Posted on 03/16/2002 9:06:11 PM PST by It'salmosttolate
Bush promises $5bn aid to combat global poverty
By Alan Beattie
Published: March 14 2002 22:13 | Last Updated: March 15 2002 08:23
President George W. Bush on Thursday sought to demonstrate his commitment to the war on global poverty by pledging a big increase in the US overseas aid budget.
In a policy speech ahead of next week's UN conference on development in Monterrey, Mexico, Mr Bush set out to counter perceptions that US foreign policy is excessively focused on security. The initiative signals a US desire to balance its war against terrorism with an attack on the conditions that nurture it.
Speaking in Washington, Mr Bush said the money - up to $5bn over three years from 2004 - would be available to countries committed to reforming their economies and stamping out corruption. "We must encourage nations and leaders to walk the hard road of political, legal and economic reform so all their people can benefit," he said.
The promise represents an attempt by the US to wrest back the initiative on global development, where it has been under fire from campaign ers and European countries for its relative ungenerosity on development aid.
The president described many of the old models of economic assistance as outdated and said the money, which will be targeted at African countries, reflected a new compact between rich countries and developing nations. US aid money tends to go to middle-income countries of strategic importance, such as Egypt, Indonesia and Colombia.
Development campaigners estimated the new programme, called the Millennium Challenge, represented an increase of around 20 per cent in the US aid budget. But the rise is still likely to leave the US near the bottom of the league of rich countries in terms of aid as a proportion of national income.
Oliver Buston, spokesman for Oxfam in Washington, said: "Any increase in aid is welcome but it falls well short of the extra $100bn a year we estimate is needed, and it is phased in gradually, whereas the money is needed now."
European Union member states yesterday agreed a deal which would see the overall EU aid effort rising by $7bn a year by 2006. German objections to the agreement, which commit all countries to raising their aid to the EU average of 0.33 per cent of national income, were overcome after Gerhard Schroder, German chancellor, intervened to support the proposal.
Most rich countries still fall well short of the United Nations' target of 0.7 per cent of national income in aid.
Clare Short, the UK development minister who has often clashed with the US on development issues, welcomed Mr Bush's promise. "It is very welcome that the US is committing to more aid, when many views have been expressed rubbishing the virtues of aid at all," she said.
It all sounds like fancy bank automatic payment withdrawal system - what the heck is that called anyway?
For example, the way that most people create wealth for themselves in first world countries is by purchasing and then improving a house. Over time the house (hopefully) appreciates, then it can be sold and the proceeds used to purchase a new (and hopefully nicer) home. We take that kind of transaction for granted here in the first world. But in the third world the simple act of establishing a title deed on any given piece of property is virtually impossible. Hence, any improvement that is going to be done upon said property is doomed to be very limited, since whoever is considering improving the property knows that they will not be able to either sell it or defend it against anyone who tries to take it from them.
Until the third world nations that demand our wealth and our standards of living develop the social and legal infrastructure needed to promote the creation of wealth and the protection of wealth, they will simply never have any wealth. Not for lack of resources or the willingness to produce, but for lack of the basic social and legal infrastructure that allows resources and efforts to take hold and grow into wealth.
That line explains the entire article.....
Translation: Bush sinks another $5bn in botomless barrel forcing US taxpayer to slave 6 months of the year to support domestic and international bums.
The US GNP is about 4.5 Trillion dollars; $4,500,000,000,000,000 and the UN expects .7%? So that is .007 X $4,500,000,000,000,000 = $315,000,000,000 (315 Billion dollars).
I say, come and get it.
Worse yet...hard working tax payers have their taxes confiscated by a gov't intent on rewarding illegals with our tax dollars and they cheapen our citizenship by giving it away to any common liar who stole his way into this country.
Yeah you rite. Roots of Soviet Terror
Rather, in addition to protection money earmarked "Redistribution", he's just ponying up the cash necessary to ensure the entire world's got the "healthcare mechanisms" for which his daddy fought so hard during the "War on Poverty" re-formations of extra-Constitutional social security legislation and Title X debates.
While the global corporations make huge profits on initiatives in other countries from our consumption, the American (and now other well-off countries) taxpayers will subsidize the people in those countries.
Sounds like we'll be paying three times: competition for jobs will keep wages down, profits on our consumption will feed the bottom line of corporations, and our taxes will subsidize compliant foreign governments and populations.
globalism works just fine...if you're a CEO of an international corporation
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