[oblio]

> Collectively they depict a picture of a merciless ladder called “development” on which nations laboriously climb. At the top of the ladder sit countries with the highest per capita GDP, enjoying comfortable privileges, while other lower income countries fight to occupy favorable positions underneath. “Overall, the white world, Europe+North America+Australia/New Zealand+Israel, still makes up the top echelon of nations,” writes SN in a post responding to an IMF data release, “when per capita GDP goes above 40,000USD, only very few non-white nations can enter that area… Japan and a few ethnic Chinese economies, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore managed to achieve that. We should have confidence in ourselves.”

Well, correlation does not imply causation (those countries being "white" isn't necessarily the reason they're rich). But they're not wrong either. At this moment only Europe + European off-shoots and Japan/Hong Kong/Macau/Singapore/South Korea are developed.

The rest of the world is still lagging.

Of course, their racist argument kind of falls flat considering there's also poor "white" countries :)

[vincentchu]

The racial lens also falls apart a bit when you consider the fact that the most dynamic regions of the American economy are extremely ethnically diverse (e.g., California, already a majority-minority state).