[Luis Gonzalez]

THE OPPENHEIMER REPORT will be posted weekly.

[Luis Gonzalez]

• POSTSCRIPT: On another issue, pay attention to Venezuela. Regardless of the outcome of a planned referendum on Venezuela's political future, well-placed U.S. officials suspect populist President Hugo Chávez will try to provoke a new coup against him to make a sweeping purge of the armed forces and complete Venezuela's transition to an authoritarian regime.

[Lockbox]

The least generous in relation to the size of their economies are Japan, the United States, Australia and Canada.

Is that before or after the cost America bears to protect the rest of the World is calculated?

[staytrue]

A lot of foreign "aid" is conditional on purchasing products. For example, we often give money for them to purchase US made military hardware or US grain. Israel comes to mind here. We give them money and they buy US planes.

The other countries do the same. If you look at only unconditional aid, I have no idea how things line up. I suspect the French are particularly good at foreign aid. It ususally goes something like this. You give french contruction company a contract for far over market value, the french give you money for whores, drugs, etc, and the contracting company gives the french govt. bribes for arranging the deal. The only loser is the french people and your people but the govt. leaders come out way ahead.

[Rodney King]

This is ridiculous. That we consume the most oil is not a negative, it is the by-product of us being the most productive nation in the world. Plus, I doubt that they counted teh Iraq war as peace-keeping.

Besides, I am against all foregin aid anyways (except for military aid to allies, for whom we woudl otherwise have to send our own troops). Foregin Aid is nothing but welfare, and I beelive that in the long run it hurts more than helps those it is provided to.

[Cicero]

Regretably a huge percentage of the foreign aid being offered to the third world these days consists of family planning: condoms, stealth tubal litigations, forced abortions, contraceptive pills and technologies we consider unsafe for use in our own country.

Moreover, other forms of aid are usually conditional on changing the laws in poor countries so as to legalize abortion. If you don't legalize abortion, you don't get any aid or loans.

So, another way of putting it is that probably the Netherlands is first per capita at killing third-world babies and decimating the population of Africa.

[Mister Baredog]

So who's right? As is often the case, it depends on where you stand.

So the rest of the world now wants to tell the US taxpayers where to send their money, unreal, they have got some nerve. LOL

They think they can shame the US into handing out more and more money to the "poor" countries, I guess it's so we can all be a little "poorer", that seems to be the goal: Bring down the USA, good luck, we're not buying.

[D. Brian Carter]

First of all, someone has to be first, and someone has to be last.

Secondly, since our GDP is much higher than so many other countries', it doesn't take as much of a percentage for us to make more of an impact. Just because Denmark spends 1.06 percent of their GDP doesn't automatically require everyone else to. Sorry, too bad your GDP is a fraction of ours, and that we are able to provide more assistance to the world at a lower percentage...

Finally, who cares? Since when are we ENTITLED to give ANYONE ANYTHING? I already think we give too much, in light of the fact that nobody appreciates it anyway, that all these countries that get millions or billions in aid from us hate us, despise us, wish for our demise. So I don't care if the number is zero... it's our money, we'll do what we want to with it...

[Congressman Billybob]

This "Report" takes into account "six factors." Five of those factors have nothing to do with gross dollars of foreign aid. It's fairly obvious that those who prepared this "Report" sat around a table and said to themselves, "How can we fudge the results to make the US look lame in its foreign aid efforts?"

They can up with this method of making the US, which is far and away to greatest in aid to foreign nations directly and through the US, SEEM to be a piker in this regard. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a pack of maroons?"

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up FR, "The Knight of Draper's Liquor Store."

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

'Ten Cannots'

	You cannot bring about prosperity discouraging thrift.
	You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
	You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
	You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
	You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
	You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
	You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred.
	You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
	You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative.
	You cannot really help men by having the government tax them to do for them what they can and should do for themselves. ~ Abraham Lincoln From: A World Free of Wealth

Actually, if they want to help the poor, Bank officials should focus less on "inclusion" and more on freedom—because that’s the real antidote to poverty. This is confirmed by the "Index of Economic Freedom," published annually by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation. This guidebook ranks nations by how economically free they are. It consistently shows that people who live in countries with the fewest economic restraints are wealthier than those in economically repressed countries.

Take Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two developing countries with a common border. The 2001 Index shows that of the 155 countries graded, Haiti ranks 137^th, while the Dominican Republic is 59^th. So what? Well, the answer to that question is this: Thanks to a more market-oriented economy that features low tax rates, Dominicans earn nearly five times as much as Haitians: an average of $1,799, compared to Haiti’s $370.

Examples like these abound. So why the Bank’s misdiagnosis? Partly because of what it sees in the former Soviet Union. We’ve poured billions into many of these countries, and they’re worse off today than under Soviet rule, Bank officials say. So capitalism obviously doesn’t work.

But as the United States and other democracies have shown, capitalism isn't just the absence of socialist-style economics.

The reason should be clear: All the loans in the world are no substitute for economic reform—for freedom. Countries that want to be rich don’t need charity; they need to unshackle their people’s economic potential. Perhaps then the Bank can adopt a new slogan: "Our Dream is a World That’s Really Rich."

[bart99]

"According to the ranking, the country that does the most to help the world's poor is the Netherlands, followed by Denmark, Portugal, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.

The least generous in relation to the size of their economies are Japan, the United States, Australia and Canada.

---

Unbeleivable that this report was even produced. They HAVE to be joking. I hope the world's countrieds in need continue to go to Denmark, Portugal, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and Spain for their soupport. Geez. How misleading can statistics be!!!???

[skinkinthegrass]

Another Liberal Org. looking for Federal Tax $$$ hand-out...

[Susannah]

Does anyone know who OWNS "Foreign Policy magazine?"

I did a google search and found>>>editor/publisher Moises Naim at the magazine, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 939-2230.

Publisher is in DC; however, I only knew this year about France holding certain U.S. magazines.

[RightOnline]

Anyone who can't see that the U.S. is by FAR the most generous nation on the face of the earth...........even with the lives of its young people sent to liberate the oppressed in various odd stinkholes around the world.........is absolutely delusional.

[Always Right]

....its kind that takes into account six factors: foreign aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping efforts and environmental behavior.

What does 'environmental behavior' have to do with fighting poverty???? This is just a leftist hit piece which elevates the phoney issue of global warming. The stupid thing is, the US may produce a lot of CO2, but we also sink more CO2 through our trees and plants than we produce. So the US gets hit real hard in this area where it should be a positive. What a bogus study.

[aruanan]

I'd rather have 1% of a thousandeth of a stingy billionaire's net worth than the entirety of the net worth of an altruistic pauper.

[Billthedrill]

the first of its kind that takes into account six factors: foreign aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping efforts and environmental behavior...

And if one adds the estimated $9 billion in U.S. charitable aid -- money given by churches, corporations and private citizens -- the United States is by far the largest aid donor in the world, they say...

I should certainly like that seventh factor to be included inasmuch as it may amount to as much as 9 billion. That is an awful lot of "invisible" aid.

I did notice one little nugget of extremely interesting information in the report - the part about most Latin American countries being middle-range economies and hence not qualifying for foreign aid...there was a time not too long ago when these were claimed to be hotbeds of runaway overpopulation, poverty, and incipient communism. I wonder what happened, other than democracy, healthy capitalism and the end of the Cold War?