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"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"
Spiegel Online ^ | July 04, 2005 | Thilo Thielke

Posted on 06/11/2007 8:03:06 AM PDT by thegreatbeast

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem. SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: africa; dependency; foreignaid; jamesshikwati; kenya
This is two years old but didn't show up in a search for the title.
Powerful stuff.
1 posted on 06/11/2007 8:03:09 AM PDT by thegreatbeast
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To: thegreatbeast

There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany — for three times the price. That’s insanity ...


Reminds me of the quote: “Why do you hate me, I never tried to help you.”


2 posted on 06/11/2007 8:11:33 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple ( Seeking the truth here folks.)
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To: PeterPrinciple
After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany — for three times the price. That’s insanity ...

Ah, the beauty of capitalism..... *smirk*

3 posted on 06/11/2007 8:15:55 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Run Fred RUN!)
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To: thegreatbeast
the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem

ooh, dangerous. Remember in the new liberal world order, gay trumps black/African.

4 posted on 06/11/2007 8:16:40 AM PDT by AbeKrieger (1) Border security first. 2) Repeat until #1 complete, then resume discussion.)
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To: thegreatbeast

Can never be posted too often!


5 posted on 06/11/2007 8:17:28 AM PDT by headsonpikes (Genocide is the highest sacrament of socialism.)
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To: thegreatbeast
The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: "The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it."

... But liberals have such good intentions...

6 posted on 06/11/2007 8:18:06 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: thegreatbeast
Well, more non-help is on the way. Bush just asked for $30 billion more in AIDS funding for Africa. That should buy a lot of mansions for the dictators over there. The sucking sound you hear is your hard earned tax dollars going down the toilet.

President Bush Announces Five-Year, $30 Billion HIV/AIDS Plan

7 posted on 06/11/2007 8:20:12 AM PDT by Reagan is King (u)
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To: Reagan is King
The sucking sound you hear is your hard earned tax dollars going down the toilet.

As does all foreign aid to any nation

8 posted on 06/11/2007 8:22:01 AM PDT by billbears (Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --Santayana)
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To: thegreatbeast

As P.J. O’Rourke once said, “Giving money to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” The second thing that comes to mind is the adage about giving a man fish vs. teaching him to fish.

If we want to help these people, we need to go in and help them work out the means for their own development. And we need to bypass their governments when we do it.


9 posted on 06/11/2007 8:22:53 AM PDT by RonF
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To: thegreatbeast

Thanks for posting. Confirms a lot of other stuff that we have heard. During my junior year in college, I worked part-time at Lutheran World Relief to make a few bucks. We sent huge bundles of clothes out ot 3rd world countries. But the work was farmed out to a small operation that I worked for. The owner and his two relatives would pick through the best stuff and take it for themselves, and the college kid in the receiving area bragged around stealing leather jackets. It was very disillusioning, which is was is needed. People need to face reality and drop their illusions about helping others. We must be smart about how we choose to help.


10 posted on 06/11/2007 8:25:49 AM PDT by DeweyCA
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To: thegreatbeast

Bookmarking to save grandson from his public school education.


11 posted on 06/11/2007 8:26:43 AM PDT by sageb1 (This is the Final Crusade. There are only 2 sides. Pick one.)
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To: thegreatbeast

Damn...glad you found this article, I recall O’Reilly quoting from this interview on the issue of aid and creations of welfare states... basic human psychology at work here needs to be addressed and is well described in this article.


12 posted on 06/11/2007 8:32:55 AM PDT by TheBethsterNH (...in Northern Massachusetts, formerly known as New Hampshire.)
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To: Reagan is King

30 billion would pay for an awful lot of border walls (not just fence, i am talking “walls”) and specialized detection equipment...


13 posted on 06/11/2007 8:36:41 AM PDT by TheBethsterNH (...in Northern Massachusetts, formerly known as New Hampshire.)
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To: RonF
P.J. also said "People don't starve, people are starved." Beyond P.J.'s thinking that it's the tyrants who starve people, this shows how our good intentions also help.

We see how welfare is destroying our inner cities, but we can't see how national welfare is holding Africa back. Damn, the continent had massive kingdoms that rivaled the European kingdoms of the day (look up Mansa Musa). Africans know how to make a living, thinking they don't is simply racism.

14 posted on 06/11/2007 8:51:24 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: RonF

They had a means for their own development. They stole land from white farmers instead of learning how to farm they just stole the land and gave it to cronies.


15 posted on 06/11/2007 8:58:23 AM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I'm gonna vote for Fred. John Bolton for VP.)
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To: TheBethsterNH
30 billion would pay for an awful lot of border walls (not just fence, i am talking “walls”) and specialized detection equipment..

We can only wish that it would be spent for that. He'd rather seek approval from Bono and the Hollywood crowd for dumping more money down the Africa AIDS sinkhole.

16 posted on 06/11/2007 9:03:48 AM PDT by Reagan is King (u)
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To: thegreatbeast
Stop development aid, but continuing aid to stop starvation (via charities if not government funds) is a good thing.

On a BBC Have Your Say (their little forum-esque thing), it was disgusting at how many posters (and people who recommended their comments) advocated letting 'natural selection' run free--and some explicitly stated their support for letting Africans die out.

And social Darwinism was supposed to have been defeated last century.....

Overpopulationists are close to the scum of the earth if they propose letting their fellow men die so that the population can stabilize (note, this is not all overpopulationists).

17 posted on 06/11/2007 9:35:02 AM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail?)
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To: sgtbono2002
"They stole [took] land from white farmers"

You could just as easily argue that Europeans stole the entire country from Africans. Took is a more neutral term, that (in personal opinion) is more appropriate.

18 posted on 06/11/2007 10:05:41 AM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu ( What is your take on Acts 15:20 (abstaining from blood) about eating meat? Could you freepmail?)
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To: Jedi Master Pikachu

I suppose you could argue that we took the land from the Indians. It has been argued before.

It doesnt matter really, when the Europeans went there,there was nothing. Much like When Israel started there was nothing. The Europeans built a country then the Africans destroyed it. In Israel they built a country , then they took Gaza and built it. Then they gave it back and it was destroyed. There are certain people in this world who dont have it in them to build, only to destroy.

Then they want the rest of the world to keep them alive with welfare.


19 posted on 06/11/2007 10:43:24 AM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I'm gonna vote for Fred. John Bolton for VP.)
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To: sgtbono2002
They had a means for their own development. They stole land from white farmers instead of learning how to farm they just stole the land and gave it to cronies.

If taking the farms is a given, remember that they were worked by local blacks. The government could have just bought out the white owners, incorporated each farm, given ownership to the current workers as shares, and kept the white owners on as profit-sharing managers who serve at the pleasure of the shareholders. Little would have changed except for the corporate structure and ownership, and productivity might have even gone up due to the workers now having a personal financial stake in the success of the farm.

Given a while, more entrepreneurial workers will start buying shares from the other workers and you might actually end up with one local completely owning one of the formerly white farms.

But no, that's not communist or corrupt enough. Yes, it almost sounds like a collective except that each worker has specific ownership and profit rights. It's the same as any employee-owned business in the US.

Stable government that protects civil and property rights is the long-term key to ending starvation in Africa, not UN handouts.

20 posted on 06/11/2007 10:49:50 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
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To: TheBethsterNH
Walls are the Maginot Line thinking and not the whole answer,or even a significant part of the answer.

The real answer would be government fines and jail terms for those who hire illegals, and complete denial of those benefits originally designated for U.S. citizens.No free medical care,no free schools,no jobs equals an automatic huge reduction in the number who would stay here or try to come here.

21 posted on 06/11/2007 11:13:51 AM PDT by hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a creditcard?)
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To: thegreatbeast

Thanks for posting.

BTTT


22 posted on 06/11/2007 12:58:23 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: antiRepublicrat

You are right of course, there was an intelligent answer.

The key word here being intelligent.

I believe that was where it all went wrong.


23 posted on 06/11/2007 2:44:33 PM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I'm gonna vote for Fred. John Bolton for VP.)
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To: Pan_Yans Wife

Ping for a good read.


24 posted on 09/06/2008 5:10:23 AM PDT by Pan_Yan (All gray areas are fabrications.)
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To: thegreatbeast

bump!


25 posted on 11/11/2008 7:44:00 PM PST by traviskicks (http://www.neoperspectives.com/Ron_Paul_2008.htm)
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