wartime economy
Chasing Golf Balls in Afghanistan
Before U.S. troops showed up, it’s doubtful that Afghan boys in Jalalabad had ever seen a golf ball. Today, some spend their time chasing after them.
Today’s Wall Street Journal shows that “war creates an economic logic of its own” by highlighting the sometimes-bizarre economy of northern Afghanistan, where the U.S. military “pays out as much as $25 million a month to Afghan companies” and soldiers buy blocks of ice, fragments of spent rockets and, yes, used golf balls from locals.
The golf balls are the same ones soldiers blast from their makeshift driving range atop a latrine building. Local boys collect those that sail over a river and come to rest in terraced fields, then sell them back to the soldiers for 10 cents each — until recently, that is.
The market has been disrupted by a middleman who pays the children a dime and raised the retail price to 20 cents, according to the soldiers. The troops consider the price-increase exorbitant and are holding out for the children to regain control of the golf-ball business.
It seems even a market as trivial as golf balls in Afghanistan isn’t safe from war profiteers.
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