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Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:19 am
by richards1000
I wish that the world was all right and that The USA WANTS to help other nations develop. But all the evidence AND facts point to the contrary.
I disagree. Here is the US AID Website describing the full range of the U.S.'s programs promoting development in other nations: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/ . The activities cover agriculture, democracy & governance, economic growth, the environment, education, health, global partnerships, and humanitarian assistance. In addition, because the U.S. believes that free trade helps countries to develop, the U.S. belongs to and supports the WTO, and has entered into many bilateral and regional trade agreements with developing countries; here is information on them: http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Section_Index.html . I believe that these programs and trade agreements constitute abundant evidence of the U.S.'s desire to help other nations develop.

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:52 am
by Robert Tulip
The idea that the USA is a blockage to prosperity is misconceived. The Constitution works. George Bush was seen by some as undemocratic, and this is a big reason why Obama won so handsomely. The institutions of the US, notably rule of law, have delivered unmatched prosperity through protection of property rights and economic freedom. The question now is whether Obama has the desire, the will and the ability to confront America's corruption, extending from Wall Street to Madison Avenue to the media and the Pentagon.

As I said in the USA and the Middle East thread, I think the size of the US military is much too big, and the country and the world would be much better off if Obama planned steady reductions in the size of the military. Obama probably sees the vested interests supporting the military industrial complex as too powerful - he has to choose his battles carefully and will have his hands full dealing with Wall Street. If he took the military on, let alone taking on the incestuous relationship with Israel, the media would whip into such a frenzy that the persecution of Bill Clinton over Whitewater and Lewinsky would look like a storm in a teacup.

The US is the world's biggest aid donor, but because the US economy is so big its aid is the smallest as percentage of GDP. Only one penny in every hundred dollars earnt in the US goes on foreign aid. Around one third of total US aid goes to Israel, which all the other OECD countries think should not be counted as aid for the poor.

Years ago I thought the same way as Grim and Bobby. Then I took time to actually read some material from the World Bank, and found the real issue is that the left wing critics have no positive solutions. The likes of Susan George are very good at frothing about how terrible the world is. They have some good reform ideas, and provide useful information that the media tries to censor from the public, but by and large their rhetoric about the evils of capitalism is empty. Hollow vessels make the most noise.

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 2:42 pm
by Grim
richards1000 wrote:I believe that the dozens of scholarly works cited in the World Bank report do not simply "repeat[] the ideals of the present." Rather, they represent the results of research, much of it empirically based, on various aspects of economic development. Would you please explain the assertion that these dozens of scholarly works do not express "any intelligent development of thought"?
SIIIIGGGGHHHH. Some things just seem too obvious. Fools and the foolish would seemingly have many intelligent things to say, should they realize that they speak to a mirror when they presume to talk among themselves having no foresight or perspective, they still would prove again and again stubbornly incapable of even small yet significant progressive steps to a better order.

http://foolocracy.com/2008/12/bailout-h ... 000000000/



This is very basic information here I can't believe that it would have to be proven to anyone. Did you even read Bad Money?

:book:

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:46 pm
by Robert Tulip
Grim, I read the summary of Ron Paul's youtube (copied below). He makes the point that poor countries need to clean up corruption. He also seems to imply that they should be banned from borrowing money, meaning they should be expelled from the world financial system, to become benighted autarkies like North Korea. This is a dangerous prescription.

Past lending policies have been based on trust, sadly misplaced, that poor country governments were concerned about development. The fear is not about 'openly cancelling failed loans'. It is rather that simplistic theories of debt forgiveness reward governments who have stolen money, punish countries who repay their debts and create major moral hazard regarding the obligation to repay future debts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mcSgzhODWc
'Ron Paul comments on World Bank and Poverty.

"Forgive and Forget" Won't Fix Third World Debt

When the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings open in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2001, officials will point proudly to the roughly $20 billion in debt that they have promised to cancel since their heavily-protested meetings last year. These promises take a step in the right direction, concludes a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based research organization. But even full cancellation would only be a Band-Aid for a broken system.

"Before officials congratulate themselves they need to pay attention to a wider problem-how to prevent this debt crisis from happening again," said David Malin Roodman, author of Still Waiting for the Jubilee: Pragmatic Solutions for the Third World Debt Crisis. "Hundreds of billions of dollars in unpayable loans still need to be written off. And creditors have done little to change the lending practices that created the debt problem in the first place."

"For example, initiatives to cut debt in Tanzania from $5.7 billion to about $1.8 billion are welcome, but unless things change, the country will probably borrow enough to lift its debt back to $6 billion by 2018. It's not enough to clean up past mistakes. We also need to learn from them. 'Forgive and forget' is a recipe for more debt troubles."

Roodman calls for major reforms to prevent poorer countries from sinking back into debt. On the borrower side, these include making governments less corrupt and more accountable. On the creditor side, the reforms include:?

"Unfortunately, many official lenders seem trapped in a fortress mentality, so fearful of admitting their mistakes by openly canceling failed loans that they are prolonging the debt crisis," said Roodman. "In a sort of money merry-go-round, rich governments, the IMF, the World Bank, and other official lenders are granting poor countries new loans to repay old ones. For every dollar they lend to low-income nations they get 83 cents right back in principal and interest payments. This makes bad loans look good and hides the full extent of failure."

Through the enhanced Debt Initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC initiative), announced at the 1999 G-7 summit in Cologne, official creditors took a step toward ending the debt crisis in 41 of the poorest nations, offering to cancel far more debt than they had before.'

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:30 am
by Robert Tulip
This article by William Easterly explains why liberal economic policy is so important in response to the global financial crisis.

Look at the PAST

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 1:30 am
by bobby408
Hi RIchard, Grim, and Robert,

In response to Robert, I just want to say, read a book called "The Global Class War" by Jeff Faux. It is truly outstanding. You are right that the United States is a democratic country and it provides some check on the government and other large interests. However, we live in a new world now. American businesses that were once confined to national and local markets are now global. Also, so many american businesses are now, instead of importing raw materials and manufacturing here, outsourcing factories to other nations and not only directly get the raw materials much cheaper, but get infinitely cheaper labor. All this without any laws imposed on them BECAUSE OF THE WTO AND NAFTA. Remember when Bill Clinton took SOOOO much heat from environmentalists and labor unions for not providing ANY LAWS OR REGULATIONS on environment standars AND Labor standards and union rights (today in Mexico, if an employee even whispers about organizing a union, they will be left beaten or dead). NAFTA still is the same way its been. So what were once businesses that had to provide healthcare, give union rights, set up labor and quality standards, and confined by environmental laws, are so called "free" from these high costs through the flood of abundant "free markets" like Mexico and China. The WTO is set up the same exact way as NAFTA with no laws and regulations so these buseinsses now elude democracy at home and evade the law. In Faux's book, not only does he argue the aforementioned, but he also says that this same business elite merges in class and interests with government officials and the preference of business by government is bi-partisan. Goerge Bush, Dick Cheaney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton, all owned or were CEO's of extremely large corporations. This point is also beautifully made in C.W. Mills' book "The Power Elite." So, my final point being Robert, is that no matter the party, big business has bought out one and the other. Just look at Obama's campaign contributions. He broke ridiculous records with the amount that he came up with. Also, the media, which is usually a reflection of business interests since such a high market-share of media companies is owned by other corporations, clearly is behind Obama. Anyways I don't want to ramble too much. Thanks for sharing and for listening to my points.

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 1:30 am
by bobby408
In response to RIchards stats on us-aid.gov, your website only proves my point that the U.S. has never truly helped anyone. Of course the U.S. has an aid program. They are the richest country on Earth (maybe among the richest). But look at the proportion of U.S. aid to its total GDP. It is among the lowest compared to other developed nations and organizations! Moreover, about the foreign assistance program, JFK was fighting a cold war with the Soviet Union. Of course the U.S. is going to try and win over allies in hopes of isolating the Soviet Union. So it was absolutely in America's interests to make this program. How come there wasn't a foreign assistance program before the cold war???? Also, it is known by the International community that America is among the stingiest giver AND that they usually offer aid as a diplomatic tool to work in their interests. Moreover, the top recipient of U.S. aid is a high-rated global power! Which is Israel. Moreover, how could you even give credit to the WTO for helping the world?? When has the mission of the WTO EVER been to help the peoples of other countries??? WTO is just a globalized version of NAFTA. Look at Mexico today. It has 50% unemployment. It has record crime. It has a record number of citizens leaving. If it wasn't for the great influx of money from Mexicans abroad, the country wouldv'e gone through a revolution by now. This is America's neighbor for god's sake. Instead of helping Mexico to develop, our nation is only exploiting it for its cheap labor and resources. Once nationalized businesses before NAFTA were taken by American businesses after NAFTA. These ex-nationalized businesses were a source of revenue for the Mexican government to help develop its country and help its people. Now the profits of these once public businesses are going to american business owners, not the mexican people. Anyways, I don't want to stray too far off the subject. I am just surprised that you seem not to even have read "Limits of American Power" or "Bad Money." Also, here is a website about the stingy, self-interested behavior of the U.S. with respect to foreign aid: www.vexen.co.uk/USA/foreign_aid.html

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 1:55 am
by bobby408
Robert Tulip wrote:The institutions of the US, notably rule of law, have delivered unmatched prosperity through protection of property rights and economic freedom. The question now is whether Obama has the desire, the will and the ability to confront America's corruption, extending from Wall Street to Madison Avenue to the media and the Pentagon.
I don't know about you guys but this seems like a contradiction. The U.S. institutions have brung prosperity but also unmatched and ubiquitous corruption?? No my bad, there is no contradiction when the unmatched prosperity you are talking about is prosperity about the already rich (who are responsible for the corruption along with government burueacrats). You are WRONG that economic freedom and property rights freedom has brung prosperity to the middle class and poor, if thats what you meant. It has not. Do you remember that we are in the middle of a global and economic crisis and an unprecedented domestic economic crisis???? The current system is Lasisez-faire economics, which you seem to advocate by your advocating "protection of property rights and economic freedom." Moreover, we had a laissez-fair economy from our birth all away until when??? You guessed it , the Great Depression. Right before the Great Depression, the disparity between rich and poor was the greatest ever in the history of our young nation. Then the collapse came and there was a swing of wealth from the rich to the middle class and poor via FDR's quasi-socialist policies, Keynesian economics, and basically, a complete 180 from laissez-faire. This contributed to the middle-class wealth boom in the 50's and 60's that brought the baby-boomers to life (because their parents felt economically secure to have lots of kids). Then doom came upon this nation once again. Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Jr. along with the rich fought back by bringing back laissezz-faire through the justification of Friedman economics AND a little scare during the 70's recession mainly caused by an OPEC oil crisis, not the failure of Keynesian economics. So here we are, implementing the same policies that caused the Great Depression. Please Richard, tell me what the difference between today's non-governmental intervention in economy ("free market" and deregulation) and pre-Great Depression non-governmental intervention and deregulation???? It is the same thing. But, unfortunately, because the "free market" (The most misleading title in the history of man!) is, and was, for the interests of the rich "power elite," they will not change this system to the rest of the majority's chagrin. And, as I said in my previous thread, because these same power elite now can evade accountability and the law at home by moving overseas to WTO and NAFTA "free markets," there is NOT going to be an FDR to save us. There is not going to be a "check" on these interests. Only a global institution or government can eliminate this problem. Since this does not seem close to happening god help us.....

Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 3:00 am
by bobby408
Grim,

I am glad to know that at least one member is not just learning from his readings, but not letting his biases get in the way of the truth. You are a passionate and original searcher of truth and you have gained valuable prudence and knowledge through this truth-searching. I am glad to know that I am not the only one in this particular thread that has to defend the obvious and massive amount of facts pointing for our arguments....

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 11:12 pm
by Grim


Fuck being right.



:book: