I am pinging this article because I was telling my husband today that the Live 8 thing was putting pressure on a country US that have given quite a lot thank-you...
He was wondering why I didn't want to watch this one, when we did watch the first one in the 80's...
I said, first of all, I don't like the music as much, but when Geldof and the group say that these concerts weren't for raising money from the people that watched, it was as a message for the Group of 8 meeting this week...
Not only do they want America to write off ALL debt of Africa's countries, they want the US to give MORE money, and they want tariff FREE trade....
So, in other words, instead of having citizens of the world, like they are, money out of the goodness of their hearts and their own pockets, they want the American and other countries citizens to be taxed 3 (THREE) TIMES in order to furnish funds for the potentates and dictators of corrupt regimes....
Fool us once, shame on you---fool us twice, shame on us...
You probably saw this week where they estimate that the Nigerian government has over the years stolen about $240 billion. Thats always good to keep in mind when calculating how much we're going to send to Africa.
The best thing we can do is to do what we always do. Support private charities that we know.
Debt relief is recognition that the money was already stolen. Debt relief just rewards the banks who made bad loans, I believe. Not one dime reaches the people.