[Howlin]

Bump!

[snopercod]

Working as I do now in the construction trades [electrician], I am learning to understand what life is like at "the bottom". The feeling of being trapped in a dead-end life is not pleasant.

No health insurance, no 401(k), no bonuses, and not enough in wages to make car payments, let alone buy a home. I don't know how these younger guys I work with survive.

(I'm not whining here - I own two cars and one home; I chose this this line of work voluntarily for my own reasons. Unlike many of the people I work with, I can get a $40/hr. job as an engineer if I am willing to commute for 3 hours per day, which I'm not.)

What am I trying to say? Heck, I dunno. I'm just glad that I live in America where I can change my situation if I want to.

[GOPJ]

There is not one-First World Country where the state is run by a religion. There's also not one-First World Country that denies the practice of religion. The win is in the balance. It doesn't work because control freaks gravitate to this type of power, abuse it, and justify it by saying you can't argue with God (or Allah) but really it just means you can't argue with THEM.

What works in the short run doesn't always work well in the long run.

These states need the rule of law. This doesn't mean "laws." All despots have "laws." In fact, the more despotic, the more "laws." Rule of law means the people's elected officials have made the laws, and they can be unmade by the same democratic process.

Market economies work best -- human nature and all that

Last but not least, free elections, and a free press.

[kitkat]

Hard copied to have it at my fingertips wherever I am. I need to memorize some of it so that I'm prepared the next time I run into a brain-washed liberal. Wonderful article. And from a PROFESSOR? There's hope.

[mbb bill]

They are too busy infiltrating land to raise food. They would rather steal it!!

[Truthfairy]

Arabs will stay poor until they understand that oil was nothing more than yucky goo until man's ingenuity created uses for it. Only then did it become a valuable resource. Most Westerners understand this concept and they have become the world's material winners. Those folks who see the world in terms of social injustice measured by skewed pie-charts don't and will continue to be the world's material losers. What's more the same ingenuity that turned oil into a valuable resource can turn it back into yucky goo if the price is too high.

[knighthawk]

Instead of aiding terrorism by giving millions of dollars to "muslim charity" organisations like Al Qaeda, they should give to the poor (Red Cresend Moon).

Democracy and freedom of choice may be good for Western cultures, but for the Gulf countries, those are dangerous thingsYeah, to islam, this thing called freedom is very dangerous! Just imagine that these countries became democracies, the islam would lose power and the original leaders are without the power they're accustomed to! And therefor we should not trust them!

[vladog]

All humans are equal? What planet is the guy from? All humans are not equal. Humans who practice a backward faith and act like it is sometime in the 10th century deserve no better.

[garyhope]

"Arab World Poverty -- Whose Fault?"

Whose fault? Simple,...theirs. Their choices, their religion, their beliefs, their philosophies, their leaders, their choices, their votes (or lack of), their govenments, etc., etc.,etc.

With the exception of people who have fatal, incurable diseases, people locked up in prisons, people physically restrained under the thumb and gun of and mined and electric fences, physically restrained, people everywhere have choices. They can vote with their feet. They can leave. They can walk, swim, fly, hot air balloon, boat or raft to another place if they really want to. It might not be easy, it might be dangerous or life threatening, but they can do it if they choose. They might die trying or die at the hands of their oppressors, but almost everything in life is 50/50.

You are either alive or dead. You can die there oppressed or you can die here or someplace else free, either in comfort or modest circumstances but at least more free. You can take a chance and perhaps prosper in a free society or sit around and blame the big bad West for your misery.

On a personal level, I've learned that generally, no one, no one else is responsible or to blame for any of my "problems". I've done this, including many stupid mistakes, all by myself. I can always leave or vote with my feet. It might not be easy, it might be tough, but almost everything in my life as a free American is my own choice (with the exception of random violence, acts of Mother Nature or my own stupidity, lack of thinking or prescience or just plain bad luck. Blaming someone else or something for your bad luck or circumstances is mostly baloney. We're all adults here, think before you operate your mouth and blame America.

Want some cheese with that whine?

Of course, this is just all my opinion, I could be all wrong. But then I am a smart, happy, handsome billionaire with a large penis and a fast luxury automobile and a great big house, so I could be right too.

[Guillam]

No science, no arts, no system of education, no system of law, no knowledge of medicine, no agriculture, no industry, no social organization, no government that does not come from the barrel of a gun. No work ethic, no self-discipline. no pride.

No nourishment of the soul, no common sense, no ability to reason. Not even a sense of humor.

A filthy, barren, impoverished society that can only blame others for its woes and refuses to accept any responsibility for its own destiny.

Regressive savages.

[Crowned One]

These Arab countries that complain about America being to wealthy or powerful had thousands of years to become what we made our selves in just a couple of hundred. What ever problems they are having are their own fault. They chose the life that they lead. No one gave us this wealth and power, our ancesters paid for it with thier blood.

[FITZ]

Unfortunately we've provided the world with US presidents like Clinton for the last 8 years who also promoted this sick kind of envy. Reagan gave the world hope and almost ended communism by showing what America was but then we let Clinton come along and smash that.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Simply handing over money with no accountability doesn't work. We know that.

REAL HELP FOR POOR NATIONS

We've given billions to poor nations over the decades. This is the result for non-perfomance based loans from the World Bank:

Experienced little or no economic improvement. Of the 85 countries receiving IDA loans between 1980 and 1999, 33 experienced negative compound growth in inflation-adjusted per capita GDP (their people became poorer); 20 countries experienced between zero and 1.5 percent growth (their people experienced marginal increases in wealth); and 28 countries experienced growth greater than 1.5 percent. 7 The data clearly show that nearly two-thirds of IDA borrowers in the past 20 years derived little or no benefit in terms of per capita wealth. In fact, recipients are more likely to be worse off after the loans than they are to experience significant economic growth.

[speekinout]

A recent story on Afghan schools described a teacher who holds up a wealth pie chart. America, she shows her students, controls this huge slice of the pie, leaving a tiny sliver for us Afghans. The not-so-subtle point? Afghans suffer poverty because of America's disproportionate wealth.

That lesson is being taught in US schools as well. It's the Liberal chant that the only way that the "have nots" can get wealth is to take it away from those who have it. Until we show these people that the "wealth pie" grows ever larger, and they can make the growth in their own share without taking it away from others, the struggle will be constant.
It's so simple to make the case that collective wealth is continually growing that the only explanation for why this kind of thinking continues is political bias. And the shameful effect is to rob the "have nots" of hope and a future.

[Winged Elf]

The Arabs had control of the area that is now Israel for well over a thousand years and they did absolutely nothing with it. In a time period of under one century, the Jews living in Israel developed the place up, and it's no surprise that the Arabs want Israel back. Arab World Poverty? It's their fault they don't have the motivation to develop. They'd rather plunder what others have developed than do the hard work on their own.

[Jorge]

A recent story on Afghan schools described a teacher who holds up a wealth pie chart. America, she shows her students, controls this huge slice of the pie, leaving a tiny sliver for us Afghans.

Does this mean if I eat an extra helping of dinner tonight, that the American hunger relief packages dropped on Afghanistan will have less food in them?

Perhaps if they starve that teacher I will get to eat all I want.

[kempo]

Instead of trying to create their own wealth , and they can if they really had the desire (didn't we), they would rather spend their time burning home-made U.S. flags, burning dummies on the end of a stick, and throwing rocks at who ever disagrees with them.

[Feckless]

At the airport near Sharm El Sheik there are panoramic view photos lining the walls above the windows. Each picture shows a view of the scene outside it's corresponding window of when the Israelis turned the Sinai back over to Egypt.

The photos show orchards, grass, paved roads, an oasis in a brutal desert. Today the windows show a brutal desert.

Like many of our minorities that have been "held down" by the Anglo-European white man, the Egyptians were handed paradise but failed to invest their own labor to maintain it.... only to complain that they have been robbed.

[IceGirl2]

The difference is that we work!

If you gave Afghanistan to Germans or Japanese or Finns or Americans or Israelis in 10 years you would have a beautiful country. Irrigation systems would be up and running, fields of hardy wheat would be swaying in the wind, factories would be turning out toys and electronic goods. Hospitals would be built and staffed. They would be efficient and clean. Roads would be built and fast food restaurants would be popular.

With ten years of hard work it could be done.

But it will never be done as long as these people continue to enjoy living in this squalor and with this ugly religion. There is no hope for them.

[mercy]

There is no mystery to the poverty of the Third World. It is their cultures that enslave them. The wealthy of the Third World do not invest in their own countries. Why? Because they enjoy their princely status. They do not wish for a prosperous nation. They wish to look out on an impoverished land and thus feel even more special and princely. It is THAT simple. Mexico could be an economic powerhouse. They have everything needed and more. They have us right on their border to help them. But the rich of Mexico put their money in foreign investments. The only Third World nation that is changing is China. They are plowing every dollar not spent on defense into infrastructure. Maybe someday the rulers of the third world will grow tired of repressing their own people for their own satisfaction but I doubt it.