Fundraiser at King David Hotel [打印本页]

作者: choi 时间: 8-2-2012 15:45
标题: Romney's Remark at a Fundraiser at King David Hotel
Jared Diamond, Romney Hasn’t Done His Homework; A simplistic reading of geography and culture in world economy. New York Times, Aug 2, 2012 (op-ed).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/0 ... simple-answers.html

My comment:
(a) The speech at King David Hotel was closed to the media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel
(b) Jared Diamond
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond
(1937- ; AB from Harvard College in 1958 and a PhD in physiology from the University of Cambridge in 1961; geography professor at UCLA)
(i) Jared
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared
(Hebrew for "he who descended")
(ii) The Jewish surname Diamond is "Americanized form of a Jewish surname, spelled in various ways, derived from modern German Diamant, Demant ‘diamond.’ Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press.

(c)
(i) David S Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations; Why some are so rich and some so poor. Norton, 1999.
(ii) David Landes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Landes
(1924- [age 88]; professor emeritus of economics at Harvard University and retired professor of history at George Washington University)
(iii) The French surname Landes is variant of Lande, the latter meaning "for someone living on a heath, lande (from Gaulish landa ‘space’, ‘land’)."
(iv) I chanced upon this book just two weeks before the controversy--at a Barnes and Nobles bookstore at Boston. At the time, I was very impressed, which talked a lot about Taiwan (though it appeared, judging from the context, that he had never been there), but preface by the author did not mention who he was, which did say while he taught at some places, he was particularly invigorated intellectually by the feedback from Harvard students.

(d) The following is extracted from (i) en.wikipedia.org for population figures and (ii) per capita GDP from the September 2011 World Economic Outlook Database, International Monetary Fund.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs ... /weodata/index.aspx

..................................population.................................per capita GDP (PPP)............per capita GDP (nominal, or by foreign exchange rate)
Dominican Republic.....9,378,818 (2010 census)............$9,289.................................$5,406
Argentina....................40,117,096 (2010 census)..........$17,376...............................$10,640

(e) Transcripts.

Text of Romney's Remarks About Culture and Israel. Associated Press, July 31, 2012.
http://www.denverpost.com/breaki ... -culture-and-israel

作者: choi 时间: 8-3-2012 07:19
(e) What puzzled me, upon reading excerpts of Mr Romney's speech, was the numbers he pegged to Israel and Palestinian Authority: "And as you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel, which is about $21,000, and you compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice a dramatic, stark difference in economic vitality."

(The sources again are from Wiki and IMF.
..................................population.................................per capita GDP (PPP)............per capita GDP (nominal, or by foreign exchange rate)
Israel..........................7,412,200 (2008 census)............$32,298...............................$31,005

Neither IMF nor World Bank has data for Palestinian Authority (or West Bank or Gaza). CIA World Factbook does has a page for West Bank only, whose per capita GDP was "$2,900 (2008 est.)."

Finally I found a comment which expressed the same bewilderment:
Hussein Ibish, Romney Versus the World Bank. The Daily Beast, July 30, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/art ... the-world-bank.html
("Not only did Romney get the economic figures entirely incorrect—Israel's per capita GDP is about US$31,000 while the Palestinians' is at US$1,500—he attributed this difference to 'culture'”)

作者: choi 时间: 8-6-2012 15:52
本帖最后由 choi 于 8-6-2012 15:56 编辑

choi 发表于 8-3-2012 07:19
(e) What puzzled me, upon reading excerpts of Mr Romney's speech, was the numbers he pegged to Israe ...

Richard Landes, Romney Is Right on Culture and the Wealth of Nations; A 2002 United Nations report written by Arab intellectuals acknowledges the problems the Republican candidate pointed out. Wall Street Journal, Aug 6, 2012 (op-ed)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 66770697427382.html
("In making his brief case, Mr Romney cited two books: 'Guns, Germs and Steel,' by geographer Jared Diamond, and 'The Wealth and Poverty of Nations,' by economist David Landes (my father). * * * Israel (which neither book examined) and the Arab world (which only the Landes book examined)")

Note: Peel Commission
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_Commission

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