After reading the post about ” The Bottom Billion” it got me thinking about what it means to be poor in an impoverished country, and for me it means that many of the basic necessities are not met. Professor Paul Collier talks about how there are four failing points which prevent a poor nation from developing. The biggest of his “traps” as he calls them is the natural resource one. In this case a country with many natural resources is stopped from utilizing them efficiently. As a member of a developed nation though what could I do to influence governmental policies of those nations to utilize the new income better. Surprisingly Professor Paul Collier had also wondered about this too and came up with the idea that there needed to be a change in what needed to be done before aid was given. He talks about how democracy is not the solution but instead it is the strong checks and balances in government which is. This blew my mind that in many cases Professor Paul Collier claims Democracy is bad, or at least the act of electing officials is detrimental to the process.