Posted on 07/14/2008 9:12:54 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Leaders of several underdeveloped African nations came to the Group of Eight summit in Japan last week and requested more financial aid from G8 countries, says Erin Wildermuth, a Koch Journalism Fellow at the American Spectator.
Thus far, only $3.9 billion of the promised $26.1 billion in aid to Africa has been dispersed, according to a report put together by the nonprofit ONE campaign.
But when countries receive more aid, the effectiveness of this money is heavily disputed, says Wildermuth:
Since the 1980s Africa has received over $450 billion in development assistance. In comparison, the Marshall Plan only designated $13 billion (about $110 billion to $140 billion adjusted for inflation) to rebuild a large percentage of Europe after World War II. While aid to Africa may not be useless, it certainly hasn't had the lasting, monumental effect everyone is hoping for, says Wildermuth. How could it when many developed nations are taking as much or more money from developing countries as they are handing out?
For example:
Burkina Faso received $10 million in development aid in 2002, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. Burkina Faso lost $13.7 million in export earnings because of depressed cotton prices. Togo received $4 million in aid and lost $7.4 million, once again because of export earnings. The depressed prices and export losses are the fault of agricultural subsidy programs in first world nations, including the United States. Wildermuth proposes two solutions that will guarantee monumental accomplishments in Africa: fixing our current system to make it fairer and changing structures to encourage private aid from individuals and corporations to Africa.
Source: Erin Wildermuth, "Money Won't Cure Global Poverty," American Spectator, July 10, 2008.
For text:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13507
For more on Federal Spending & Budget Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=25
Another good example of “Give an man a fish.........”.
I agree with this. Money can alleviate acute poverty—the kind caused by natural disasters, devastating illness in a previously independent and productive person, or man-made situations such as the aftermath of war in a country that was not impoverished prior to it.
It does not do much for chronic poverty, because the causes are entirely different.
"For example: Burkina Faso received $10 million in development aid in 2002, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. Burkina Faso lost $13.7 million in export earnings because of depressed cotton prices to the local tyrant's lavish embellishment of his own lifestyle. Togo received $4 million in aid and lost $7.4 million, once again because of export earnings of the local tyrant's lavish embellishment of his own lifestyle.
“MONEY WILL NOT CURE GLOBAL POVERTY”
No sh!!te? Really?
Seriously, this should come as no surprise, since giving folks other peoples’ money doesn’t cure poverty on ANY level.
Bringing everyone else down to the the level of the LOWEST among us IS one way to “level the playing field” - it’s not a GOOD way, but it is A way.
Since the mid-1960`s the US govt has spent $7-$8 trillion in an effort to end poverty in America. The American taxpayer has been taken to the cleaners over the last 45 years. Yet the poverty rate in the US remains about where its always been. Social engineering and wealth redistribution doesn’t work.
Gee, what a surprise. It's our fault.
But there are a lot of ex-African kleptocrats now living in Switzerland who appreciate the aid very much.
MONEY WILL NOT CURE GLOBAL POVERTY.....
Tell it to Obama....
Some like me look at poverty aid as a safety net in case a situation occurs and you are truly destitute and need a little help to get back on your feet.
Others view it not as a net, but as a hammock.
What it all boils down to is this single view will almost always place the (D) or the (R) next to your name.
And still the dems can't come up with any other solution - - makes a person wonder if there's not some secondary gain...
Dispersed. That's a laugh, because the typo is more accurate than the intended word. Dispersed is exactly what happens to it, just like pollution is dispersed by wind, or crowds in Denver are dispersed by tear gas. Disbursed is what they meant to say.
Stop sending them food and money.
Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls.
Send them a guy that says,
"You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 45 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS!
YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!!
UNDERSTAND THAT?
YOU LIVE IN A F**KING DESERT!!
NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE!
Come here, Come here, you see this?
This is sand.
You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!!
YOU LIVE IN A F**KING DESERT!
We have deserts in America, we just don't live in them, a$$hole!"
Sam Kinison 1953 – 1992
Poverty is not a matter of money. It is a state of mind.
Poverty, like its obverse, wealth, is inherited, and is generated in the attitudes and beliefs absorbed, usually at an early age and at the knees of one’s parents and larger family. One may educate oneself out of the narrow concepts and confines of limited thinking, and achieve the access to wealth not available to those who will not make what are sometimes very hard choices.
Conversely, the lessons, hard-won by previous generations, of how to preserve and grow the capital available to everybody in greater or lesser quantity, are ignored by the young and resistant, as they squander their birthright and pursue failure.
Phil Gramm was right. We are whiners who have made the bad situation much worse by making irrational choices and ignoring the historic wisdom of getting along on what they had available. The future has been mortgaged, and the bank just called in the note, demanding accelerated payment.
Duuuhhh!
It really is a light deprived orifice. I WAS going to say “black hole” but that’s no longer PC.
Most of that dough wound up in the tyrant-du-jour’s Swiss bank account.
Conservatives have another view. We believe in the Constitution. Its not the job of the federal government to supply a social safety net. We are a Republic with a governing system based on federalism and states rights.
According to the Founders/Framers, each state can set up whatever system their citizens desire. Each state can choose to supply its citizens with everything from endless social welfare, to absolutely nothing, or some level in between.
After 40+ years of the Democrats created liberal welfare state, we’ve wasted trillions of dollars for nothing. The poverty rate in America is basically unchanged. Big government is not the answer.
Is this a joke? Since 1965 the U.S. taxpayer has had his pocket picked to the tune of $2.6 TRILLION in welfare and related transfer payments. I’ve noticed that all that this money has done is create three generations of surly, violent crackheads, welfare bums, and other assorted undesirables, with no end in sight. I expect 95% will vote for Obama.
With almost a billion people living in Africa, that comes to about $20/person per year. That might take an edge off of starvation, but it certainly won't build much of anything.
Africa's best hope is an importation of capitalism and industry. It shows how sad the state of the world is when the best chance of that happening is in the form of Communist China.
“The depressed prices and export losses are the fault of agricultural subsidy programs in first world nations, including the United States.”
No, it’s not the fault of the US and other first world nations. The problem is these poor nations have never developed successful local economies. Producing enough to fed themselves is a good start. If they’re dependent on agricultural exports for success then they’ll never be successful. Stable governments, the rule of law and development local economies is what they need to concentrate on, with exports as an additional source of income, but not the determinant of success or failure.
Foreign Aid causes poverty by subsidizing the ineffectual.
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