44 Comments

1. chuck:

George Kennan, who was the prime architect of the Marshall plan, discussed in his autobiography how it was put together. One of the key points was that the countries involved had to put together plans on their own. Another point was that the plan mobilized skills already present in Europe. I don’t think this is the case in Africa, and any plan that just throws money at the problem, or rather the governing elites, is not going to help. The Africans themselves have got to set up the plan, then perhaps we can add money.

Jun 3, 2005 - 5:33 am 2. HA:

From the article:

Chancellor Gordon Brown today backed Bob Geldof’s call for one million protesters to descend on Edinburgh to campaign against world poverty.

That’s a great idea! Let’s all unite and put an end to the socialist economic policies that are the root cause of world povety. The first step is to repudiate the zombie marxbot acedemics, politicians and anti-liberal media elements that support these socialist policies.

Let’s deliver a fatal blow to global poverty by supporting liberal, free-market economic reforms around the world! Are you with me?

…

[cue chirping crickets]

Jun 3, 2005 - 5:34 am 3. erp:

With you HA. People have accused me of being simplistic and laying all the world’s ills at the feet of socialism. Like it or not, it is the case.

Africans are not starving because of biblical style famines brought on by the wrath of god. Starvation in the midst of abundance is a political tool and a new Marshall Plan is a great idea. The old Marshall Plan saved western Europe from Communism and the new Marshall Plan can wrest African from socialism. The United States should stay out of it and let Europe “pass it on.”

“Pass it on” is a rule in our family. It means that good turns done to you by those whom you cannot repay directly are to be passed on to others less fortunate who will in their turn pass it on to others. Simple and works really great.

Jun 3, 2005 - 5:53 am 4. ed:

Hmmmm.

This new “Marshall” plan is nonsense. Utter tripe.

The reason why people are starving in Africa is because their political masters WANT them to be starving. Inter-tribal conflicts have been going on since the Europeans left the continent. Back then there were thousands of individual tribes. Each country would have hundreds of small tribes. Since then the number of tribes have dwindled as political, and military, power has been consolidated into the hands of a single dominant tribe. In the process the smaller tribes were either forcibly absorbed or killed.

Another aspect is the incredibly corruption. You could pump all the money in the world into Africa, but without transparency, accountability and a responsible govenment it’ll just leak out into corrupt pockets.

And people are thinking the United Nations is going to be capable of any of this?

Tripe.

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:02 am 5. richard mcenroe:

90% of Africa’s problems could be solved by hanging 90% of Africa’s leaders, starting with any that have ever attended a major European university, ever awarded themselves their own medals, or ever posed for a Reuters photo op with Jimmy Carter.

Of course, that would work for the Democratic Party, too…

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:14 am 6. Ron:

A Marshall plan for Africa sounds like a joke. There are to many Robert Mugabe’s there for any thing rational, Mr. Mugabe took his country from being the bread basket of Africa and an exporter of food to a county where 4 million people will be starving to death [on purpose] soon. There are to many murderous rats like Mugabe in Africa and socialist handouts aren’t going to take care of the problem. The worse thing that happened to Africa was the end of English Colonialism, at least they had peace from the Mugabe’s of the area, courts and the rule of law instead of machete like in Rwanda; now with a few exceptions the poor people have nothing to look forward to except slaughter. With the political correctness now in vogue in western countries, the clock can’t even be rolled back, not PC for what worked, sad.

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:18 am 7. David Thomson:

ìBut someone ought to do some serious thinking about why such things have not worked in the past.î

This is a very easy question to answer. The indigenous Africans are black and the politically correct white Liberals in the Western world refuse to take to task evil black leaders—especially if they enthusiastically spout socialist gibberish. ìWho are we to tell them what to do? After all, we are white oppressors who spread all the evil in the worldî is the attitude of the utopian Liberal establishment. Itís really as simple as that.

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:26 am 8. Morgan:

Are you folks implying that the Marshall Plan wouldn’t have worked if Hitler, his Vichy tools, and Mussolini had stayed in power, or if the Soviet Union had absorbed Europe post war?

I say nonsense. It could have worked with a few minor modifications. Just increase the amount of money! If we put so much money in the hands of dictators that they can’t think of anything else to do with it, they’ll wind up giving some of it back to their people. Plus, they’ll think we’re great!

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:30 am 9. c:

Richard Mc, what you say is sad but true and shame on you for making us laugh a little bit about it!

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:36 am 10. madawaskan:

Ed and Richard nailed it.

Don’t Brown and Geldorf know the term kleptocracy?

Thing smacks of another potential Oil for Food deal so therefore Kofi and the UN will be so for it they will volunteer to hire a bureacracy of people to run it.

And the inter-tribal rivalries break out like a bad rash from Zaire to Rwanda to North and Southern Sudan to Chad to Eritrea to Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and there are some other countries….oh Somalia-that isn’t a region of warlords……/sarc tag is needed?

Jun 3, 2005 - 6:44 am 11. madawaskan:

Well at least deputy Secretary of State Zoellick gets it. He goes into detail here on Sudan and also there is a transcript of a meeting held on the 27th of May with COMESA-

COMESA member states are Angola, Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/forpo727.html

Jun 3, 2005 - 7:00 am 12. Morgan:

It’s one thing to have a plan to get your country back on its feet if given an infusion of capital. It’s another to actually intend to follow the plan. Too many African governments can’t be trusted.

Rather than a Marshall plan for “Africa”, I’d like to see a concerted effort to pick only the best (free-est, most democratic, most capital-friendly) governments on the continent and work with them. Let everyone know why we’ve chosen to work with them. Let their success sow discontent among the masses elsewhere, and let change come where it will.

Aid should follow reform, and it should have strings attached. We should act, not as indulgent parent, but as business partner (not competitor, partner) to these governments, prodding them to build societies that are good for their people and good for ours.

Jun 3, 2005 - 7:10 am 13. David Thomson:

ìDon’t Brown and Geldorf know the term kleptocracy?î

You are dealing with a secondary problem—and essentially placing the cart before the horse. Very little can be accomplished in Africa if we are hesitant to say anything because of our white skins. The race card was used effectively decades ago. Whites are often afraid of being branded racists if they speak out against corrupt black leaders.

Jun 3, 2005 - 7:33 am 14. PeterUK:

If it is Gordon Brown’s idea,I have only one question.

Who pays?

Jun 3, 2005 - 7:53 am 15. Sandy P:

Via Instapundit on Zimbabwe:

http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=POTHOT.HTM

—-

W should say we’ll pony up a little bit after they take care of Bob and his merry band of thugs and get things in order.

Jun 3, 2005 - 8:16 am 16. Rick Ballard:

Peter,

Uncle Sugar and Japan will be handed the bill. That’s just the way it works. The EUnuchs wills shout millions, provide dimes and insist that the UN is the only org capable of management.

Everyone in the press will ignore the fact that missionary societies (such as AIM – African Inland Missions) have done more practical work at the level nearest the need than all the NGOs together in their vast and profligate history.

I don’t give a damn how “transparent” the thievery is made because there will be no penalty attached to it. If any attempt to actually punish the rapists and murderers of Africa is actually attempted, we can all rest assured that AI and similiar tranzi NGO bootlickers of tyranny will be screaming for “just and equitable” treatment before the “court of world opinion”.

Watch the howling as Saddam is put in the dock and then justifiably hanged for a taste of how the tranzi One Worlders would behave if a thug like Mugabe was brought to account.

No thanks, I’ll send my dough to AIM without government filters.

Jun 3, 2005 - 8:25 am 17. BurbankErnie:

I say we apply Hugh Hewitt’s plan for the RNC…

Not one dime.

Pajama Media can have a contest for a logo, and a website.

Heh.

Indeed.

Jun 3, 2005 - 9:08 am 18. ricpic:

Remember benign neglect?

Jun 3, 2005 - 9:10 am 19. Sandy P:

OT, via Econopundit:

“Okay, I want you to invade, and then get them out in secret. That’s right. Secretly. Understand?”

Do those with expertise in international politics have a handle on what this new story means?

Is UNMOVIC dickering for continued funding by making peace with the US — by starting to lay a case (based for starters on its current satellite evidence) that WMDs were in place in Iraq prior to the invasion, but were somehow removed?

Or is UNMOVIC crazily initiating a claim the US for some unknown reason secretly removed the very weapons it launched a war to find?

UPDATE: Yes, I know, there’s a third possibility — “Bush the chimp sent in so few troops the clever Iraqis were able to dismantle the WMDs and get rid of them after the invasion.” I doubt anyone will argue this too strongly because it suggests the WMD intelligence wasn’t so flawed after all.

Jun 3, 2005 - 9:23 am 20. PeterUK:

Rick,

I haven’t checked but I’m sure the stock of SUV and blue paint manufacturers went up when this was announced.

Jun 3, 2005 - 9:42 am 21. Dale Gribble:

How else would Geldork get on TV?

Jun 3, 2005 - 9:48 am 22. WichitaBoy:

This is such a classic example of the hypocrisy and counterproductivity of the usual do-gooders that it bears comment.

If the Europeans were serious about alleviating poverty in Africa, they would immediately lift all trade sanctions against African products, in particular the egregious Common Agricultural Policy which still consumes almost half the EU budget. The purpose of this policy is to maintain the French farmers in the style to which they have become accustomed, consumers be damned.

The Europeans are not serious about poverty. They want power and prestige, the power and prestige that comes from handing down money to the poor downtrodden from on high. This way, instead of allowing the Africans to earn their own money, they are kept in the dependent submissive position of the beggar.

So is it ever with the socialist state and its ultra-wealthy advocates. (Have you ever known a committed Communist who wasn’t filthy rich?) Old money (think John Kerry) takes money from the up-and-comers at gunpoint and hands it out to the dependent classes, leaving themselves in the catbird’s seat in control of the filthy lucre. If the parvenus are precluded from ascending, well, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. This is why Kerry and Hillary want to raise income taxes rather than wealth taxes.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:08 am 23. thibaud:

The biggest cause of poverty around the world, by far, is brutal, kleptocratic, economically incompetent governments.

I’m not even talking about famine-mongering Mugabe; look at the one subsaharan government that everyone around the world had nothing but high hopes for: post-apartheid South Africa. Ten years after Mandela and his people finally triumphed over apartheid, how is South Africa doing? A quick tour d’horizon:

– 25% of the population has AIDS

– 50% of the black population (~40% of the population overall) is unemployed

– about one-third of adult South African women have been raped

– Johannesburg is the most violent peacetime city on the planet

What explains this? A massive falloff in western aid since 1995? Don’t think so: SA was under sanctions up to 1995. The ruinous legacy of massive debts accumulated by the apartheid regime? Nope. Western cruelty and warmongering? In fact, the world has showered South African with assistance.

Africa’s problems have multiple causes, but every one of those causes implicates the African regimes. Time for regime change, not debt forgiveness.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:17 am 24. Kyda Sylvester:

[Brown] added: “Once the concert has been held, we have got all the world leaders coming to Gleneagles and we want the British people to play their part in persuading them that this is the time, this is the opportunity to take action to deal with the problems of world poverty.”

Mr. Brown, you and your cronies don’t have a clue about what’s required to deal with the problems of world poverty. (Hint: your so-called Marshall Plan ain’t it.)

This is one area in which I am a tried and true cynic. Mid 20th century when Europe could no longer afford its African colonies, it “liberated” them leaving behind a populace kept illiterate and ignorant by design; a corrupt, incompetent indiginous political structure; cities lacking sewage systems and other vital infrastructure; entire countries without potable water–I mean, talk about your rape of the land and exploitation of the natives.

This is harsh, but, if tomorrow we woke up to find that overnight the entire African continent had been swallowed whole by its oceans, we of course would be horrified by the massive loss of life and certainly would mourn the exotic flora and fauna and antiquities forever lost. But soon enough, life would resume as usual (well, I suppose the price of diamonds would go up) because in truth Africa brings nothing to the table but a giant headache.

Nothing annoys a pragmatist quite as much as throwing good money after bad. Our progressive do-gooders remain true to form in their belief that any problem can be solved eventually if only enough money is thrown at it. We know full well which steps can lead to prosperity and which unequivocally will not. I await with trepidation to hear how much American taxpayers will be required to pony up for this latest Save Africa project lest we be labeled “stingy”. Humbug.

On a final snarky note, did you see the lineup for Live 8? Some fine musicians to be sure but no doubt there are many post-boomers scratching their heads asking “Who?”.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:19 am 25. Tim Worstall:

May I as a European stand up for a moment for my fellows? Geldof/Bono/Oxfam the whole shooting match that is Make Poverty History.org have, finally, got the message that trade is the answer. They have three major demands.

1) Cancel the old debts made to the old dictators.

2) Abolish the stupidities of the EU (and US) farm supports and barriers to poor country exports. Most important, abolish the export subsidies that undercut the African farmers. Yes, they are campaigning for the end of the CAP and things like the US sugar tariffs.

3) More aid and more transparency in its donation, with no linkage to donor country products and so on. Yes, the EU countries have just signed up to donating 0.7 % of their GDP in this type of aid.

All thatís good stuff.

However, they also campaign for a fourth item, that the poor countries should not be forced into privatisations, liberalisations or any other particular economic path, nor should they be forced to dismantle their own tariffs against imports.

That last one is the stupidity and something Iíve been writing about in various venues, not just my blog. It is sufficiently stupid that it will over ride whatever good effects there might be from the first three. A real crying shame, that theyíve got everyone wound up and ready to listen, to do something, and they advocate soemthing so disastrously stupid.

Depressing really.

Roger, whenís Pajama going to be up and running? Rather want to provide rants on this subject.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:29 am 26. thibaud:

Tim,

Sounds good, but the Geldof et al’s ideological bedfellows – Jose Bove and his ilk – are the barrier to any realistic hope of scrapping or even slightly diminishing the CAP in our lifetime. This movementmakes as much sense as a coalition of Clean Air activists and the UAW and the United Mine Workers.

Geldof needs to be picketing the Socialist and Communist parties of continental Europe, not the centrists who make up the G8 leadership.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:38 am 27. PeterUK:

Cancelling debts to “old dictators” will not ensure the future for Africa.If debt can be written off by a political directive nobody will lend,the various countries credit rating will fall,there will be no money for investment that is vital to development,

export credits will be impossible to obtain.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:47 am 28. PeterUK:

The problem of third world imports into the EU which goes beyond subsidies such as CAP.There is a huge raft of Health and Safety,working hour,Foods Standards regulations imposed on European producers which make them uncompetitive in the open market.Third world products do not have these regulations,the EU is well aware that it cannot allow their highly regulated producers to compete without loosening regulations.This is political dynamite since the Unions and other vested interests,especially the Eurocrats will not allow it.

CAP is also a way of keeping the French peasantry quiet,just as they think nothing of burning alive a lorry load of imported sheep so they will think nothing of putting someones head on a pike.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:58 am 29. Ralph:

I think that everyone making the point of the need to reform the governments in Africa is absolutely correct.

Recently I saw a report of the amount “capital flight” from Africa over the past 30 years or so, and the amount ($148 BILLION, if my memory is correct) was very striking.

While the amount I remember may be incorrect, the important point was that it represented a very significant amount of the total amount of aid spent in Africa in that period of time. Until that problem is corrected, aid programs will be ineffective.

I’ve come to increasingly believe that much of the “international humanitarian aid” effort is just a great scam to transfer money from the taxpayers of the West (and Japan) to the “elites” of the world. Think how much of Switzerland’s banking industry is based on money stolen from poor countries, and ultimately, from the taxpayers of the aid supplying nations. As long as governments keep proposing “more of the same,” rather than any fundamental change in direction, I’ll continue to believe that.

All of the money spent in Africa since the end of WWII has produced very little, if any, REAL gain for the people. That proves to me that there is a fundamental flaw in the approach, and there’s no point if sending more good money after bad. The government structures must be changed before aid will be of any benefit.

It’s time for the West to get over any lingering feelings of “colonial guilt.” (and there’s no reason for the United States to have ever had any of it for Africa.) Africa’s problems are indigenous, and just handing money to corrupt regimes will not make things better.

The “do-gooders” of the West forced out the white government of Rhodesia, and thereby directly enabled the present tragedy in Zimbabwe to develop. The lot of black Africans in Zimbabwe has gotten significantly worse since the “White racists” were forced from power.

Poverty can be whipped in the world, but it’s time to rethink our approach.

Jun 3, 2005 - 11:13 am 30. Morgan:

The problem with making loans to unstable nations is that the risk is not in line with “acceptable” interest rates. The problem with donor aid is that it is utterly unconnected to any risks or benefits at all.

What is needed is a relationship along the lines of that of a venture capitalist to a biotech startup – high risk, high reward, and on negotiated terms.

Looked at that way, investment clearly should flow to those nations with the best prospects for increasing in wealth and prosperity – principally the well-governed. This would also provide an incentive to become well-governed.

The flip-side is that there should be commensurate payback. The payback of feeling that you’ve done something to help is too diffuse to target money where it can do the most good. Let the market work, and prosperity will find its way wherever it is allowed to do so.

Jun 3, 2005 - 11:19 am 31. Kyda Sylvester:

WRT foreign aid, Milton Friedman is my guru. Milton and I don’t approve, especially when it’s delivered into the hands of corrupt, greedy despots.

US farm subsidies and CAP will be with us for a long time to come. A strategy that ignores this sad fact or would have it otherwise is self-defeating.

How many cycles of debt and forgiveness have we already gone through in Africa?

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. Douglas Casey

Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams

The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another. Milton Friedman

To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything. Friedrich Hayek

The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. Friedrich Hayek

A panhandler is far more moral than corporate welfare queens….The panhandler doesn’t enlist anyone to force you to give him money. He’s coming up to you and saying, “Will you help me out?” The farmers, when they want subsidies, they’re not asking for a voluntary transaction. They go to a congressman and say, “Could you take his money and give it to us?” That’s immoral. Walter Williams

We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success — only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development. Ronald Reagan

I spent and a half years examining the American political process. All that time I was looking for a straightforward issue. But everything I investigated–election campaigns, the budget, lawmaking, the court system, bureaucracy, social policy–turned out to be more complicated than I had thought. There were always angles I hadn’t considered, aspects I hadn’t weighed, complexities I’d never dreamed of. Until I got to agriculture. Here at last is a simple problem with a simple solution. Drag the omnibus farm bill behind the barn and kill it with an ax. PJ O’Rourke

Jun 3, 2005 - 11:41 am 32. Dale Gribble:

It all comes down to property rights. If you build anything productive in Africa, it will be stolen, then driven into the ground by the corruption and stupidity of the new owners.

Jun 3, 2005 - 12:31 pm 33. Terrye:

I farmed for years and they did not call the farm bill the farmer security act, they called it the food security act.

I rarely even made minimum wage for the years I worked on that farm. I missed funerals and I even had to do a milking alone with a broken finger once. It was not fun.

Now I am not saying that I think Chevron should be getting tax payers dollars or anything but the point to the tariffs etc are to see to it that there is never a shortage of food and to maintain domestic production so that food production does not go the way of domestic energy production. I think it has been done unfairly and inefficiently, but it has a purpose beyond pandering to farmers who do produce something.

So while I think reforms in farm subsidies need to happen people need to realize that these people in other parts of the world do not have the same environmental standards or health standards that we do. I paid more in property taxes in one year than most Africans will make in a life time.

They do not need welfare, they need the same thing South Americans need. Honest government. And there needs to be more understanding on the part of average people that if and when some of these reforms are made, the consumer might have to pay higher prices or risk buying something that was produced in a way not acceptabele in the west. Like when Mexico shipped in strawberries that had been fertilized with human excrement.

Jun 3, 2005 - 1:35 pm 34. simone_r:

The Marshall Plan worked because Ludwig Erhard introduced a new currency (the Deutschmark) and literally overnight abolished wage and price controls. Link…

It seems to me that the same prerequisite is needed for Africa, plus protection of the people from their thieving elites (which Germans also had).

Jun 3, 2005 - 1:37 pm 35. simone_r:

Correction:

which WEST Germans also had (not the East Germans, alas for them)

Jun 3, 2005 - 1:44 pm 36. someone:

A new Marshall Plan! Great idea. Let’s flatten Africa, overthrow all their governments, and station a huge amount of troops there over decades to make sure they don’t screw up again. Seriously.

In reality, of course, Africans need not just honest government but the expectation of honest government. The former depends more or less entirely on the latter… And I don’t know how they’ll pick it up without a strong long-term American or British presence on the continent (not likely).

Jun 3, 2005 - 2:50 pm 37. chuck:

Tim,

I am coming more and more to Terrye’s side on farm supports. Food is too important to be left to the vagaries of world politics and weather. I want to keep sufficient food production in country to feed everyone. I don’t think food supports are the cause of African poverty, abolishing them is just the latest fad cure. Corruption, bad government, lack of education and opportunity, culture, tribalism, a tough environment, and the European cantagion of socialism have all combined to set the continent back. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China — all manage to trade with us without relying on food exports. I think the whole issue is a red herring.

Jun 3, 2005 - 10:19 pm 38. HA:

PeterUK,

Cancelling debts to “old dictators” will not ensure the future for Africa.If debt can be written off by a political directive nobody will lend,the various countries credit rating will fall,there will be no money for investment that is vital to development, export credits will be impossible to obtain.

Cancelling debts is the one issue in which I’m in agreement with the zombie marxbot wackos. Of course this won’t solve Africa’s problems. But it is the necessary first step because it will ensure that loans are made for economic reasons rather than political reasons.

First world government backed loans to third world kleptocrats has to be the most idiotic policy ever invented. First of all, nothing of any economic value ever gets created. Second, the first world banks don’t face the true risk of their loans. The risk/return ratio is completely out of balance. And when the kleptocrat regimes default, it is the ordinary taxpayer who picks up the tab. These policies become a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to first world money center bankers and third world kleptocrats. The policies are insane.

Furthermore, it is grossly immoral to hold the populations of undeveloped countries accountable for stupid loans made to unelected regimes. I don’t think ordinary Iraqis should pay Saddam’s debts. I don’t think Zimbabweans should pay for Mugabe’s debts. Will this affect their ability to get export credits? Of course, but they shouldn’t have been given them in the first place.

Capital will continue to be raised for nations that provide a legal and economic environment where lenders can realize an appropriate return on investment. This means that productive economic assets will be created from the capital, rather than having it diverted to Swiss bank accounts.

Jun 4, 2005 - 4:23 am 39. PeterUK:

HA,

The problem is that the debt will not be cancelled but paid by those governments that guaranteed the loans,ultimately it will be paid by the taxpayer.The Bankers still win.Gordon Brown is already at a point where he will have to raise taxes,his raid on pensions has driven pensions into crisis.Somebodies up is somebody elses down,Brown and Geldorff will not be affected.

Jun 4, 2005 - 7:15 am 40. HA:

PeterUK,

That’s true. But maybe we’ll have to learn the hard way not to make these kinds of government loan guarantees in the first place.

The bottom line is that giving first-world government backed loans to third world totalitarian kleptocrats and then holding the populations responsible for loan repayments is not just immoral, its bad policy.

“It is worse than immoral, it’s a mistake.” – Dean Acheson

Jun 4, 2005 - 11:06 am 41. c:

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe, that sits on the UNHRC.

Jun 4, 2005 - 2:55 pm 42. PeterUK:

HA,

But they are then holding our populations responsible for the debt.We are also setting the precedent that loans to countries which have rulers that embezzle the money have no responsibility to repay the debt.This is then undermining the concept of a nation state that whatever the government does the people are not responsible.This would seem to be the old idea of going bankrupt and setting up government in the wifes name.

Jun 4, 2005 - 5:58 pm 43. HA:

PeterUK,

So be it. This is how we will learn to stop making these loans. People fortunate enough to be living in nations that have elected governments are responsible for the actions of their government. For good or ill. People living in “nations” that have undemocratic, illegitimate regimes are not.

If my government makes lousy decisions about what to do with my money, I have right to cast my vote against the politicians that make these decisions. I have the liberty to attempt to persuade my fellow citizens to vote in a similar manner. Folks in hellholes like Zimbabwe don’t. These places are not legitimate nation-states to begin with.

Western governments and institutions shouldn’t be making loan guarantees. We should be preaching that the solution to third world poverty isn’t charity. It is the protection of private property rights, free markets economics, the rule of law, limited government and individual liberty and personal responsibility. These are the solutions to poverty.

Instead, our governments and institutions preach socialism and give government backed loan guarantees. We legitimize the falsehood that governments can create wealth. They can’t. All government can accomplish is to secure a system in which private parties can create wealth.

And with Tony Blair throwing in the towel on Europe in favor of focusing on African poverty, you should get a good tight grip on your wallet:

“Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=0COXJNZA4GEQ5QFIQMGCM5WAVCBQUJVC?xml=/news/2005/06/05/neu05.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/06/05/ixportaltop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=22123

Jun 5, 2005 - 4:04 am 44. tioedong:

You want to help Africa? Give to your local church, or a good NGO like Oxfam…if you send “government aid”, it will end up in politician bank accounts in Europe…

Right now I’m sending money to friends in Zimbabwe…I figure they’ll get half of what I send, but it will keep them alive and pay school fees for the kids…

Alas, my friends can only hint on what is going on there, because they are worried their letters will be read (one of my friends had her brother hiding out with her in a rural area: he was a pro democracy advocate…).

I can’t do much to help, but have started a blog on that poor country, pasting stuff from google:

http://makaipa.blospot.com

Jun 5, 2005 - 3:07 pm

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