WTO again
From the Aardvark, who spotted it in I make content, who saw it in The Guardian, a nice factoid:
The world is beginning to look like France, a few years before the Revolution. There are no reliable wealth statistics from that time, but the disparities are unlikely to have been greater than they are today. The wealthiest 5% of the world's people now earn 114 times as much as the poorest 5%. The 500 richest people on earth now own $1.54 trillion - more than the entire gross domestic product of Africa, or the combined annual incomes of the poorest half of humanity.
Do not believe on the collective negotiating power of the poorest countries. It does not exist. Do not believe either that they won't accept the outrageous terms proposed, because they will. Do not believe that the countries will rise up. They will never do so.
Instead, expect to see a few privileged Third World country kids studying at all the Ivy League universities of the world, and expect to see them running for office with the support of the developed countries that gave them the education. Never mind that said education came at horrible high costs of abject poverty, social disruption and continuous economic dependence, brought about when the parents of these kids were in power and accepted the terms of the developed world.
No, this is not cynical, not even political. It is just a sad fact.