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2007
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June
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- Why, yes, I WAS right again, thanks for asking.
- And, occasionally, the good guys win one.
- The mote in one's eye.
- ... and that's why they call him "the eJankulator."
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- ... but some people are more equal than others, kn...
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- IOKIYAR -- Part 8,992.
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June
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8 comments:
Why stop at cutting off aid?
Let's go the extra mile and actually steal shit from them.
Of course, these people are not going to talk about net transfer of wealth from the 3rd to the 1st world in the last while. Just keep telling everyone that the few pennies we throw the darkies will only be spent on crack, anyway.
I should no longer be surprised that there a still plenty of people who will argue economics purely from the point of incredible selfishness, but I still am.
africa. new home of beer and popcorn. because helping isn't helpful.
Oh, those kind, loving, compassionate conservatives...
Obviously, these were the kinds of people who boycotted Live Aid.
It makes you wonder - do they have pundits like this in Africa?
Indeed they do.
There's a lot of jockeying for position everywhere in trying to shore up the argument that market solutions and globalisation solve everything...except when they don't and lead to disasters like intractible poverty in and transfer of wealth from Africa, South America...well, pretty much everywhere except India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, which, like the developed world did, are developing their economies with state control.
Why these boobs still bother is a mystery to me. I guess they're looking at their own stock portfolios, more than anything else.
There is some truth to the argument. As Ti-Guy noted, there is a net transfer of wealth out of African nations. This is because the "aid" that has been given to Africa has been given in such a way as to benefit the "donor" nations. It all goes through the WTO and World bank, of course.
For instance, give a large interest bearing loan to a country (which they must pay back above all other spending priorities or never receive help again), under the condition that government regulations get written a certain way (often things like eliminating public health and education systems in favour of private ones), and that they will buy particular materials from particular people at set prices. You end up with various infamous examples such as the MRI machines one country was forced to buy (oh, they didn't have reliable electricity), or the vast fleets of tractors (oh, they can't afford gasoline and no one knows how to operate them or fix them when they break).
Africa would be better off without the vast majority of "aid" that they've been given over the years. Now, there are forms of aid that actually do help. But on the whole, I think it's a reasonable argument that Africa would be better off not accepting any aid as opposed to accepting the crap they get now. Of course, it shouldn't be a choice between awful or nothing....people know how to do useful aid. Just not those in charge of the big money.
To Adam's point, net wealth transfers would be far more fair and equitable if we actually traded with them - real "free trade" none of this 5 years of negotiations and a tome of regulations stuff. They create stuff we want or need and we buy it from them. And they do the same with us. Simple no?
Anything the world IMF or the World Bandk does is merely a more modern version of colonialism and mercantilism - we give them "aid" with so many strings that it helps Monsanto, Arms dealers and oil companies but never gets to the people who actually need the help.
So considering Harperbot is ready to sign on to the biggest corporate welfare deal of all - BMD, I hardly think foriegn aid, the second biggest corporate welfare plot, will go away under him either.
Besides, none of that means its the fault of the Africans for what we have done to them to make a buck.
Leave it to a BT to miss the point entirely.
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