Country that had highest per capita income in the world 30 years ago goes broke

[astro]

Kind of sad -

Nauru on brink of collapse

THE Pacific nation of Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, is likely to go bankrupt this week after decades of exploitation and mismanagement.

Yesterday it confirmed that receivers had taken control of its assets in Australia, including hotels and a shopping centre in Sydney and Melbourne, as it faces default to a major US financier.

The bankruptcy would cap a sad tale that has seen the island, home to 12,500 people, slip from having the world’s highest per capita income in the early 1970s.

The once idyllic island halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, dubbed “Pleasant Island” by its first white visitor in 1798, has also been turned into a barren wasteland by strip-mining of its phosphate resources.

[Eleusis]

How do you repossess a country? Do stockholders of the “major US financier” get free land over there? A seat in parliament?

[samclem]

Did they truly have

the world’s highest per capita income in the early 1970s.

or one of the highest in the Third World?

[Lamar_Mundane]

@samclem

Did they truly have or one of the highest in the Third World?

Highest in the world. Phosphate, man.

Only 10,000 people, and the richest deposit of phosphate in the world. All gone now.

[Ogre]

Siiiiigh. I was afraid it might be Nauru. The phosphate came from extremely thick layers of compressed, ossified bird guano on the island. Ever since it was discovered in the early 20th century, they have been mining it as quickly as they could get to it. Now it’s gone, and they’re poor again.

[astro]

@samclem

Did they truly have or one of the highest in the Third World?

This article says “the world” as a whole ranking just after Saudi Arabia.

Nauru, home to 10,500 people, grew wealthy on the back of phosphate mining and in the early 1970s boasted the world’s second-highest per capita income, after the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. But royalties were wasted on extravagant projects, hare-brained schemes and failed investments, while the mined interior of the eight square-mile island became a barren wasteland. Only the coastal fringe is now habitable.

[furt]

This sounds like aesop wrote it.

[samclem]

Going back and reading some articles in the NYTimes from the period, I see that the statement was correct about being the richest per capita.

To put it into perspective, in 1971 they had a per capita average income of $6,000. The US had the second highest at that point(pre-oil problems, I would guess) and Kuwait third.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the end of the article, from the Minister of Finance

We have a motto in Nauruan that means “Tomorrow will take care of itself,”

[Danalan]

‘This American Life’ did a great story on this. It’s episode #253, here.

[Ale]

Sweet mother of irony, they were the richest while they were up to their armpits in shit and now that the shit is gone they are broke.
Life is very strange.

[if6was9]

Boo frickin hoo! Nobody laments my small town (about 10,00 people) who had a THRIVING economy from 100 to 30 years ago… Now all the powerhouse businesses (Landis Grinders, Landis Threading Systems, Frick Air Conditiong, Grove Cranes, anybody heard of these? :rolleyes: ) all these businesses are broken up, and undercut by Japenese competition.
Charity begins at home…

[samclem]

@if6was9

Boo frickin hoo! Nobody laments my small town (about 10,00 people) who had a THRIVING economy from 100 to 30 years ago…

I don’t think anyone here was lamenting the plight of the Nauruans. More like noting the irony and then moving on.

Sorry about your town, but life happens. Get over it and get on with your life.

[if6was9]

@samclem

I don’t think anyone here was lamenting the plight of the Nauruans. More like noting the irony and then moving on.

Of COURSE they were!

@astro

Kind of sad

@furt

This sounds like aesop wrote it.

I HAVE moved on from my small town’s problems, I got a great job with one of the sattelites, thankyouverymuch.

My point was that people should worry more about things (/places) that MATTER, instead of some south pacific island 85,000 miles away…

Just because you have the SDSAB tag doesn’t mean you’re a mod… :rolleyes: Get off my case.

[Ogre]

If6was9, you are suffering from a logical lapse. Just because we might be sad that 10,000 people on a small island in the Pacific are now dirt poor does NOT mean that we are not similarly sad at the plights of economically busted towns in America. We all feel for the Flints and the Allentowns. Your assertion is ludicrous.

I won’t even get into the idiocy of implying that Nauru “doesn’t matter.”

[if6was9]

@Ogre

If6was9, you are suffering from a logical lapse. Just because we might be sad that 10,000 people on a small island in the Pacific are now dirt poor does NOT mean that we are not similarly sad at the plights of economically busted towns in America. We all feel for the Flints and the Allentowns. Your assertion is ludicrous.

I won’t even get into the idiocy of implying that Nauru “doesn’t matter.”

K. Splain to me how it matters to me… how does it effect me in the very least…

[Ogre]

I don’t know you. Nor do I care to. However, on some level, it matters to me, and obviously to other posters, which is good enough for me, and warrants at least and MPSIMS thread.

Whether it matters to you is of very little consequence to me, especially since you seem bent on hoarding your sympathies.

For chrissakes, you can relate to their problem, and what’s your response? Empathy? Fuck no. It’s contempt. Utterly shameful.

[Silentgoldfish]

They’ve also got the worlds shittiest airline.

[if6was9]

@Ogre

For chrissakes, you can relate to their problem, and what’s your response? Empathy? Fuck no. It’s contempt. Utterly shameful.

NO! And yes. I sympathise with them… but have you ever heard of Machiavelli? Some random group of people don’t affect me much…

[if6was9]

MINE is more important… fuck me, but I am human… I want things to work out for ME.

[Ogre]

Fine. Be uncharitable, even when it doesn’t cost you anything to be otherwise.