The decision to write off billions of dollars in debt for various Third World nations is in effect a subsidy for bad governance. Oh sure, the debt relief is tied to various conditions aimed at improving the kleptocratic ways that are the norm in the world’s various hellholes, but it is still just a way of saying that in the final analysis it is western taxpayers yet again who will be the ones picking up bill for the actions of various corrupt WaBenz bureaucrats.
And what of those poor nations who actually do repay their loans? What of those who keep corruption under control and who have a ruling class that does not see private businesses as a personal piggy bank to be raided as needed? What message is sent to them when they see the incompetent and corrupt rewarded with free money so that some celebrity activists can make economic illiterates feel good about themselves?
Which brings me to Geldof. I just cannot figure out this guy; on one hand he says self-evident sensible things like (emphasis added):
Bob Geldof admitted today no amount of aid to Africa could eradicate poverty on the continent while its Governments remain corrupt. The former singer was launching a 170-page compact summary of the Africa Commission’s report which will be presented to the G8 summit this July.
And the maverick Irishman repeated his call for ‘hundreds of thousands’ to converge on Edinburgh to coincide with the summit at Gleneagles. He said: “The issue governance is at the forefront of this compact. You can’t give aid to countries when they return it to us in debt payment, especially if you don’t allow them to trade with us. None of that will function unless there is a decent Government.”
But then says something as preposterous as:
Fears over corrupt African regimes should not be used to delay aid to the poverty-stricken continent, Bob Geldof said yesterday. Less than 48 hours after both Tony Blair and George W Bush insisted that corrupt regimes had to be tackled to ensure that aid was not wasted, the Live 8 organiser told them to “get off the corruption thing” and deliver the promised help.
So what is one to make of that? By his own admission, Africa’s appalling governance is a huge contributing factor to poverty and woe (not to mention the continent’s horrific record regarding civil liberties) yet we are urged to “get off the corruption thing”. So to use Geldof’s sort of language… what the fuck?
If governance is perhaps the single biggest factor (amongst several) that makes the Third World so damn poor, surely the Western taxpayers whose money Geldof is to keen to give away should indeed be asking if they really want their money to end up in someone else’s Swiss bank accounts via Kinshasa or Freetown.
Sadly for Africa, most of the things written about the causes and solutions of poverty in the Third World, or at least the articles that get serious column inches, are drivel by ‘celebrity activists’ who are ill-informed and arrogant in equal measure. A prime example being the mind numbingly ignorant Chris Martin for example, who thinks ‘shareholders’, the people who provide the capital to wealth creating businesses, which are the “great evil of this modern world” rather than, say, the governments of North Korea, Cuba and Burma. But then such folks do not concern themselves with actual benefits to poor people in various far off places but rather with pithy soundbites and causing emotional surges brought on by ‘doing something’, regardless of whether or not it actually improves anything for anyone other that a few Mercedes Benz dealers in sub-Saharan Africa and some portfolio managers in Zürich.
No, none of this really has anything to do with helping common people in the Third World.
I’ve just heard the announcement that £40b in foreign debt is to be written off. I suggest that it is time we accept the situation and hope as much of this as possible gets to the most deserving.
Maybe corruption and graft will begin to fall as a result of the current debate, and if not, perhaps the next time that the third world approaches the west cap in hand we will be more sceptical.
As things stand my share of the £40b, £40 if we assume 1 billion western contributors, wouldn’t have gone far towards my purchase of a BMW850i or a Merc 500SL, so maybe I should at least be happy for the lucky individuals who will gain one of these prizes.
Would it be uncharitable of me to suggest that Blair and Brown have an ulterior motive for bringing up African debt cancellation this month? Socialists (and social-ists for that matter) need their grands projets. The Olympics is a prime example, and we need to bribe a lot of small African countries. How better than to give them money in the form of debt relief. Thanks a bunch guys.
I hate to sound an apologist for socialism, but there are some positives to this thing.
Firstly, from much of the political talk-shows I have seen on TV discussing this, the view that free-trade is the ultimate goal and aid is simply a stop-gap to get to that point, is gaining ground. It is nice to see that the virtues of the free market in ending poverty are being discussed in the open, even by socialists.
Secondly, the government does seem to be looking slightly more choosey about who it is going to give money to. Previously they just poured the money in and watched it evaporate, at least now they are learning from their mistakes, if belatedly.
Thirdly, uhmm… oh, darn.. well I suppose a little bit MIGHT get through to the starving Africans, right?
… right?
😉
Oh, I have a question, as well, if anyone can answer it…
Is charity aid from Oxfam et al more efficient in terms of improving the lives of the poor people that Government-to-Government aid?
I mean, if you want to help the Africans, are we better off giving the money to Oxfam than to the government, or do they both end up in swiss bank accounts?
Athony,
Firstly money to Oxfam goes to Oxfam,look at the expensively refurbished Oxfam Shops.Governments only give to governments.
There are I believe a number of charities which specialise in enabling Africans to be self sufficient giving aid directly to the people in need.Much of the aid is somewhat mundane and lacks glamour but is actually what the people want.
I can find the charities addresses if anyone wants them.
I presume Geldof has advisors or PR people who tell him what to say hence the odd articulate comment. The other stuff is probably spouted when he is off guard.
Did anyone see Geldof on Jonathon Ross’s BBC show last night ? Ross was fawning over him so much it made me feel sick. During the entire love fest/interview there were no hard questions and just unquestioning acceptance of Saint Bob’s every saying.
Well, I don’t really look forward to the increase in bank charges that usually follows world leaders’ good intentions. Nor do I look forward to the proposed ‘Airline Ticket Tax’ to also contribute to their latest brainstorm.
Although I have been constant in my position of demanding that we open our markets in Britain and Europe to African producers and let them try their hand, I have zero interest in “helping Africa”.
They’ve had 50 years of “help”. How long is it going to take the West to figure out that “help” doesn’t work? It is the old welfare depency generational thing writ large.
They’re not children. They live on a continent unimaginably rich in natural resources. And they’ve done bugger all to keep up.
It would be wrong to let children die or suffer due to insufficient medical aid, so I don’t think this should be discontinued or truncated in any way, but other than that, as far as I’m concerned, Africa’s on its own. I would comment on the sheer impudence of Blair, for his own international glorification, giving away money that belongs to British taxpayers, but my Outrage-at-Blair meter blew its gasket years ago.
If the Africans cannot manage their own affairs, then we should appoint some colonial administrators. I do not see any other way to drag them up. Endless aid is not effective.
Verity,
We are going to pay for Blars legacy.
“Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of his administration on to poverty in the Third World this week during talks with President Bush, has told his closest allies: “Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not.” Telegraph
Poor Africa,he is going to do to them what he has done to this country.
Excellent piece Perry.
–Is charity aid from Oxfam et al more efficient in terms of improving the lives of the poor people that Government-to-Government aid?–
Your best bet is a church-sponsored agency.
In America, there’s a yearly ranking of charities by which have the lowest overhead and most effective/efficient use of money.
I think the Salvation Army is tops.
I’m sure it’s available on the net.
Good Piece
The best news about this is that a few enterprizing arms dealers are going to make a few bucks. Since their debts are now gone, these nations can now run up new debts buying new weapons.
Is not Ghana in need of a few new helicopter gunships or something?
A nation can’t have a loan. Not when the only income “the nation” has to repay is taxation (ie theft). In terms of rightfully owned money, most nations are penniless, or nearly so. Giving loans to nations is irresponsible; demanding repayment is criminal. Ergo, “debt forgiveness” is the morally proper course, when followed by a completely unforgiving refusal of any new debt.
Perhaps so in theory. However, the world does not function according to the demands of libertarian economic theory.
EG
Euan, what is ‘theoretical’ about Julian’s comment? Are you suggesting that Governments have any other way of repaying debts, than via taxation?
I couldn’t figure out how to comment on your “Brits-using-American accents” post.
There is an interesting Beatles story about that. Apparently when Paul McCartney first played the record “She Loves You” for his father, the older man was visibly upset.
Why do you sing “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, he complained. We have too much American influence here already. It should be “Yes, Yes, Yes!”.
I wonder if the Beatles would have conquered the world if they had taken his advice.
I couldn’t figure out how to comment on your “Brits-using-American accents” post.
There is an interesting Beatles story about that. Apparently when Paul McCartney first played the record “She Loves You” for his father, the older man was visibly upset.
Why do you sing “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, he complained. We have too much American influence here already. It should be “Yes, Yes, Yes!”.
I wonder if the Beatles would have conquered the world if they had taken his advice.
Err, there is a ‘Church-sponsored agency’ operating in Africa … unfortunately its called Christian Aid.
Hehe, whenever I go to America, I find myself speaking in an American accent (I am there for quite a long time, it’s not an overnight thing) but it’s not for any reason other than it is the only way to be understood. We English, it seems, speak too low and unenthusiastically to be understood over there, so I have to sound all excited and American when I am ordering some fries and a coke ^^
Or maybe I just speak better American than English, what with all the Americans on our TV 😉
To be fair, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross is a chat show, not a current affairs program. Fawning over guests is in Ross’ job description. If you want to see people being grilled on the merits of their economic policy, you should watch Newsnight or something.
The idea that states can’t get loans. Given the fact that almost all states have sovereign external debt, the idea that this cannot happen can only be valid in theory since it is patently invalid in practice.
EG
Jesus, just ignore the damn troll PLEASE! Clearly that is not what the guys point was so just do not engage the fool in another pointless conversation. An economist he aint.
“And what of those poor nations who actually do repay their loans? ”
What about them? This doesn’t affect their credit ratings in any way, as anybody with any familiarity with the subject would know. And since the present debt relief proposals apply only to countries who have become catastrophically unable to pay crushing debts without depriving the sick of basic medicines and the young of basic schooling, the idea that this is some sort of free lunch would be laughable if it wasn’t so grotesque.
As for the Geldof quotes, the fact that you think there is something contradictory about calling for more aid while admitting that aid alone will not eradicate poverty in Africa says it all. Yes, corruption is a problem, but we know that aid can help even in corrupt countries when adequately monitored (which isn’t that difficult), and less corrupt countries get more aid anyway. According to you, just because there’s corruption in one part of Africa that means that no aid whatsoever should go to any other part of Africa. That’s idiotic.
Aid and debt relief will actually help Africa take advantage of the opportunities of trade. I would have thought Samizdatistas would be in favour of this. Apparently not. Nice to see where your priorities lie.
“And what of those poor nations who actually do repay their loans? What of those who keep corruption under control and who have a ruling class that does not see private businesses as a personal piggy bank to be raided as needed?”
I’m trying reeeeelly hard to figure out which African nations you’re talking about.
Can’t think of one, offhand, and I’m too busy/lazy to go and check it up (no doubt, one of the stat-o-holics here will oblige me with “Gambia!!!” or something).
But the rule is: lend money to Africa, kiss it goodbye, and watch as nothing changes.
Or, “Africa wins again”, as the old Africa hands say.
Oh boy. Sure it doesn’t, but what it DOES do is positively motivate them not to do things which might be politically unpopular but fiscally sound as what does it matter if they will get their debts repaid for free anyway?
Right, so a sovereign independent country takes on debts which they cannot pay (and often the reason they cannot pay is the brain dead policies of the government in question), and you want to make sure that there is no political or monetary cost to the actions which led them to that situation. Very sensible. Not.
No ‘we’ do not know that. There have been aid programs for years and Africa is STILL mostly one big shithole.
What on earth makes you think it is ‘not that difficult’? have you evere actually BEEN to places like Nigeria or Congo? I have and I assure you NOTHING is easy to monitor in any walk of life.
And where exactly did he say that? Seems to me he was just making the very obvious point that aid to certain governments might not be a good idea seeing as how it is governments who are the biggest problem to begin with.
Explain why you think the way to help trade is aid rather than getting corrupt governments out of the way in order to encourage investment of private capital. I don’t think giving money to WESTERN governments is the way build uop an economy let alone flaky African ones. How many times do people in the west have to get bit before they get the message that it is pissing money away for damn little goodness in return? This crap has been going on for decades now.
Jim says: “Aid and debt relief will actually help Africa take advantage of the opportunities of trade.”
Oh, really? It never has before. As in the previous 50 years during which trillions upon trillions of dollars have been poured down Africa’s giant maw.
Oh, I get it! This time “it’s different”. Sorry, I’m fresh out of credibility. No more aid (except in the case of children, who aren’t to blame as they don’t have a vote), no more charity and no more concessionary loans. Try it on your own, and as you shat away all the trillions and trillions you have received during the previous five decades, that means you’ll be starting from scratch.
If you can’t handle it – other than aid for children until they reach voting age – call in the administrators, who will be Westerners and not answerable under any circumstances to the UN. This includes replacement of the “prime ministers” and their entire governments.
Fifty years of failure despite trillions upon trillions of aid. There are people in the West who have grown up, got married, had children and grandchildren and died while Africa was still munching down on Western “aid” to help them get back on their feet. Back on their feet after what, may I ask?
Ex-British colonies were all left with economies that worked and civil structures that worked. Not only have they failed to build on these structures, they have, over 50 years, destroyed their legacy.
I’m sorry. I wish them no harm and have constantly said I want them to have unrestricted access to Western markets – to let them in and try their hand. But the British and other Western taxpaying families don’t owe these people a damn’ thing.
A collection of quotations, comments and excerpts of articles about world poverty and “that gap between rich and poor” can be found at (THIS site)
By any definition large parts of Africa are bankrupt,little of the money it has had seems to have been put to productive use.In the normal way debtors would be required to accept conditions for debt restructuring,a business would at the least have administrators sent in.
Most private citizens would stand to los everything.
Africa it seems will be free to carry on as usual,does anyone think that Mugabe for example would grind his people any less for being free of debt.Will any of Africas cavalcade of despots allow and benefits that accrue trickle down their people?
This is another triumph of hope over experience.
EG: you missed my point. Calling a thing “a loan” doesn’t make it one. Libertarians usually have respect for loans and expect them to be repaid, not “forgiven”. My point was that the usual rights don’t apply – it’s obvious that the debtor can only repay with stolen funds, so in this case it’s the creditor who’s in the wrong. The most moral thing the debtor can do is refuse to tax-and-repay. That’s specifically: a principled libertarian case. Naturally, if you lack libertarian principles, it won’t convince.
Geldof, Blair, and Julian Morrison, all remind me of an old joke.
A man takes his trash out to the garbage can in the alley. He see’s his neighbor hitting his Harley with a claw hammer. Intrigued, he goes across the alley and says, “Hey neighbor, what’re doing?”
His neighbor responds, “I’m fixing my motorcycle, what the hell does it look like I’m doing.”
The man responds, “With a claw hammer?”
The neighbor says, in a pissed-off voice, “Well, it’s the only f*****g tool I have!!”
And that’s Geldof’s, Blair’s, and Julian’s problem. They only have one, very inadequate tool, in their tool-box — shipping more more to Africa. (Either as dollars or Euros, or by forgiving their debts.)
I mean, riddle me this.
Problem: Sub-saharan Africa is an absolute shit-hole.
Reason: They are ruled by the biggest collection of thieves-slash-thugs-slash-murderers in the world.
The Geldofion-Blairite-Julian Morrisonish solution? Stick another billion or two into each said thieve’s-thug’s-murderer’s pockets. Yeah, that’ll help a half-million Africans alright. After all, look what $500 billion dollars in foreign aid has done for Africa over the last 50 years.
Dare I mention one of the great taboos – population control?
Brown announced in an interview this morning on BBC News that 30 years ago we gave the equivalent of $30/year in aid to each Sub-Saharan whereas today we only give $20/year to each Sub-Saharan. This statement was to make us aware of how mean we westerners are, and to ensure that we damn well buck our ideas up and start giving more.
It only took a few minutes thought and a quick Google search to find out why we Westerners are apparently so mean. 30 years ago Sub-Saharans numbered around 330 million, whereas today the population is about 650 million.
With the help of Bob Geldoff we should get to the 1 billion mark in record time. Then our contributions per head will be even smaller, unless we give more and more and more.
Julian:
The original post said that Nations can’t have debts. Nations aren’t governments. I agree that a government can’t really have a debt, in the same way that the director of a bank doesn’t have a debt – the bank does.
Let’s pass over the libertarian tennet that taxed revenue is stolen revenue. Let’s suppose a government had acquired wealth from the nation in the form of bonds. These are freely bought by the individual citizens. We can take war bonds as a simple example. Here, the members of the nation have freely given money for the current government to spend. The goverment can spend this repaying a loan from the US or whatever if it likes.
So, it seems quite clear to me that the notion of national debts and loans is valid.
Another form of wealth that may belong to a nation is natural resources. Of course if all the rights to such resources reside in the hands of individuals, the nation doesn’t have that wealth. But in many african nations (in fact many nations anywhere) the rights reside with the state, and always have. So, the state has never stolen this wealth from anyone, and it is certainly wealth, so there is something else a nation can repay debts with.
J
It’s top heavy, big government, 20th century thinking that is the problem. This was the culture of the European countries in the 50’s and 60’s when most of the African countries won independence.
So although Verity and others make a valid point on the inability of Africans to drag themselves up, I feel that Britain (and France,Belgium) when it was in it’s nationalise everything phase, has directly contributed to where Africa is today.
Looking at the history of European countries and there development one sees the rule of law, the accountability of governments to a parliament and the sacrosanctity of private property as important developments.
But big government officiandos miss what for me was the most important thing and that was the ability of the little guy to start up a new business. In many African countries you need a license to do this and unsurprisingly only government cronies get these. Furthermore it is impossible to get a loan from banks at any reasonable rate of interest.
Untill that culture changes I can’t see any hope of development and as Chris Martin, Christian Aid, The Independent et al are unlikely to ever support that I can only see more and more misery.
“what does it matter if they will get their debts repaid for free anyway?”
They’re not getting their debts repaid for free. They’ve already paid back the value of their original debts, in many cases several times over. If the US hadn’t caused interest rates to shoot up to around in the 1980s from (in real terms) around zero beforehand, and if the IMF hadn’t made so many debtor nations devalue their currencies, and if their export earnings hadn’t disappeared through the collapse in commodity prices, we wouldn’t have this problem. If creditors had arranged an orderly write-off earlier in the process (as they did on very generous terms for Germany after WWII and for Suharto when he came to power in Indonesia) instead of choosing to protect the banks who helped create the debt crisis, we wouldn’t have this problem.
And it is a problem, because instead of using their own money to pay for things like education and medicine, they’re using it to pay us back for ancient debts, many of which were racked up by old dictators with our compliance and in many cases active support.
As a result, hundreds of thousands and quite possibly millions of people have died before their time, and debt has set a large part of the world back around twenty years. Now we’ve had limited debt relief under the HIPC, and it’s bearing fruit – a lot less spent on debt service, and a lot more spent on health and education. Even the IMF says that debt relief is major cause of recent higher growth in Africa. Telling Africa to get rich through trade while denying them the ability to provide basic transport and communications, schooling and healthcare is nothing but sadism. If any other country was doing this to us you wouldn’t stand for it, but as long as it’s us doing it to the Africans that’s apparently fine and fucking dandy.
So spare me your nebulous pseudo-moralistic quibbles about setting a bad example, because that’s just window-dressing for an ideological opposition to a policy that will in fact save lives. I usually disagree with him on just about everything, but on debt relief I think Alex Singleton has got it right. He says debt won’t solve everything, and it won’t – and nobody ever said it would. But it will help, and it would be nice if the rest of you copped onto that basic fact.
“you want to make sure that there is no political or monetary cost to the actions which led them to that situation”
Funny, I could have sworn that HIPC countries had to accept all kinds of conditions handed down from the IMF before getting any debt relief. Conditions which tend to be extremely politically unpopular at home. Or didn’t you know that?
“No ‘we’ do not know that. There have been aid programs for years and Africa is STILL mostly one big shithole.”
My mistake – I assumed you had a basic familiarity with the actual evidence on aid and growth, which says that without aid Africa would be even worse off than it is now. By your logic, if there’s a forest fire and we send one fireman to put it out, and he fails, we should conclude that more firemen would not help. But that would be just nutty, wouldn’t it?
“What on earth makes you think it is ‘not that difficult’?”
It’s not hard to tell whether a hospital has been built or not. It’s either there or it isn’t.
“Explain why you think the way to help trade is aid rather than getting corrupt governments out of the way in order to encourage investment of private capital.”
Where did I say aid was the only solution? That’s right, I didn’t. Just because aid won’t solve everything doesn’t mean it won’t help. I would have thought that was obvious.
“Oh, really? It never has before.”
Yes it has. It has helped pay for massive improvements in health, such as the eradication of smallpox, and at the moment it’s paying for AIDS drugs. It’s pretty hard to keep a company going if your employees keep dying in huge numbers. It has also paid for the education of millions of Africans – I think the pay-off for trade here should be obvious, but I can spell it out for you if you like. It has also paid for transport, power and communications infrastructure – again, I think the lesson should be obvious, but you seem to be having some difficulty with it …
“trillions upon trillions of aid”
Do you not like to have even the most tenous connection to reality? The biggest estimate I’ve seen of total aid to Africa – ever – is about $600bn.
“Sorry, I’m fresh out of credibility.”
You’ve got that right at least.
David Crawford: will you please not call me an idiot in that way? Of course I don’t intend to “ship money to Africa” – and the only way you could read me as such is via the same leap of funny-math which treats tax cuts as “gifts to the rich”. Ceasing to steal is not a giveaway; neither is ceasing to demand a “debt” that could only be paid by theft. The money is already theirs! Surely you can see the difference.
J: if the government can trace back every cent entirely to non-coerced sources (and remember, monopolies count as coercion, so the lottery is tainted), then in that rare instance it can act as a valid economic actor, and the regular rights apply. A loan of such money, to a government which promises to also pay it back with similar provably non-coerced money, is a valid loan and should not be “forgiven”.
No such loans currently exist.
Sure I am, it just happens to be complete bollocks. The most charitable view is that it is a case of Bastiat’s “That which is seen versus that which is not seen“. Your fireman anologue shows exactly that thinking… my point is that rather than hiring a fireman when the real problem is that the fireman’s employer is the one setting the fires in the first place. So maybe spending money which has the effect of keeping the firestarters in business is not such a good idea. Your thinking is very typical of the sort of fluffy headed short termism that makes Africas problems last for decades.
Moreover if you seriously think that requiring all manner of terms and conditions is (a) new or (b) not laughable, then you are very credulous indeed.
Total aid for Africa – ever – is only $600,000,000,000. if one uses the US definition of a billion.
The result of that is what we see now,aid to a continent rich and fertile, with vast mineral resources-and what do we get? A charnel house!
Unless you want to make a career out of digging, crystal clear figures are very hard to come by. A lot of the sites on Google are just miles and miles of the usual verbiage.
Right now, it seems that the richest countries – does that mean the G8 – who knows? – because there are other rich countries … are sending $82bn each per year to Africa. So if there are 10 rich countries, that’s $820bn a year. Quite a long way off the modest estimates above.
Also, military spending doesn’t seem to count as aid. So that is hundreds of billions extra. Then there are all the specialised things which also don’t seem to count – like AIDS programmes. And side-issue programmes within individual Western countries. For example, I don’t know for a fact and I don’t have time to reseach it, but France probably has extra programmes for its former colonies in W Africa, for example.
It’s all very muddled – obviously with the intent of not frightening the horses – but to suggest Africa’s “only” had $800bn in aid over the last 40 years is utterly ludicrous. It’s had at least a trillion. And they are more shit poor than they were when the British left.
It’s time we faced it: keeping people on welfare encourages a dependency culture. They should rise up against their rulers. If that’s too dangerous, they should boycott elections so whoever got in obviously would not be legitimate. The vast edifice of the aid industry is not going to encourage the butchering of the system any time soon.
It is up to the Africans and they have had 40 years – several generations – to do it and they lollygag around with their hands out.
Read P J O’Rourke on the difference in wealth between Hong Kong, which is on a rock and has no natural resources, and Tanzania, which is unimaginably affluent in terms of natural resources. In “Eat The Rich.”
Charity is an individual conscience thing, and people who wish to send money through charities to Africa can obviously do so. To make charity mandatory for every citizen of the West, through their taxes, is outrageous and serves no purpose.
It is on the same level as using taxes to finance holding the Olympic Games. This is bloody well not what taxes are for, which should be for the general well-being of the people paying them. End of story.
It is entirely possible that writing off third world debt now means that the richer countries can say in the future, hey, we helped with the loans and then helped more by writing the debt off. What more can we do?
But don’t come asking for any more as we’re fresh out of money – other than a few token gifts.
–Err, there is a ‘Church-sponsored agency’ operating in Africa … unfortunately its called Christian Aid.
—
There’s only 1 working in Africa, Julian?
BTW, I’ve said it before, but Tony Blair is clinically, hyperactively, a complete, raving nutter. Just recently, he has banned fox hunting, invented absos, whereby magistrates make up law on the hoof instead of disturbing MPs and having debates in Parliament, banned toy guns, bought a £3.5m house he can’t afford, forgiven the entire gigantic continent of Africa its debt to British taxpayers and is working on getting greenhouse gases banned WORLDWIDE at G8.
The man is stark, raving bonkers and out of control. God only knows what he’s going to take it into his little birdbrain to do next.
Giving money tp Africa is the same as putting money in a beggars hat,it feeds the feel good factor of the giver and fulfil the apparent immediate need of the beggar enabling the beggar to beg another day.
It does not address the reason why the beggar is reduced to begging in the first place,it merely enables the beggar to be a beggar.
There needs to be some serious analysis as to why Africa cannot get up off its knees.All the old shibboleths of political correctness and post Imperial guilt have to be disguarded in this process.
As far as I can recollect the mantra has always been that there was not enough aid for Africa.There is too be a $30 billion debt write off,is it too much to ask for results?
Verity the Prim Minister cannot be wrong ,his wife gets advice from the dead.
Oh! I didn’t know Cherie was in touch with dead people! Other than the cabinet, that is.
Verity,
Yes,via the No10 resident bimbo’s mother.Bet you didn’t know we lived in a Necrocracy. Ask Doris Stokes.
Ken Wiwa has a piece in The Observer which offers some cogent, well-reasoned thinking. I don’t agree with him, but he’s taken the trouble to write a good argument. It Just Won’t Work
Verity, can you repost that link, please? The earlier one didn’t work, at least not for me….
Well this time, I can’t even get it to come up as a link on the preview, so I’ll do it the old fashioned way. Here’s the address: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1504599,00.html“>
I think maybe you are supposed to leave that last quotation mark and little triangle off.
Perry,
“Sure I am, it just happens to be complete bollocks.”
Not quite sure what you’re referring to – every analysis of aid is bollocks, or just the ones that show a positive effect on development? Well anyway, if you’re that familiar with the available evidence, I’m sure you’ll have read “Counting chickens when they hatch”, from the Center for Global Development. They find a robust positive effect of aid on short-term growth, leaving aside the positive effects on long-term growth of investing in health and education. And yes, they find that without aid, Africa would be even worse off than it is now.
As you’re no doubt familiar with that study, I’m sure you can tell me why it’s bollocks. Or were you just pretending to know what you’re talking about?
As for the rest of your comment, I do find it interesting how the reflexive ‘blame the victim’ mentality absolves you of the requirement to either explain, account for or address the problem. Fine, suit yourself, but I don’t think I need to bother arguing against a position that’s based not on any actual analysis of the evidence but on self-serving preconceptions.
Verity,
“Right now, it seems that the richest countries – does that mean the G8 – who knows? – because there are other rich countries … are sending $82bn each per year to Africa.”
No, that’s insanely inaccurate. No wonder you think aid is wasted – $820bn is more than twice Sub-Saharan Africa’s entire GDP for a year.
Gosh, Jim. In what way does sub-Saharan Africa’s entire GDP for a year mean that the figure I quoted is insanely inaccurate?
The figures being quoted are $82bn per G8 country being donated in aid, whether the citizens (of the G8 countries) feel they need the money for themselves or not. Britain to donate $82bn; France to donate $82bn (they may have to dip into Jacques’ bank account here), the US to donate $82bn and so on.
I can’t be bothered to argue with you, Jim, because like all committed advocates with their hair on fire, there ae always have hundreds of thousands of statistics to back up their rapier-like debating points – and no one is going to spend a month disproving their figures with other research.
So you want to believe that Western aid to Africa has been a good deal for the world for the past 40 years.
Fine.
Sandy P,
By no means, just that Christian Aid is well known for their generous support of those organisations unable to buy arms for themselves – FRELIMO comes to mind initially – ain’t Western charity great?
Of course there is short term growth if you pump aid in just the bookies, bars and car dealers get a boost in some areas where the loot from a big drug deal ends up.
That isn’t the point,nobody seems to be addressing the reason why Africa always needs aid and has done for decades.Could it not be that something is systemically wrong and needs putting right
Of course there is short term growth if you pump aid in just the bookies, bars and car dealers get a boost in some areas where the loot from a big drug deal ends up.
That isn’t the point,nobody seems to be addressing the reason why Africa always needs aid and has done for decades.Could it not be that something is systemically wrong and needs putting right?
Jim writes:
“Fine, suit yourself, but I don’t think I need to bother arguing against a position that’s based not on any actual analysis of the evidence but on self-serving preconceptions.”
Here’s an analysis for you. It’s (in part) my money. I don’t want to give it to Africans. If the confessional seal were on the door, I suspect that quite a lot of people would feel the same.
If you care about Africa as much as you claim, go there. Do something. Just get your bloody hand out of my pocket.
Thanks awfully, but I’ll donate to the charities I chose – not those inflicted on my tax bill by racists afflicted with post-colonial guilt.
What G Cooper said, and I couldn’t have said it more directly myself.
Jim, you seem to be wilfully misreading what I write. I do not doubt that if you send aid to a fucked up nation, it will increase the level of economic activity compared to the same fucked up nation without aid. But that is only a good thing f you ignore the fact the nation is fucked up and just look at the economic activity as if it was happening with no particular context.
But get out of your box for a moment and look at why the nation is fucked up. Even if the aid increases economic activity, if it also has the effect of aiding and abetting the causes that the aid is intending to alleviate, is the aid really such a good idea? That is why the analysis is really bollocks because it is actually answering the wrong questions.
Kim…
To be honest I am really not thinking about African nations at all but rather nations elsewhere, such as Asia and Latin America, yet which somehow manage to avoid being such complete basket cases. Is there really any inherent reason that people in Costa Rica, hell, even Guatamala, are vastly better off than in the Congo or Burundi?
And also, G Cooper, grandstanders establishing an international reputation – speeches, photo ops, dishonourably giving away taxpayers’ money to no benefit to the taxpayer – hoping to establish a lucrative speaking and consultancy career in the United States once having left office.
Blair can pay for every injection and pill in Africa against whatever out of his and Cherie’s bank account, after they’ve serviced their £13,000 mortgage obligation each month (wouldn’t want to lose the property!), if that’s his priority. People who spend six hours a day asking, “Would you like fries with that?” and who work in call centres saying, “May I have your password and date of birth, please? I’m sorry, sir, I know you’re angry, but I am not allowed to help you until you assure me of your identity” may feel that they could deploy that money better in their own lives. Servicing their own debt.
Nobody has ask yet what effect taking such vast sums out of western economies will be.Which little projects wont get started,what part of our ramshackle infrastructure will be allowed to rot
Perry – to all those insistent people who, out of adolescent sentimentality, socialist hatred of their own race and whose ignorance of the world is eerie, again I say, read “Eat The Rich” by P J O’Rourke. Tanzania is richer in natural resources by mind-boggling amounts by every scale except human determination, than Hong Kong. Tanzania has every known natural resource in abundance.
Hong Kong (and Singapore, but that’s not in PJ’s book) have nothing. Zero. Singapore does not even have water. It has to buy it to be pumped in across the Straits of Malacca from a foreign country.
Singaporeans are driving new Toyotas – whatever – that cost around $100,000 due to government purchase tax on cars, but they don’t care, they want the car. They have the money.
No natural resources. Not even water. Yet thriving businesses, beautifully dressed people, nail salons, a wonderful, clean, efficient mass transit system, personal trainers, air-conditioning that makes Houston feel hellish, holidays overseas, kids at uni in Oz, the UK or the US, no mosquitoes because if call to say you saw a mosquito they will be outside your door within 20 minutes with a huge truck and ghostbuster outfits keeping the island mosquito-free, the world’s best airport, an airline which is consistently voted the world’s best by business travellers …
Gosh, what is this tiny, resource-free island doing wrong not to be eligible for aid from the G8?
Singapore
But isn’t the government there worried that the clever people aren’t reproducing at a sufficient rate? As in all the developed world?
Aid to Africa may have had one positive effect – to cause the population there to double.
Before anyone says “positive? Eh?” remember the saying of the late (Lord) Peter Bauer: “Why is it that when a cow calves, this is marked as a plus, and when a child is born, it is marked as a minus?” [I quote loosely].
Also Julian Simon: “People are humanity’s greatest resource.” [Again, I quote loosely]
God knows where these thoughts lead: I’ve just put them down to cause confusion.
“Before anyone says “positive? Eh?” remember the saying of the late (Lord) Peter Bauer: “Why is it that when a cow calves, this is marked as a plus, and when a child is born, it is marked as a minus?” [I quote loosely].”
Probably because a calf is a resource in the way that a child isn’t for agrarian societies – the calf will grow, be milked or eaten in a year or two, with little input if grazing & water are freely available. The human baby is helpless & dependant for far longer.
One of those inconvenient facts of the ‘Mother nature’ that so many liberal thinkers admire…..
And Julian Morrison believes, of course, that any money that an African nation does not pay to service their debt will be spent on hospitals, schools, puppy dogs, and rainbows. He knows, with an absolute certainty, that said funds won’t go into the pocket of each and every one of those thugs’/thieves’/murderers’ pockets. After all, if the last 40 years have taught us anything, it is that African tyrants and dictators care only about the welfare of their people.
David, there is no need to be facetious. Without wishing to speak for Julian, I think the point is that there should never have been loans given to said ‘thugs/theives/murderers’ in the first place as their only ability to repay those loans was based on unscrupulous taxation. The fact that such taxation may continue and be used for other things seems of little consequence to the people who lose their money either way. Furthermore the cancellation of interest on debt is not ‘funds’ to anyone as Julian mentioned.
The first thing that could be done to help Africans is delegitmising their tinpot dicatators and, whatever your take on current loans, they should certainly never be given any more.
I heard an interesting spin on this yesterday. The basket cases in Africa are either in default, or about to go into default on their loans, i.e. the money has gone, kaput, disappeared, never to be seen again.
Our clever politicians wouldn’t look too good losing all our money like this so, hey presto, debt relief. Saint Tony and Saint Gordon bask in the glory of their new found sainthood, all of the suckers whose money was lost have a warm glow of happiness thinking that they’ve helped the starving millions, and the third world gets to apply for more loans.
A win-win situation for everybody.
Findlay Dunachie – You haven’t caused confusion. You have caused vapidity. As noted above about the calf by Julia M.
Yes, tiny Singapore is worried about its non-growing population. No need to preface the thought with “But”. That is not in contradiction to anything I wrote about the genius and industry of the people.
“People are humanity’s greatest resource.” Depends on the people. In Singapore and Hong Kong – unquestionably. They are the only resource. In Africa, no.
John East, do most people really admire Toneboy and Fat Gordy for giving away their tax money? Wouldn’t most of them prefer the money to stay in Britain, to the benefit of the British families who paid the taxes?
“Gosh, Jim. In what way does sub-Saharan Africa’s entire GDP for a year mean that the figure I quoted is insanely inaccurate?”
Well, I would have hoped that it would provide some context for you to evaluate the likelihood of what you were saying, but apparently not.
But don’t worry, there are other reasons why your figure is insanely inaccurate. The fact that total aid to Africa is about $20bn a year at the moment, for example, and that nobody is talking about doing anything more than doubling that.
But come on, humour me: where exactly did you get this $820bn a year figure? You say the figure of $82bn per G8 country (which would make $656bn, surely?) is being ‘quoted’. Where? By who? I’d love to know. And if you’ve just pulled it out of thin air or simply completely misunderstood something, I do you’ll retract it. Otherwise you’ll just continue looking silly.
“I can’t be bothered to argue with you, Jim, because like all committed advocates with their hair on fire, there ae always have hundreds of thousands of statistics to back up their rapier-like debating points – and no one is going to spend a month disproving their figures with other research.”
Translation: “I have no idea what I’m talking about, but will continue waffling on about it anyway until you realised that trying to argue using mere ‘facts’ and ‘statistics’ is completely pointless”.
Well don’t bother, because I’ve already reached that conclusion.
Hell, nearly half of the UK’s productivity is swallowed up by government, and we are supposed to be one of the freer nations! That the Africans will be able to do a better job of beating off a gun toting government with pointy sticks to keep them away from their money is a fantasy.
Free money does terrible damage to progress in a country. That is why many countries with rich resources have illiberal dictatorships and poor standards of living. The reason being that it is by far easier for the government to live off the “free money” or the sales of relatively easily gathered natural resources than it is to actually create effective programmes to create a robust, secondary industry or service based, economy that will allow the average Joe to dig himself out of poverty. When there is no incentive, there is no action.
However, capital is needed to begin the transformation in the first place. The question is, should this be in the form of aid, loans, or something else?
I think we can throw aid out of the window straight away, it’s just robbing people and throwing their money away. Charity based aid is by far more moral, although I am not sure that it is any more effective.
Loans would have been a good idea, if the governments were effective enough to use the loans to set up a decent economy, and get on the road to a wealthy nation that can afford to pay back its loans. This chance was squandered however, and since they now know we will just cancel the debt, the incentive is gone. (Although I can’t say that keeping them constantly in debt was agreat idea either, so I am ambivalent about that issue. I say this because if they had used the loans fruitfully in the first place, they would have been a good idea, but since they failed, they were just sucking wealth out of country. When the debts are cancelled, somebody is losing out on the interest, so once the african governments wasted it all, we were stuck in a position where we were damned no matter what we did.)
So, in conclusion, if we don’t give them money in the short term, people will starve. The Government has no right to take people’s money and give it to someone else, so government-government aid is totally out of the question for me. If we DO give the aid through charities, less people will starve in the short term, but the governments won’t ever change their ways, so we will get stuck in a cycle of hand-to-mouth economics in Africa, and so we will either have to keep paying short term aid, or one day stop doing so and watch people die until the government changes its ways. It all depends on whether there are any sanctions we can take against those governments that will encourage them to start on the road to prosperity for their people, that aren’t economic in nature. If there are such sanctions, then we could use them to persuade the governments to get on the right track as soon as possible, while encouraging those who would support government-government aid to give to a specific and effective charity instead..
It’s a dilemma, but it’s not a dilemma of our making. It’s a dilemma created by bad governance in Africa, which is now throwing their immorality on the shoulders of the West, and making it our problem. Probably the number once thing we can do which is best in the long term, is start making free trade a reality.
Jim – I got it off Google and I am not going to wade through it all again to provide you with a reference.
I really don’t care what the exact figures are, as they’re all manipulated anyway. Even if the sum total they “borrowed” is £2,124, they should be made to pay it back.
What all you matahamas are doing is treating the Africans like irresponsible children. It wasn’t their fault that they signed up for bad loans. Awwww ….
“John East, do most people really admire Toneboy and Fat Gordy for giving away their tax money? Wouldn’t most of them prefer the money to stay in Britain, to the benefit of the British families who paid the taxes?”
Verity, I suspect most people probably don’t care, some think anything we can do to atone for our colonial oppressive past, and current capitalist exploitation is worth doing, and some would prefer the money to stay in Britain.
We have a couple of generations now who have only ever known wealth. It’s quite easy for these people to be magnanimous.
What colonial oppression would that be, please? Are you thinking of the Belgians and the Dutch?
Our former colonies got the English language and they got law and an organised civil service. Look what India did with the gifts we left behind. We left in 1946. Indian has had the nuclear bomb for a decade. It will be a very powerful country in around 10 years. It has a vast middle class – 450m people who can afford cars, satellite TV, dishwashers, etc. It is fizzing with energy and clever, motivated people.
Let me ask you this: Why have British and American corporate giants chosen to export their call centres to India and not Nigeria? Why is wealth from medical tourism pouring into India and not Ghana or Malawi?
I don’t know whether we ever made India any loans – but some Samizdata out there will know – but if we did, they have long since all been paid back, according to the terms.
Verity, you will get no argument from me concerning the points you raise, I am in full agreement with you. When I said, “….some think anything we can do to atone for our colonial oppressive past, and current capitalist exploitation is worth doing….” I didn’t mean that I agreed with them.
One statement that I made in my post was a bit clumsy, so before anyone pounces on me I would like to take this opportunity to rephrase:
“We have a couple of generations now who have only ever known wealth. It’s quite easy for these people to be magnanimous.”
To:
“We have a couple of generations now who have only ever known wealth. It’s quite easy for these people to be generous without foreseeing the potential negative consequences such as the fostering of a dependancy culture and loss of self reliance.
And one more thing about India – it has a huge, disciplined and motivated armed services.
The country built, with great intelligence – despite their loony socialist lapses – on what we left and one day they will surpass us in wealth and influence.
John
Plus a couple of generations who have been afflicted with left wing education policies. It’s inevitable that many will be unthinking.
Forget Bob, Hernando has the answers to global poverty.
Pete_London – Yes, of course. I don’t think these people have any concept that the government is their servant and should be forced to do their will. Za-NuLab has manufactured a couple of generations of completely passive, ignorant people who have no idea of their history and no knowledge of their past.
EU-Serf – Have you read it? Does it address why capitalism works in Singapore and Hong Kong – not Western by any stretch of the imagination? And India?
It has been said that loans should not be made to despots with poor nations,but if someone else is willing to pick up the tab there will always be lenders.
In a few months time most of those who have had the debt written off wil be borrowing again,why? Because they will still have no money in the exchequer.
Can there be any doubt that no serious financial institution worthy of the name would ever want to lend a cent to the affected African/other nations again after this decision by the G8. It is, of course, so easy to be generous with other folks’ money.
I sometimes wonder whether Africa would now be richer than Hong Kong if all the aid money had been invested wisely along laissez faire lines.
“Can there be any doubt that no serious financial institution worthy of the name would ever want to lend a cent to the affected African/other nations…..”
Johnathan, I also had this thought, but just imagine if you were a senior executive of a large bank, or maybe the World Bank/IMF. You would probably stand to make a huge bonus for yourself by negotiating a third world loan. You might then consider the fate of the bankers who made loans in the past, i.e. ample rewards, perhaps a few knighthoods, and no comebacks or penalties for what they did.
I think that bankers will be cueing up to give more money away just as soon as the dust dies down.