Thursday, October 30, 2014

Unexploded Ordinances

Visaya Phattaphone
Mr. Reuter
Economics
October 15th, 2014

Unexploded Ordinances


Look at the picture above. Beautiful isn’t it? Welcome to Laos, a landlocked country in the heart of Southeast Asia. With a population over 6 million people, Laos is a country that is gaining attention in the international community through increased tourism but also through a dark secret: unexploded bombs.

In 1954 after gaining independence from France, all of Southeast Asia saw a new threat loom on the horizon. The threat of Communism. Vietnam was the first nation in the region to assume a communist regime and it would be this regime that would eventually control all of Southeast Asia. In an attempt to stop said regime, The CIA and US military forces intervened and created South Vietnam and the Royal Lao Army in the late 1950s. Eventually the Vietnam War began and Laos was induced into the conflict. In the mid 1960s following JFK’s assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson assumed the presidency and would become the president who would escalate the Vietnam War. Between 1964-1973, Johnson would authorize a massive bombing campaign in an attempt to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail and ultimately win the war through this superior air power. Many of explosive ordinances dropped on the Laotian countryside range from mortars and landmines to cluster munitions. In total, by the time the Vietnam war ended nearly 200 million tonnes of bombs along with 266 million cluster munitions were dropped on Laos with 30% of the cluster munitions failing to detonate. In fact, since so many bombs were dropped on Laos, the final bombing run total would come to one bombing run every 8 minutes for 24 hours for 9 straight years.

With all this history, how does it all tie to economics? The Laotian economy to this day is attempting to grow thanks in part to less restriction from the communist government but . The problem lies within the reality that economic growth cannot occur with all of these UXO’s littering the countryside. Every year, villages that attempt to develope are halted with the threat of UXO’s. There’s also a parallel between the 42 poorest districts of Laos along with the areas hardest hit by UXO’s Families are impacted because many practice agriculture and rice farming and typically the father or the head of these families are injured or killed resulting in a lowered GDP Per Capita for any family. The average GDP per capita is $1,645 and may be forcasted to decrease even further with such a threat. There’s also a tremendous negative externality from all of these UXO’s. Families will also show a tendency to suffer from the Income effect. Families will suffer from an income effect because the majority of their income will be directed towards taxes and paying for quotas for their crops instead of sending children to school. Luckily there are some positive externalities to this situation. Since 1996 when the government of Laos initiated UXO clearance programs, a market for scrap metal has developed and has resulted in cheap available housing for families. Another market for prosthetic legs have developed from this situation as well.



Bibliography


10 comments:

  1. Visaya,

    I though this post was very interesting and I could tell that you know a lot about this topic (for obvious reasons) and that it was something that you were interested in. I also find it fascinating that a country that did not seem like it could muster much economic growth is finding markets that are based on scrap metal from getting bombed for all those years. The only thing I might change is that you provided a lot of history before diving into the economics standpoint of this, I would suggest either streamlining this or maybe threading economics into the history part so it doesn't leave the reader wondering about how this connects to econ.

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  2. Dear Visaya, what an interesting topic to do your blog post on. I was very happy to see something global as many of our blog posts are about things that relate almost exclusively to American and americans. I had no idea that undetonated bombs and things like that were such a problem in Laos. I also didn’t realize how much these UXO’s could impact the economy, they seem like such separate things. I personally believe that because America are the people responsible for these bombs we should at least help in getting rid of them. Whether it be teams of dogs and people to find and remove them or some financial aid. While this is what I believe America should do, I do not think they would, or really any country would ever do that. I liked that you put in some of the economic benefits of these UXO’s but at the same time these economic benefits, such as a greater market for prosthetic limbs are not so much a good thing when you think about. It means that people are losing limbs which is not a good thing.

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  3. Great article Visaya! It's truly a shame that even though the Vietnam war took place over 4 decades ago it still effects many innocent people who are trying to make an honest living today. You mentioned how these undetonated bombs negativity impact the people of Laos through losing their life or limbs and not being able to expand their villages. However, I personally enjoyed how even through such a hardship the people of Laos are able to turn it into a positive and create markets for scrap metal and prosthetic's in order to turn a nasty situation into a growing opportunity for its economy. I hope that one day Laos is mine and explosive free so they an further expand their economy and become a global power.

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  4. Hi Visaya! I thought this was a great article, filled with a lot of history, However, the economics portion of it was a little short and somewhat confusing to me. It is great to see that the Laos' government has found a market for scrap metal, but there wasn't necessarily a dollar value attached to this information.

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  5. Visaya, way to represent your ancestral nation with this post. The situation over in Laos appears to be very delicate, as the tourism is increasing, while danger lurks for citizens. The situation becomes especially difficult for Laotian farmers, who are struggling to make ends meet. Because agriculture is an example of a purely competitive market, any firms unable to meet the demands of the consumers are in deep trouble, as they have no control over the market. They are simply price takers. Since numerous Laotian farmers are presumably not producing at full efficiency, based on their added attention to the UXO’s in the area, these farmers could be forced financially to leave the market, which would be devastating for Laos’s economy if this action grew to a national exodus. However, every Laotian I have ever known has persevered through adversity like this, so I can’t see why these farmers would not be able to push through either.

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  6. In order to rectify the situation, maybe the Laotian government should create a publicly-funded UXO disposal squad. The demand for such a service is probably pretty high, but having a privately-owned company that performs the UXO disposal probably wouldn’t satisfy this demand. Many of the poorer farmers wouldn’t be able to pay for such a service, so it becomes exclusive. However, it should be a basic human right to be free of the fear of UXOs, so the government making a bomb disposal unit a public good could solve this problem.

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  7. Visaya, This was a very interesting article to read about. For one it was a country that I had never heard about before and for two because you took a small country that not a lot of people know about and took it to a different level and made it about economics. It was interesting to learn about the UXO's. This was something that i never heard about before. Overall this was a very good and interesting topic to write about and to learn about.

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  8. This is really fascinating, I though feel sorry for the people who are in Laos that have to live with the UXO's scattering around, this is because they are really dangerous and i'm sure someone has and someone will get hurt.

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  9. It feels as though the negative externalities of farming on the countryside in Laos may outweigh a lot of the positive externalities. Although this is creating more business in other fields, it seems like it would be more productive to not farm on the countryside and provide more resources to teams that sweep the countryside in attempts of locating these UXOs. That way, the UXOs would begin to diminish and farmers would not lose money but rather inherit income in a different way.

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  10. I would have to agree with Chandler on this one. Though the UXOs are helping to boost some industries, I believe that the economic growth would be happening in other places if the UXOs were out of the equation. For example, the farming industry would likely grow because farmers would not need to be afraid of blowing themselves up in the countryside.

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