Tag Archives: Foreign Aid

Commentary

Is it possible that foreign aid can actually do more harm than good?

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A really good read by Stuart Schneiderman.

Excerpt:

…if you send boatloads of food to feed the world’s hungry, you are going to feel very good about yourself, but you are also going to destroy local agriculture.

No one can compete with “free.”

Gratifying your philanthropic urges can easily create a cycle of dependence, one that saps initiative, self-respect, and demeans individuals.

Keep in mind, no matter who begins these foundations, and no matter whose name is on the door, ultimately they will be run by people who are in the business of philanthropy, and that means, people who have made it their life’s work.

These people are not champions of the free market; they are not especially interested in building businesses. They are interested in assuaging guilt, their own or someone else’s, by giving away money.

These charities will be promoting liberal and progressive causes; they will become advocacy organizations. They will not be promoting capitalism.

It is a good thing to fund education. It makes you feel good to fund education. Except that the problem with education has very little to do with money.

Education is a system that has been run by liberals and progressives, with precious little interference from moderates and conservatives. More and more it has devoted itself to inculcating the values associated with political correctness and self-esteemism, rather than teaching children.

All the world’s money is not going to change that.

It’s one thing to give money to the poor and the indigent. Religions have always done as much. It’s quite another to create a special class of people who can promote their own ideology under cover of philanthropy.

When I give to charity, it is usually for specific speakers and conferences that my friends organize at universities and churches. I don’t believe in giving money to organizations like United Way and Amnesty International. I do not think it is a good idea to give money to left wing groups who view the poor as victims instead of as potential allies. I like foreign investments, free trade and micro loan programs, though.

Commentary

Jonah Goldberg explains why we should export capitalism

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Column from USA Today.

Excerpt:

In one NPR vignette, a mango farmer needs a small canal from a river abutting her property if she wants to expand her crop beyond two meager trees. Technology “Sumerians probably took for granted 5,000 years ago” could transform this single mother and her kids from “some of the poorest people on earth to much better off,” according to reporter Adam Davidson. But despite a surplus of both cheap ditch-digging labor and aid agencies, she can’t get a loan to build it.

“This is what kept striking us in Haiti, just a little upfront investment and people could be living so much better,” added fellow correspondent Chana Joffe-Walt.

Instead, Haitians themselves explain, most aid agencies spend much of their energies trying to justify their own existence rather than helping Haitians help themselves. There are important lessons here for U.S. policymakers, not just in regard to Haiti (hardly a national security priority) but also for such places as Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly now that President Obama has announced the combat phase of the Iraq project is coming to an end.

The “root causes” crowd always had a point about the effects of poverty on political stability. Where their case truly fell apart is in the remedy: economic planning from above. For decades, the “international community” bet on big-ticket state-run make-work jobs and white elephants. The West, including America, is expert at pouring aid into poor countries; it’s less adept at teaching poor countries how to stop being poor.

Capitalism and foreign investment work better than foreign aid. We should feel good when what we do produces good results. We should not fel good when we cause harm out of our uninformed good intentions. Results matter. We need to try different ideas and then stick with what works. Capitalism works.

News

Obama spent 23 million taxpayer dollars to promote abortion in Kenya

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Story here from Fox News. (H/T Jammie Wearing Fool via ECM)

Excerpt:

A Republican lawmaker is accusing the White House of “unconscionable” and “illegal” acts for its role in Kenya’s referendum on a new constitution, which would legalize abortion in the country for the first time.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey cited a report by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, which estimated that more than $23 million in U.S. taxpayer funds have been spent on the referendum, and Smith and other conservatives have complained that at least some of that money has been spent in sport of the proposed constitution, possibly violating U.S. law.

“Under no circumstances should the U.S. government take sides,” Smith said at a news conference Wednesday. “Yet that is precisely what the Obama administration has done.”

He and other lawmakers accuse the Obama administration of offering incentives to Kenya to approve the controversial new constitution, promising that passage would “allow money to flow” into the nation’s coffers. A federal law known as the Siljander Amendment makes it illegal for the U.S. government to lobby on abortion in other countries.

[…]One group that has received almost $3 million from the U.S. government, Development Alternatives, openly supported “advocating for efforts to eventually legalize abortion in Kenya,” Smith said. Another group, The Committee of Experts on Constitutional Review in Kenya, changed the wording of the Kenyan constitution’s abortion clause to make abortion more widely accessible – and has received over $180,000 from the U.S.

Thanks to these findings, nine of the more than 200 organizations in Kenya that received money from the U.S. have been suspended from receiving assistance, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Katya Thomas in Nairobi told the AP Friday.

But the congressmen are asking for more. They want the White House to be held accountable for its role.

“If violations of the law have occurred, which on the face of it they have, the information must be brought before law enforcement,” Smith said. “Not even presidents are above the law.”

We’re in a recession. Many people don’t even have jobs, and yet these socialist bunglers waste 23 million dollars of taxpayer money that could have been used by small businesses to create jobs.

And I thought that Democrats were opposed to American imperialism? I guess not.