Eric Bejarano, Chapter 13, Question #5

I found Wheelan's explanation of why some countries are poor most interesting. The author explains that countries are poor because their economies have failed them. He states that these countries aren't poor because they lack resources (Africa) but rather because they have corrupt governments and because when the Europeans came to colonize the area they recognized that they wouldn't be able to establish a permanent settlement so they just took as many resources as they could. On the other side of the spectrum is the United States. When settlers came to North America they established a government and efficiently allocated resources to further the economy. The result is that even the poorest people in the United States generally still have better access to health care than the people of many African countries.