Addressing World Poverty-American handouts not the answer

Las Vegas Review Journal | Feb. 6, 2002 | Opinion Desk

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The World Economic Forum closed up shop in New York's posh Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Tuesday, as delegates and diplomats sipped Cristal and nibbled on Sevruga caviar, fretted over the plight of the poor, and bashed their American hosts.

The United States was repeatedly under attack for its support of "globalization", a code word for the defense of the free markets, private property and individual rights that have made America the undisputed leader of the world. Even though the meeting was moved from Switzerland to New York, presumably as a show of solidarity in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the well-heeled diplomats in attendance showed little appreciation for American-style hospitality.

Indeed, the agenda was not dominated by discussions of ways the leaders of the world's poorest nations could intorduce structural reforms which would reduce trade barriers, slash kleptocratic bureaucracies, and encourage entry-level entrepreneurship. Nope. Most of the talk centered on the United States' lack of willingness to coercively shift a sufficient amount of its citizens' wealth to Third World ratholes, in the form of foreign aid.

Speakers from the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu castigated America for its lack of "global vision." Indeed, when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defended the Bush administration's refusal to bail out Argentina, saying that American "plumbers and carpenters shouldn't pay for someone else's bad decisions," Peru's Finance Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said, "That's sending the wrong message."

Even Sen. Hillary Clinton got into the American bashing act, saying protesters target the United States "because of its lack of political and social goals alongside economic goals."

There were a few encouraging signs, however. The State Department's Richard Haass defended the Bush Administration's refusal to double its foreign aid budget, saying the United States can better promote prosperity by slashing trade barriers and encouraging other nations to open their economies. "There are many ways in which development can be contibuted to, and I would think that aid in many cases is one of the less important," he said.

Unfortunately, that message wasn't heard frequently enough at the economic forum...and it's unlikely to be heeded by those members of the "international community" who seek perpetual handouts.

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Once again, the elitests are using word games. "Globalization" now means the USA and it's policies, not the NWO or global unity they espouse. Interesting fascist tactic.

[VaBthang4]

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Lol It would be funnier if it wasn't so true! LOL

[goldstategop]

Anti-Globalization is a code word for socialism. That's why the rest of the world is dead set against free markets, individual initiative, and private property rights. Our model has worked wonders every where its tried. Hitlery Clinton must be the only American who don't know what the rest of her countrymen do know that thanks to the American economic system we have LESS poverty than in the rest of world put together. But she'd rather deny millions of poor in countries under oppressive rule and that suffer economic mismanagement that makes Enron look like a tiny dot on the American economy, the benefits of capitalism than give up the feeling good shtick that goes along with being a good liberal. The article has it right but the rest of the world wants American carpenters and plumbers to subsidize their plummeting into bankruptcy. If they want socialism they can do without pilfering American workers' pocketbooks. We Americans don't appreciate being slapped with one hand and being wheedled with a tin cup with the other.

[Vigilanteman]

The United States was repeatedly under attack for its support of "globalization", a code word for the defense of the free markets, private property and individual rights that have made America the undisputed leader of the world.

Globalization can also mean throwing your borders wide open, shipping your manufacturing jobs out of the country, turning your back on long-time allies like Japan and Korea because the Chinese Communists make it cheaper, and letting the globacrat elite turn us all into a bunch of third world serfs, without the protections thereof.

Then calling in the anti-globalization socialists to accelerate the process with their phony solutions. Ronald Reagan said it best when he wrote "The benefits of free markets should be made available only to free countries or at least those aspiring to be free."

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I agree, vigilanteman. I'm a staunch supporter of Fair Trade.