Making the news today....

[matelot]

7 minutes ago, MattyF said:

I’m not saying that but it was hardly a stable start when other countries where growing ...I’m saying it’s being exploited now by the arms trade and for its natural resources with no concern for the population, creating civil war is an ideal smoke screen for illegal business which a lot of is conducted by the British.

Let's look at some twentieth century history:

 

1. Japan nuked by Americans.

2. East Europe throws of communist rule.

3. Vietnam has vicious civil war.

4. Korea has civil war.

5. Japan nuked second time by Americans.

6. Germany destroyed in WW2.

 

All these countries have had a bad time but are now doing OK. Yet you come out with some unbelievable racist comments that Africans can't build succesful countries because 200 years ago they had slavery. You're now saying that Africans can't help killing each other if Western powers sell them arms? Do you know how racist you sound?

 

Shame on you! 

[MattyF]

Can you read ?

[Mesterh]

24 minutes ago, matelot said:

Let's look at some twentieth century history:

 

1. Japan nuked by Americans.

2. East Europe throws of communist rule.

3. Vietnam has vicious civil war.

4. Korea has civil war.

5. Japan nuked second time by Americans.

6. Germany destroyed in WW2.

 

All these countries have had a bad time but are now doing OK. Yet you come out with some unbelievable racist comments that Africans can't build succesful countries because 200 years ago they had slavery. You're now saying that Africans can't help killing each other if Western powers sell them arms? Do you know how racist you sound?

 

Shame on you! 

 

Brilliant, I can see the direct link from the state of Africa 200 years ago to the economy of Japan in 1945. 

 

 

[matelot]

6 hours ago, Mesterh said:

 

Brilliant, I can see the direct link from the state of Africa 200 years ago to the economy of Japan in 1945. 

 

 

Someone was saying that Africa was a mess because of slavery by the white man 200 years ago. I was just making the point that other countries have had a rough ride as well and are doing OK.....

 

Anyway, this meme is for you and your BBC brainwashed chums.

 

 

[MattyF]

Wow That’s saved the day matelot! You refused continually to acknowledge why I said it was a mess today and jump on the 200 year old slavery thing so who can’t handle the truth..maybe given who you are and your position it would not surprise me if who you worked for had invested interest in that current exploitation anyway.

[the village idiot]

8 hours ago, scotspine1 said:

Dambisa Moyo the Zambian economist wrote a book about that subject a few years ago. 

 

 

 

Interesting video. 

 

I haven't read her book, but there is a large amount of high profile criticism from people that have.

 

In the video, Moya and the interviewer express their disbelief that we have donated over a trillion dollars to Africa over the past 60 years of the aid program and the continent is still not lifted out of poverty.

 

If you break this down it becomes radically less surprising. It sounds like a lot of money but actually equates to around £28 per recipient per year. In a year we give a desperate person the amount of money most of us expect to earn in a couple of hours and we are surprised their lives are not turned around? Also, this is assuming that all the aid gets through to the intended subjects. We all know that this isn't the case.

 

Moya also argues that not only has aid not been of benefit, it has actually been detrimental to Africa, making things worse. Lets look at a few facts.

 

Since the inception of the aid program:

 

Life expectancy has risen from 36.7 years to 56 years, an increase of almost 50%

 

Annual deaths from preventable diseases have declined from 5 million in 1960 to 1.4 million in 2001

 

Annual malaria deaths have declined from 3.8 million to 0.7 million

 

Annual diarrhoeal deaths have declined from 4.6 to 1.6 million

 

Despite the amount of money donated being relatively tiny there have been extremely positive effects. Moya makes very little distinction between good aid and bad aid. She wants to see the aid tap turned off completely in 5 years time. This would result in the suffering and death of millions of children. This is unthinkable when there are other options on the table.

 

I think it also relevant to point out that Moya is not a poverty striken mother with no access to clean water, she is an investment banker. She works for Goldman-Sachs for goodness sake! Her solution to improving the lives of Africans in the long term is to stop aid programs and forge ever greater links with China who are investing huge sums of money in Africa to remove as much natural resource as possible for the benefit of China.

  This is providing some Africans with jobs that they wouldn't have ordinarily, but I don't think you have to look too far into the future to see huge potential problems with this model.

 

Moya thinks like a profit driven investment banker. I personally view this as a real and dangerous problem.

 

People like Matelot believe that all we should be doing to help is put in place measures that reduce the number of Africans that are born. This quite clearly needs to part of the solution, but to limit our aid to solely this is not only morally disgusting but also no answer in isolation.

 

Like pretty much everything in this world, it is a very complex problem. Matelot will be shocked to hear that it takes people cleverer than him to put forward workable strategies.

 

We are getting much better at targetting aid in ways that really work. Aid is crucial but it needs to go on the right things. Some aid organisations are literally 1000's of times more effective than others, and some are downright disastrous. The key is knowing the difference and giving to charities that are using the money most effectively.

 

https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/

 

https://samharris.org/podcasts/being-good-and-doing-good/

 

 

 

[Khriss]

It is often small charities / research posts and mini tourism enterprises that push the biggest benefit - though large organisations like UNRWA or USAID are also required for disaster / famine relief , K

[scotspine1]

48 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

I haven't read her book but there is a large amount of high profile criticism from people that have.

 

You haven't read her book so you're displaying a lack of openness to evidence. You're copy/pasting second hand criticism of her. Then posting links by your atheist guru Sam Harris.

 

Well done. 

 

[Haironyourchest]

Another massive hurdle to overcome in S.S Africa is the age demographic. Check this out 

 

https://www.populationpyramid.net/sub-saharan-africa/2017/

 

The whole place is basically little kids, teens and young people.

[difflock]

What if I were extremely insensitive and said,

that the root of the problem lies in 1st world aid keeping all those babies, infants and children alive, but not providing a future for them, or their parents, or their counteries.

And then keeping the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th generation of resultant babies alive, born from each artifically kept alive previous generation.

So, is it really something to take pride in, this perpetual do-gooder meddling?

just a thought

mth

Edit

Re Aid packages, someone, probably a bored Eurocrat, counted up all the millions, from all sources, that were pumped into a particular Italian region, after a severe earthquake in the 1980's, which region was still not rebuilt 20-25 years later, it amounted to (for the sake of a figure) about 100,000 Euro per head of population.

So across a family of 4 = 400,000 Euro, the inhabitants of this area should have been living in Palaces and driving MB/BMW's

But they were not.

So?

Where did the money go?

Ditto for Sir Bob winning the slander/libel case which was based on someone stating the absolute truth, that some proportion of Sir Bob's Band Aid money HAD to be syphoned off by warlords.

Not so, apparently.

Scheesh.

 

Edited February 14, 2018 by difflock