Article of Interest: Hugh Naylor has an interesting article (blog entry) in the Washington Post that’s worth a read. Although obviously opinionated and generalized it does beg the question we’ve been asking for quite awhile: Is Jordan prospering or suffering from the rise in regional conflict? Everyone has their own take on this but there are too many factors involved to reach a definite conclusion in my opinion, for example we tend to focus on the direct economic costs/benefits and exclude the social costs/benefits, which can be just as economically taxing. Nevertheless, worth a read, so check it out.
Jordan the government and the economic elite benefits from all the wars around us, Jordan the people suffer. The money that was spoured into jordan from palestine, iraq, and soon lebanon will only inflate prices and causes enormous hardship to the average jordanian, whoes average income is 150 dollars according to the UNDP report. When iraqis pouerd billions of dollars into the jordanian economy, which is fantastic, but the govrnment removed its subsidies on fuel and other essential items and increased its taxes AT THE SAME TIME. Does this make sense? Money in Jordan goes up but never comes down, except in fake social services programs that get advertised but never get activated. When the system is utterly corrupt and works against the interest of its people what can you do? leave. hence this is why most of those who brag about their staying power in Jordan and love of the country and chide those who leave, those “patriots” tend to be the beneficiaries of this corruption.