South American countries create problems for themselves - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Paul Brown, Bents Green Road, Sheffield.
One of the problems of some countries abroad is that they suffer a high rate of inflation. This does not occur by accident, it only happens if the government fails to stop the bank note printing machine when it has printed sufficient currency to maintain economic activity and has used the surplus to pay bribe money to friends of politicians.
It is a mystery why potentially wealthy South American countries create this problem for themselves when there are sufficient mineral and agricultural resources available for wealthy people to live very comfortable lives.
The drug trade costs the USA hundreds of billions of dollars every year for police, healthcare and social costs. This is money which would be better spent on economic development and environmental issues.
This same principle applies to all western nations who need to decide which substances need to be removed from circulation and which ones can continue to be available under a legal and licensed regime.
Some sensible decisions with respect to this issue would be of considerable benefit to government finances and health care costs.