Calling Economics buffs , let's talk about my viewpoint on a particular religion and its relevance to economic prosperity

Alright for those of you who know finances of a nation and what leads to better living standards I want you to come joust with me on my viewpoint.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_b…
 
We know that when a nation exports more than it consumes or imports it leads to a trade surplus alias current account surplus. This means the currency is likely to appreciate and the denizens of a nation are more likely to afford imported goods (Benz or BMW automobiles, Rolex watches et cetera).
 
We go by the popular theory on the utility of a particular religion from the Middle East which is very despised outside of that region we can see that countries where such folk constitute the majority:
A. Do not export more than they import
B. Even if they do it wasnt due to talent it's due to having won the geographic lottery alias oil gas et cetera
C. If you minus B in the calculation, none of these countries are in the top 20 in terms of trade surpluses. So we can kind of sum it up without doubt that they are not making jack that the world wants or buys like a Germany or a China or a Japan. 
 
We can therefore deduce that:
A. People from these countries have no talent or brilliance in making stuff that the world outside wants
B. They have nothing of value for the world outside
 
Hence for all their so called piousness devotion to their faith, it's largely an economically fruitless exercise and culture.
 
Also I admit that I am biased in judging them economically. Religion doesn't have to help you make a pharmaceutical product that you can export to the world. They probably would reply with the fact that their goal wasn't to be economically or scientifically productive.
 
But since this is WSO and all of us are more or less indirectly biased towards the $$$$, let's take a $$$$ look at how much all that crap the horde I am alluding to actually helps make their life better in the $$$ sense. 
 
Any one wanna come debate ?

 
Most Helpful

It’s hard to argue with Qatar and the emirates being some of the richest states in the whole world. The House al-Saud is arguably the wealthiest family on the face of the earth. Saudi Aramco, their state enterprise, has a market capitalization of basically $7 trillion on the Tadawul, and it could be argued that it’s the most powerful enterprise on the planet. It produces more carbon emissions than any entity and powers your lifestyle.

About how powerful does the Middle East have to be before you’ll pay them regard? They did this despite having prohibitions on riba or basically any debt instrument. They’re perfectly fine at finance, and your biggest gripe is this neo-mercantilist drivel that they imported too many Rolls-Royce phantoms for your taste. Trade surplus =/= wealth. The riyal trades just fine with the dollar; look at the charts.

Look at the hotel complexes around Mecca. There’s arguably more raw splendor in that complex than any other place on Earth, and Osama Bin Laden’s family built all of it.

Sincerely,

Your Protestant

P.S. Most Americans don’t realize what downright petrolaters they are. They worship crude. Your carpet is crude. Your plastic is crude. Your phone case is crude. It got shipped to you with crude. You drive cars. All this crap is crude. It is your god. Most people are living day to day working a job so they can buy more stuff made out of crude. That’s worship.

 

Brother did you even read what I wrote.

Minus all the petrostates which won the geographic lottery, and then let's see what they export.

Nada.

So what does common sense tell you. They aren't exactly the Japanese or Germans who sold the world semiconductors and capacitators and electromagnetic industrial tools which takes some brainpower to make.

 

Because people without brainpower can definitely run advanced petrochemical refineries without any know-how, right? That’s every bit as advanced as semis, and in fact, you couldn’t even have those without the refineries, so you should thank your lucky stars they’re there.

Your argument is about as valid as if I were to say “people who say ‘yippie-ki-yay’ aren’t economically productive because if I stripped out cattle ranching or oil production from Texas, then it wouldn’t have high economic figures.” Well, if I ignore your most important thing and give Japan 100% of its credit, then don’t act surprised when the analysis is lopsided. I think part of your problem is that you view petro as one thing and Euro/East Asian industry as many things. Petro is a lot of things too. It’s exploration, it’s midstream, it’s downstream. Refining. Turning waste byproduct streams into ingredients for other processes. Making plastics of all sorts. Running ports and logistics. Loading ships. Constructing and maintaining the world’s most important canals. It’s lots of things.

 

Like you said; apart from oil, these countries lack many resources. 

If you took econ 101 and read the Mankiw text.

Gregory Mankiw's Principles of Microeconomics, 2nd edition, Chapter 1 (p. 3-6) and Chapter 13 (p. 270-2). ScarcityEconomics is the study of how people make choices under scarcity.

When you have few resources due to your geographic makeup you are essentially economically screwed as a country. 

These countries have harsh environments, low precipitation, low nutrients in their soil, few sources of freshwater, few minable minerals, few precious metals, and a lot of oil.  

If you have ever played Settlers of Catan think of these countries as the person who holds all the brick spots. You need brick to build roads however after that brick is basically useless. So they have to trade to get their other resources because they essentially have market power in the oil market.  This boils down to specialization. Which is another important factor in improving production efficiency. 

To address your first statement usually for a country to develop into a modern economy it needs a few things. 

1) Strong infrastructure. Freshwater, roads, and sewage systems are a must. In addition to cheap sources of energy like electricity. Many countries still rely on solid fuels (wood, coal, dung) as sources of energy.  

2) A supply chain that allows the country to trade internally and externally. In addition to free markets. 

3) Stable currency and stable political conditions. (Cant have a coup d'etat every 2-3 years).

4) Goods or services that are wanted in the market. 

(However, even addressing the first problem has proved to be extremely difficult in international politics) 

 

Not a big believer that trade surpluses / deficits are particularly meaningful; however, without a reformation, Islam is a complete dumpster fire that destroys every civilization in which it is spread (which has historically and continues to be spread by the sword).  A better metric to sum up how many centuries behind these civilizations are is how many books are translated into Arabic versus any other language.  I don't have the stat handy and this won't be exact, but it's something to the effect of more books being translated to Spanish in the last 25-50 years than Arabic over the last 500 years.  

I come from down in the valley, where mister when you're young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done
 

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