Comments on: US Disaster Hotspots http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/ My Confined Space is an image blog with user submitted pictures of anything and everything, funny, serious or dark. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:52:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: tripolar http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91827 tripolar Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:23:43 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91827 And where's it from? And where’s it from?

]]> By: El_Chupachichis http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91818 El_Chupachichis Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:40:04 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91818 What the FUCK IS THIS CHART SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT? Especially considering 2010 hasn't happened yet. /anti-threadjack What the FUCK IS THIS CHART SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT?

Especially considering 2010 hasn’t happened yet.

/anti-threadjack

]]> By: DanTheSysAdmin http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91815 DanTheSysAdmin Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:48:04 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91815 I'm sorry for your loss Caio. Sese Seko was a monster and I won't try to defend the US's support of him. . That said I'll still disagree with almost everything you assert. . I lived in Swaziland at the time of the Mozambique civil war. Did I visit? No, I make it a policy to stay out of freefire zones. I remember that the functional currency were international food aid vouchers. I remember that South Africa aided the rebels. I remember that the US presence there was negligible during the hostilities (ambassador was recalled and the consulate had a skeleton staff). I also remember the context for those tractors. . This was just after the Green Revolution had spread out of Mexico and increased crop yields world wide. India had used new strains of rice and wheat to become self-sustaining agriculturally. Africa was expected to be the next big success. Zimbabwe and South Africa did have great success but mainly because of two factors: Latitude and Stability. The latitude dictates the kind of crops you grow, and because the latitude of southern Africa is the opposite poles version of Northern Europe it could use some well understood farming techniques. Unfortunately, where South Africa and Zimbabwe had stability to maintain long term investments in agriculture Mozambique had a civil war. So those tractors, they were there because somebody invested in making Mozambique a bread basket and failed. . So someone, let's say the IMF, made a loan to Mozambique. Mozambique then invested in irrigation and farming equipment (tractors) and started to farm. Then the instability comes along and civil war disrupts the economy. Prices go up. The price of gas, in particular, makes using those tractors economically infeasible. (In all probability it also made anyone with a sellable skill, like fixing tractors, leave the country.) So the fault here is obviously Americas. We caused the price of gas to spike. We caused the civil war. We caused the devaluation of the currency. Let's laugh long and hard at those bozos who gambled on Africa's future and lost. . Now you indicated that US loans to South Africa were behind all this. I have a question, are you narcoleptic? Because someone was napping at a strategic time during history class. South Africa was under embargo from the US. We didn't make loans to South Africa. The pop sensation around the world was "Sun City" (look it up). South Africa was a pariah state with its own agenda. . My pointing out the WWI vs. WWII example was to show how we learn about economics. I wasn't comparing the development of the individual nations. . Your central fact needs some work. Nobody thought these countries would suddenly become first world nations. They did expect the loans to be used to boost the economy. The central premise of those loans were threefold; help create a stable economy that would be resistant to Soviet aid, engender good relations with the country (or usually with its leadership) and BUY AMERICAN WEAPONS TO FIGHT THE COMMUNISTS. Nobody had any illusions about the US agenda at the time. And leaders like Sese Seko played the US fears of communist incursions into a nice steady paycheck, from both sides. But the IMF really did expect that money to be used to create a good economy, that was one of the central premises for the loans. . Back to the learning of economics from experience. I agree that these loans are crushing developing economies. The economists have learned and are modifying the terms of new loans. But see, that modification is now the 'new and untested' economic policy. You test it by doing it. They are also trying hard to better the management of loans. It's not an easy thing to do because those loans are matters of national pride and what happens once the money leaves the IMF coffers is up to the recipient. Loan forgiveness is also being increasingly adopted (though it took Bono to force the issue with the governmental underwriters). But here they are requiring benchmarks be met too. There are no free lunches. Hopefully the economics work better now. . I can't help myself. I have a one name response to "Read my lips: If you use an entire population as a Guinea Pig because you really liked Atlas Shrugged, you will fail." . Alan Greenspan . That would be our own economy used as a Guinea Pig. (In case you are unaware he was a student and friend of Ayn Rand and is a leading proponent of the obectivist school of economics.) . By the way, what was the section that gave your post context? You said there was one but didn't reiterate. As far as I could tell your central premise was that the US was the boogieman who made all evil occur and that we are all cheeseburger eating idiots. Was it the bit where you made wild assertions about the parameters of loans without considering how intergovernmental loans work? Or maybe where you pointed out that economists weren't precogs who could foresee all the unintended consequences of their loans? Or maybe about how untested economic theories were used to test econo ... hey, wait a minute! . Anyway, unfuck you Caio. This isn't personal. I’m sorry for your loss Caio. Sese Seko was a monster and I won’t try to defend the US’s support of him.
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That said I’ll still disagree with almost everything you assert.
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I lived in Swaziland at the time of the Mozambique civil war. Did I visit? No, I make it a policy to stay out of freefire zones. I remember that the functional currency were international food aid vouchers. I remember that South Africa aided the rebels. I remember that the US presence there was negligible during the hostilities (ambassador was recalled and the consulate had a skeleton staff). I also remember the context for those tractors.
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This was just after the Green Revolution had spread out of Mexico and increased crop yields world wide. India had used new strains of rice and wheat to become self-sustaining agriculturally. Africa was expected to be the next big success. Zimbabwe and South Africa did have great success but mainly because of two factors: Latitude and Stability. The latitude dictates the kind of crops you grow, and because the latitude of southern Africa is the opposite poles version of Northern Europe it could use some well understood farming techniques. Unfortunately, where South Africa and Zimbabwe had stability to maintain long term investments in agriculture Mozambique had a civil war. So those tractors, they were there because somebody invested in making Mozambique a bread basket and failed.
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So someone, let’s say the IMF, made a loan to Mozambique. Mozambique then invested in irrigation and farming equipment (tractors) and started to farm. Then the instability comes along and civil war disrupts the economy. Prices go up. The price of gas, in particular, makes using those tractors economically infeasible. (In all probability it also made anyone with a sellable skill, like fixing tractors, leave the country.) So the fault here is obviously Americas. We caused the price of gas to spike. We caused the civil war. We caused the devaluation of the currency. Let’s laugh long and hard at those bozos who gambled on Africa’s future and lost.
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Now you indicated that US loans to South Africa were behind all this. I have a question, are you narcoleptic? Because someone was napping at a strategic time during history class. South Africa was under embargo from the US. We didn’t make loans to South Africa. The pop sensation around the world was “Sun City” (look it up). South Africa was a pariah state with its own agenda.
.
My pointing out the WWI vs. WWII example was to show how we learn about economics. I wasn’t comparing the development of the individual nations.
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Your central fact needs some work. Nobody thought these countries would suddenly become first world nations. They did expect the loans to be used to boost the economy. The central premise of those loans were threefold; help create a stable economy that would be resistant to Soviet aid, engender good relations with the country (or usually with its leadership) and BUY AMERICAN WEAPONS TO FIGHT THE COMMUNISTS. Nobody had any illusions about the US agenda at the time. And leaders like Sese Seko played the US fears of communist incursions into a nice steady paycheck, from both sides. But the IMF really did expect that money to be used to create a good economy, that was one of the central premises for the loans.
.
Back to the learning of economics from experience. I agree that these loans are crushing developing economies. The economists have learned and are modifying the terms of new loans. But see, that modification is now the ‘new and untested’ economic policy. You test it by doing it. They are also trying hard to better the management of loans. It’s not an easy thing to do because those loans are matters of national pride and what happens once the money leaves the IMF coffers is up to the recipient. Loan forgiveness is also being increasingly adopted (though it took Bono to force the issue with the governmental underwriters). But here they are requiring benchmarks be met too. There are no free lunches. Hopefully the economics work better now.
.
I can’t help myself. I have a one name response to “Read my lips: If you use an entire population as a Guinea Pig because you really liked Atlas Shrugged, you will fail.”
.
Alan Greenspan
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That would be our own economy used as a Guinea Pig. (In case you are unaware he was a student and friend of Ayn Rand and is a leading proponent of the obectivist school of economics.)
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By the way, what was the section that gave your post context? You said there was one but didn’t reiterate. As far as I could tell your central premise was that the US was the boogieman who made all evil occur and that we are all cheeseburger eating idiots. Was it the bit where you made wild assertions about the parameters of loans without considering how intergovernmental loans work? Or maybe where you pointed out that economists weren’t precogs who could foresee all the unintended consequences of their loans? Or maybe about how untested economic theories were used to test econo … hey, wait a minute!
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Anyway, unfuck you Caio. This isn’t personal.

]]> By: AlecDalek http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91799 AlecDalek Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:30:43 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91799 You know, any monetary aid the US provides to other countries, is just borrowed from the Chinese. The US keeps going deeper and deeper in debt, and it's the next several generations that are going to have to suck it up and deal with it (or go all Jericho). You know, any monetary aid the US provides to other countries, is just borrowed from the Chinese. The US keeps going deeper and deeper in debt, and it’s the next several generations that are going to have to suck it up and deal with it (or go all Jericho).

]]> By: schulzbrianr http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91794 schulzbrianr Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:57:44 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91794 *sniff* and you still have time to post rants here. *sniff*
and you still have time to post rants here.

]]> By: Caio http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91793 Caio Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:53:34 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91793 Oh, and what am I doing to help poor countries? Well, leaving the land of my birth after my family lost land it had owned for a century because you yanks turned it into some fascist hellhole, and payed to have half my family killed. So your father worked for some phony propaganda organization that threw a few band-aids out here and there? Fuck you, Dan. Oh, and what am I doing to help poor countries? Well, leaving the land of my birth after my family lost land it had owned for a century because you yanks turned it into some fascist hellhole, and payed to have half my family killed. So your father worked for some phony propaganda organization that threw a few band-aids out here and there? Fuck you, Dan.

]]> By: Caio http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91792 Caio Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:45:40 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91792 Oh, and for those of you who aren't familiar with the US-backed dictator and personal friend of Reagan in the link, because he fought the commies (as Reagan points out on several occasions), he was allowed to spend his loan money on literally dozens of castles in Europe amongst other things. I'm sure Reagan visited them regularly when abroad. Yeah, totally the people of Zair's fault and not Reagan's and the Americans', check, y0 Oh, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with the US-backed dictator and personal friend of Reagan in the link, because he fought the commies (as Reagan points out on several occasions), he was allowed to spend his loan money on literally dozens of castles in Europe amongst other things. I’m sure Reagan visited them regularly when abroad. Yeah, totally the people of Zair’s fault and not Reagan’s and the Americans’, check, y0

]]> By: Caio http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91791 Caio Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:40:29 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91791 I can's say I know much about Swaziland, but, perchance, when you were there, did you cross that border into Mozambique? I used to volunteer for a charity organization which gave supplies to schools in Mozambique, Zaire, Botswana, India, Nepal and Peru. Above I mentioned a tractor. This is based on something the head dude told me about Mozambique: . Basically, there was a pile of tractors and trailers which you'd attract to the tractors for different purposes (don't know the term) behind the mission where the school was. They'd been sitting there since the 80s and arrived as part of some American economic revitalization thing irregularly and in the middle of the civil war (the rebels were funded by Apartheid SA, which was one of the few countries to put loans to good use, by the by). Most of the farmers couldn't afford gas, and the large-scale farmers who could couldn't maintain them. There were no parts, and no one knew how to fix a fucking tractor, so after a few years, all the farmers were back to hand-plows and scythes again. I'm going to admit that my knowledge of economics and policy is a bit weak, but there's a serious problem there. The grain farmers were harvesting and planting at a 1/4 ratio on bad years and they were keeping livestock. That's fucking nuts. Of course, they were provided with irrigation, but most of the canals aren't maintained, so they're still pretty much in the middle ages. Of course, IMF continues to issue loans. . And let's not forget: The South African loans which were mainly used for arms to fuck up all those countries where the blacks still ran things was never cancelled for Mandela. Apartheid wasn't subject to such strict adjustment because they were fighting the 'commies' ohohoho good ol american charity. . For your examples: As you point out yourself, African countries didn't have much of an agricultural base to begin with. European countries were simply rebuilding. India struggled compared to Europe, but they've always had fairly developed agriculture, an educational system, a class system which lent itself to the economic specialization by individuals and so on. Oh, and they proved themselves willing to fight the commies inspite of their socialist leanings. The comparison doesn't hold. . Wow, it's like you read my entire post and chose to ignore the section which threw the whole thing into context. Wilful blindness and self-righteous rage for the win. You do realize that countries have pulled themselves out of the mire before. Ireland, Portugal both did. This came largely from the EU economists analyzing the entire history of what works and doesn't work. IMF (in which US members have the most voting power) used no examples, facts or real-world experience, and then you say "How the policy played out wasn’t dictated by them." Yes it fucking was. Read my lips: If you use an entire population as a Guinea Pig because you really liked Atlas Shrugged, you will fail. . And you ignore the most central fact of all: The justification for loans, as opposed to donations, in the 1980s was that these African Countries would shoot right up to the first world and prove capitalism would win over communism and the debts would pay themselves. When these countries failed and people stopped caring about the cold war, IMF continued (and continues) to issue loans in exchange for near economic hegemony, still on idealistic grounds. African governments haven't restructured, but are still depending on loans for basic functionality at this point, and are in the meantime paying interest with the majority of their taxes. There's no money left for infrastructure or even good old Keynesian investment. I just that's because Keynesian Economics actually had a limited amount of success at one point and thus is beyond the realm of consideration. . Do you know why China is on the up and up money-wise lately? I think it has to do with the long term effects of Deng's policy: "Do what works." Fucking crazy right? After 30 years of failure, we should continue issuing these loans because like check it in the Fountainhead the individual was king, y0. . To address the final point, yes the US was completely at fault for supporting corrupt leaders: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_v87/ai_4991192 (good friends by all accounts) Propping up dictatorships to prevent communism in parts of the world where the threat of communism was minimal got a lot of my family killed. It was the same sort of Empire-for-Empire's Sake that left Africa so screwed up in the first place. Now with a new boogieman in the form of the Shanghai pact, you yanks have yet another reason to keep those countries your fucking surfs. Yeah, good intentions I'm sure, Dan. I can’s say I know much about Swaziland, but, perchance, when you were there, did you cross that border into Mozambique? I used to volunteer for a charity organization which gave supplies to schools in Mozambique, Zaire, Botswana, India, Nepal and Peru. Above I mentioned a tractor. This is based on something the head dude told me about Mozambique:
.
Basically, there was a pile of tractors and trailers which you’d attract to the tractors for different purposes (don’t know the term) behind the mission where the school was. They’d been sitting there since the 80s and arrived as part of some American economic revitalization thing irregularly and in the middle of the civil war (the rebels were funded by Apartheid SA, which was one of the few countries to put loans to good use, by the by). Most of the farmers couldn’t afford gas, and the large-scale farmers who could couldn’t maintain them. There were no parts, and no one knew how to fix a fucking tractor, so after a few years, all the farmers were back to hand-plows and scythes again. I’m going to admit that my knowledge of economics and policy is a bit weak, but there’s a serious problem there. The grain farmers were harvesting and planting at a 1/4 ratio on bad years and they were keeping livestock. That’s fucking nuts. Of course, they were provided with irrigation, but most of the canals aren’t maintained, so they’re still pretty much in the middle ages. Of course, IMF continues to issue loans.
.
And let’s not forget: The South African loans which were mainly used for arms to fuck up all those countries where the blacks still ran things was never cancelled for Mandela. Apartheid wasn’t subject to such strict adjustment because they were fighting the ‘commies’ ohohoho good ol american charity.
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For your examples: As you point out yourself, African countries didn’t have much of an agricultural base to begin with. European countries were simply rebuilding. India struggled compared to Europe, but they’ve always had fairly developed agriculture, an educational system, a class system which lent itself to the economic specialization by individuals and so on. Oh, and they proved themselves willing to fight the commies inspite of their socialist leanings. The comparison doesn’t hold.
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Wow, it’s like you read my entire post and chose to ignore the section which threw the whole thing into context. Wilful blindness and self-righteous rage for the win. You do realize that countries have pulled themselves out of the mire before. Ireland, Portugal both did. This came largely from the EU economists analyzing the entire history of what works and doesn’t work. IMF (in which US members have the most voting power) used no examples, facts or real-world experience, and then you say “How the policy played out wasn’t dictated by them.” Yes it fucking was. Read my lips: If you use an entire population as a Guinea Pig because you really liked Atlas Shrugged, you will fail.
.
And you ignore the most central fact of all: The justification for loans, as opposed to donations, in the 1980s was that these African Countries would shoot right up to the first world and prove capitalism would win over communism and the debts would pay themselves. When these countries failed and people stopped caring about the cold war, IMF continued (and continues) to issue loans in exchange for near economic hegemony, still on idealistic grounds. African governments haven’t restructured, but are still depending on loans for basic functionality at this point, and are in the meantime paying interest with the majority of their taxes. There’s no money left for infrastructure or even good old Keynesian investment. I just that’s because Keynesian Economics actually had a limited amount of success at one point and thus is beyond the realm of consideration.
.
Do you know why China is on the up and up money-wise lately? I think it has to do with the long term effects of Deng’s policy: “Do what works.” Fucking crazy right? After 30 years of failure, we should continue issuing these loans because like check it in the Fountainhead the individual was king, y0.
.
To address the final point, yes the US was completely at fault for supporting corrupt leaders:
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_v87/ai_4991192
(good friends by all accounts)
Propping up dictatorships to prevent communism in parts of the world where the threat of communism was minimal got a lot of my family killed. It was the same sort of Empire-for-Empire’s Sake that left Africa so screwed up in the first place. Now with a new boogieman in the form of the Shanghai pact, you yanks have yet another reason to keep those countries your fucking surfs. Yeah, good intentions I’m sure, Dan.

]]> By: DanTheSysAdmin http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91771 DanTheSysAdmin Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:05:46 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91771 Just had dinner. Guess what it was. Cheeseburgers. Glad to show you're right about at least one thing. Just had dinner. Guess what it was. Cheeseburgers. Glad to show you’re right about at least one thing.

]]> By: DanTheSysAdmin http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/comment-page-1/#comment-91769 DanTheSysAdmin Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:32:59 +0000 http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2008/02/13/us-disaster-hotspots/#comment-91769 "Now, how are your US charity dollars to Africa being used? Well, you’re mainly paying to ship food to places where people are dying of hunger on arable land. Because all the economic means of these countries is being payed out mainly to Americans, the local farmers can’t maintain equipment (so even giving them a tractor wont work, because if it breaks, who will fix it?) and end up working the land by hand, guaranteeing a low return on crops and thus everything else." . I'll call BS on this. Speaking as the child of a USAID worker who has gone to and visited places which received funds I'll have to point out that you are full of it. I've seen medical clinics in Swaziland, Peace Corps volunteers in Haiti, locally operated fabric manufacturers in Guatemala, schools and hospitals in South Africa, and a multitude of other very direct contributions to local communities. This may not be how the majority of the money is distributed, but I can tell you what I have personally seen. Good people have made best efforts to put what money was available to good use. . You are right in that most US foreign aid is spent on US company products but that's the way the money was made available in the first place. Want that new power generation plant? Bechtel has to build it. Net effect? They have a power generation facility. Are you under the misapprehension that this is different for any given country's foreign aid? . If you want to talk about radical economic policies how about we look at a historic example. After WWI what did the Allied nations do? They imposed harsh economic reparation regimes on the conquered countries. After WWII what did the Allied nations do? They insisted on reparations but then created a massive financial investment mechanism to rebuild the Axis economies first. Why am I point this out? Because that's how we learned that the first method was bad economic policy. We learn from the economic missteps we experience. In 1974 Panama had a catastrophic earthquake. The US sent a massive amount of food aid to help with the impact. It essentially put many Panamanian farmers out of business. Bad economics, we learned from it, we (eventually) learned to moderate food aid. You point out that the economic policy of free market adoption hasn't resulted in the benefits expected. Guess what? Lesson learned. Time to move on. . I'll just say in passing that most of your assertions rap a healthy dose of fertilizer around a seed of truth. Charities send food places! Uh, most of them are trying to teach people to farm sustainably not how to import corn on the cob. (ADM may have their own ideas here.) Sometimes they do ship food but these days most realize it's a bad long term practice and do so only in emergencies. Real economic progress is a closed issue! So the adoption of microbanks (originating in India) and specialization of production on local talents with international distribution (fair trade) is a non-occurrence? Good to know, sensei. Radical changes to lower income countries failed because of untested economic policies ! So the countries were pictures of economic health beforehand and weren't taking the terms of the loans because of dire need and past policy failures? These countries were ready to institute their own perfect economic policy poised to revolutionize their economy when ham fisted, cheeseburger gobbling imperialist running dogs put a gun to their head to do what they demanded? They weren't making the changes because they needed the loans to prop up already failed economic policies? (Oh, and by the way the US was at fault for any corrupt leader who chose to accept the loans in the first place, of course. The US number one export is cronyism and nepotism.) . If you want to smugly shove bullshit down the throat of us stupid cheeseburger gobbling American's you might want to step back and reconsider your own infallibility. The people who made the policy decisions did what seemed best at the time. They lacked your 20/20 future vision. How the policy played out wasn't dictated by them. And afterward they learned from the results. But the one thing they unequivocally did was get up off their fat asses and do something. You? “Now, how are your US charity dollars to Africa being used? Well, you’re mainly paying to ship food to places where people are dying of hunger on arable land. Because all the economic means of these countries is being payed out mainly to Americans, the local farmers can’t maintain equipment (so even giving them a tractor wont work, because if it breaks, who will fix it?) and end up working the land by hand, guaranteeing a low return on crops and thus everything else.”
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I’ll call BS on this. Speaking as the child of a USAID worker who has gone to and visited places which received funds I’ll have to point out that you are full of it. I’ve seen medical clinics in Swaziland, Peace Corps volunteers in Haiti, locally operated fabric manufacturers in Guatemala, schools and hospitals in South Africa, and a multitude of other very direct contributions to local communities. This may not be how the majority of the money is distributed, but I can tell you what I have personally seen. Good people have made best efforts to put what money was available to good use.
.
You are right in that most US foreign aid is spent on US company products but that’s the way the money was made available in the first place. Want that new power generation plant? Bechtel has to build it. Net effect? They have a power generation facility. Are you under the misapprehension that this is different for any given country’s foreign aid?
.
If you want to talk about radical economic policies how about we look at a historic example. After WWI what did the Allied nations do? They imposed harsh economic reparation regimes on the conquered countries. After WWII what did the Allied nations do? They insisted on reparations but then created a massive financial investment mechanism to rebuild the Axis economies first. Why am I point this out? Because that’s how we learned that the first method was bad economic policy. We learn from the economic missteps we experience. In 1974 Panama had a catastrophic earthquake. The US sent a massive amount of food aid to help with the impact. It essentially put many Panamanian farmers out of business. Bad economics, we learned from it, we (eventually) learned to moderate food aid. You point out that the economic policy of free market adoption hasn’t resulted in the benefits expected. Guess what? Lesson learned. Time to move on.
.
I’ll just say in passing that most of your assertions rap a healthy dose of fertilizer around a seed of truth. Charities send food places! Uh, most of them are trying to teach people to farm sustainably not how to import corn on the cob. (ADM may have their own ideas here.) Sometimes they do ship food but these days most realize it’s a bad long term practice and do so only in emergencies. Real economic progress is a closed issue! So the adoption of microbanks (originating in India) and specialization of production on local talents with international distribution (fair trade) is a non-occurrence? Good to know, sensei. Radical changes to lower income countries failed because of untested economic policies ! So the countries were pictures of economic health beforehand and weren’t taking the terms of the loans because of dire need and past policy failures? These countries were ready to institute their own perfect economic policy poised to revolutionize their economy when ham fisted, cheeseburger gobbling imperialist running dogs put a gun to their head to do what they demanded? They weren’t making the changes because they needed the loans to prop up already failed economic policies? (Oh, and by the way the US was at fault for any corrupt leader who chose to accept the loans in the first place, of course. The US number one export is cronyism and nepotism.)
.
If you want to smugly shove bullshit down the throat of us stupid cheeseburger gobbling American’s you might want to step back and reconsider your own infallibility. The people who made the policy decisions did what seemed best at the time. They lacked your 20/20 future vision. How the policy played out wasn’t dictated by them. And afterward they learned from the results. But the one thing they unequivocally did was get up off their fat asses and do something. You?

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