I had to make an emphasis on why it hasnt worked since earl doesnt know that our intentions were never to make peace with those countries like iran but to rob them of their resources and force them to let us pay them dirt cheap prices for them. Guerilla said it right when he explained that the aid gets politized and used for other purposes. As far as the gulf of tonkin i knew a vet that was there and everyone and their grandma knew it was staged. Also look at nsam 273 which was changed during the same day almost as jfk was assasinated. Sorry earl most of the times when our government has given aid it has usually come with hidden intentions that wont be fullt disclosed until we check the papers in the freedom of information act. Saying it doesnt work isnt good enough, you have to coherently explain why. Northpoint can you understand this simple response better?
Pingpong: The opening thread had to do with a black and white response. Either give foreign aid at all or don't give it at all. Frankly, that very idea bothers me. Why make it black and white. That concept is naive in the midst of a big complex world. I don't put a lot of thought to foreign aid but let me speak to examples I've read about. From discussions here and in review of foreign aid to both African nations and Middle Eastern nations it does not appear that American foreign aid is the answer or a part of improving the lot of the population, eliminating poverty, expanding development or any other beneficial situations. On the other hand, foreign aid that went to Korea, much of Western Europe, Japan, etc. following WWII seemed to have helped all those nations in rebuilding devastated lands and ultimately contributed to the creation of democracies and strong economies. It could well have to do not only with the American aid, but as much to do with the nations themselves, the structures of those governments, the effort to put the aid to productive uses etc. Most nations in the Middle East have crummy governments that have restricted the rights of their citizens. Many of the governments in Africa have crummy governments that are rife with corruption. If we pour money into these nations through native governments the money may go nowhere's with regard to helping with the issues of diminishing poverty and helping to create more productive freer populations. Granted. Still take a look at Europe and imagine how devastated it was from years of all out war. The aid we poured into those nations had to have worked to help those nations get back on their feet and become productive. I'm sure it is similar with Korea and Japan that were devastated during WWII. As I mentioned, lets look at American foreign aid since WWII. Much of the political reasoning behind it was simply to counter the influence of the Soviet Union. Aid was spread around the world on this basis. Right, or wrong, American administrations saw this as a strategic effort to block Soviet expansion. In its defense, I have yet to see one of the nations that left the Soviet Union and reestablished their independance step up and want to rejoin Russia. Not one. The efforts were made to block the spread of totalitarian governments. On the other hand I'm at a loss now with regard of any nations beyond the ones I mentioned above that used aid as a critical step with regard to advancing democracies and improving their economic life. I just can't think of any. I could be mistaken. Military aid to Israel started to expand at the period of the 1967 war. The Soviet Union was arming Syria and Egypt. I doubt either nation was doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and for charitable reasons. Within the Middle East American aid to Egypt soared after the 1973 war and specifically after the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. The aid has not seen noticeable results in improving the lot of the Egyptian population. That is a repressive government. If anything I suspect it has "bought" peace. Since 1979, there have been no battles between Israel and Egypt while many battles have ensued between Israel and different groups (primarily Palestinians). If the goal was to buy peace...then it has worked. As far as the situation in Iran, I don't know all the history. If the US supported the monarchy in the 1950's I suspect it was part of that effort/countereffort to of responding to Soviet aid....or trying to buy influence before the Soviets gained influence. To the extent it kept the Soviets out of Iran it worked. To the extent that the current regime hates the US it didn't work. If the Shah's family was abusing Iranian citizens then clearly that is an example of the negatives of the foreign aid programs that the US has pursued. What is your reaction to the US sending in troops to Lebanon in 1983? It wasn't aid. It was an effort to try and establish peace in the midst of a never ending civil war. Do you believe that was an appropriate action by the US? In that I don't believe in a black and white solution about foreign aid, I pointed out the example above. China, Japan, and India are attempting to change the characteristics of world trade. China has led with this effort. Its efforts to gain greater access to necessary natural resources are including foreign aid to African nations, some development deals and other elements. The nature of the trade agreements they are developing are changing the characteristics of free trade. Essentially they are trying to corner the market on various natural resources for their own nation. That dramatically changes the economic landscape. If China is successful, world trade no longer is a simple function of demand and supply. It is a function of demand supply, and powerful agreements that twist theoretically free markets and provide Chinese industries with advantages of access that supercede free trade. I suggest that foreign aid is not a black or white....all or nothing formula. It requires looking at each case and evaluating what works and what doesn't work. In that vein in the long look of history of American foreign aid going back to the Post WWII period, I would suggest reevaluating aid to nations and governments that are miserable to their people and looking for different alternatives. I simply don't believe in shutting it off in all cases. Now two more anecdotal examples. In the book about Paul O'Neill, ex treasury secretary in the Bush adiministration during 2001-2003 a short piece is dedicated to his trip to Africa with Bono. Among the things that came out of it were that O'Neill went directly to visit people in the lands and uncovered how access to water was a prime problem. He questioned many there, brought in engineers with experience and received preliminary confirmations that simple wells could be provided at about $1 million each that would bring more water to more people. He proposed this within the administration. It was shot down. There were competing proposals of complexity for aid through the native governments of tens, hundreds of millions or billions. The well experiment went nowhere. Suppose under O'Neill's proposal 10 wells were developed at a total cost of $10million. That is an amount that this rich nation can easily afford. Suppose 4 worked well. That would have been a great exercise of contribution stemming from the government at a cost effective basis and reaching directly into the population where it needs it most. A very beneficial arrangement. On the other hand I think about the efforts of Dikembe Mutombo, (the professional basketball player.) Motumbo is a native of Africa (I'm afraid I don't know off the top of my head which nation. Years ago he pledged the development of a hospital within his native land. This guy has significant wealth and access to many with great wealth (all those wealthy professional athletes). He has worked continuously to raise funds. His fame gives him access to funds that others can't replicate. His effort has taken years. Part of the difficulty was in raising sufficient funds to pay for this effort. Delivery of the hospital was delayed for years in part because of the fundraising difficulty. The US as a foreign aid giver....could have provided the $10 million in no time flat and undertaken the charitable aid mission in an incredibly fast time relative to the efforts of Mutombo's personal effort at charity(aid) even as he has tremendous access to wealth. Why aren't opportunities like this exposed. I am neither for or against foreign aid as an all or nothing statement. When the question is put forth in that manner I think it generally never looks at what is happening in the real world, and what the alternatives might be. Dave
Neither Earl nor myself missed anything, Ping. Your missing of "no," or a negation, is pretty key, since it is the opposite of "yes," or an affirmation. Pretty sure I and others can understand whatever you wish to bring up - provided it's not written in broken language.
And now a response to Guerilla: First, I note that since I published a real life example of where foreign aid provided by the US might be vitally important to the US economy and population for certain economic sectors, you have not responded to the issue. The issue again is that first China, followed by India and Japan have set up direct combinations of foreign aid and development deals with a large number of African nations. From the perspective of the three Asian nations, the effort is intended to give them stronger access to natural resources from Africa. These are efforts to circumvent and change the nature of free trade into some sorts of exclusive trade deals giving the 3 nations first rights and stronger access to natural resources that the nations deem critical to their economies. My claim is that if the US does nothing in the face of these agreements the US stands to lose access to these resources. That can damage existing US industries that rely on these resources. It would or could either drive the industries out of business thereby costing US businesses valuable sources of wealth development, jobs, etc. It would weaken the economy. Alternatively it could dramatically increase the costs of these materials as the "free world access" to such commodities would be reduced. Less supply for those nations that don't have these kinds of exclusive rights contracts or agreements. If it resulted in higher prices...that would have the same kind of dampening effect on this economy that we are seeing right now from the tremendous increase in oil prices. Anyone can see that. In fact one of the commodities is oil. Your only response, which I copied earlier was this..... I bolded that last part. Anyone who believes in trying to create a thriving economy and who has engaged in business would be struck and horrified by that statement. These businesses are competitors on a world stage. If they can compete they contribute to the economic well being of the nation and the people within it. If they can't compete for whatever reasons they detract from the economic well being and strength of the nation. This reality flies in the face of every one of your economic beliefs. It flies in the face of your pronouncements of government which uniquely address every action by government as negative. I keep commeting that this political philosophy is naive and doesn't hold weight in the real world. I offered an example wherein the application of your philosophy wouldn't hold weight. You responded by calling people losers. If that is the best you can do, so be it. As to the comments wherein I identified that you were wrong, lets go back over your responses. In trying to respond on this example you were flying around with all kinds of comments. None of them had any application to this real life example. I suppose if you can't respond to the issue it makes sense to scream about other things. Lets look at some of the things I identified that were wrong and your responses. 1. You claimed that America started the war in Vietnam. I responded that the French were fighting the North Vietnamese and Vietnamese communists way before any involvement by the US. Instead of responding to that historical truism you made comments about The Gulf of Tonkin. Maybe a little history would help you. Following that event the French were defeated by Ho Chi Minh at Dien Bien Phu. American military involvement in Vietnam which was dramatically limited until 1964 started toward the end of French involvement. Essentially, the American military involvement was minimal until 1964. So did America "start the war in Vietnam. I assume by that you mean Western involvement. Well based on history one could say that the French were fighting there from the 19th century. Following WWII they were fighting there for about 8 years. Essentially Gulf of Tonkin occurred 19 years after the French started fighting the Vietnamese after WWII and American's didn't escalate into a large war for about 10-11 years after the French left Vietnam. Somehow history doesn't seem to bear out your comments. 2. For some reason instead of trying to deal with the real life example of aid that I presented you were off on some tangent about welfare. You commented that welfare never worked. I supplied commentary on a different perspective. Here is a link from Wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty An excerpt from that article supplies some statistics. To recap.....for some reason in this thread about foreign aid you brought up all kinds of issues that have nothing to do with foreign aid, including this reference to the war on poverty. in fact...and I'll quote you from this thread on foreign aid..... In response to that I put forth a longer historical perspective. In fact the Wikipedia reference above states that since the War on Poverty the level of people below the population is roughly 1/2 of the long term American average. The real efforts of the War on Poverty lasted about 4-9 years. Nixon worked to dismantle much of it during his term in office starting in 1969. It would appear that during a 4-9 year period the efforts of the War on Poverty essentially served to cut in 1/2 the poverty rate. Thereafter the program was dismantled and American poverty rates have remained at a flat rate. I don't know why you brought up American poverty in the first place in a thread on foreign aid. Could it be that it was a technique to keep you from addressing the specific example I brought up, aside from your calling business people losers. Secondly if you are going to throw statistics around don't throw some self serving half truth around. That is as good as lying. Throw out the entire story and let people decide for themselves. If you want to decide and learn about the war on poverty read the entire entry at wikipedia and other information. Then make a decision. Don't throw out 1/2 statistics that are used for political purposes only. Oh wait, I have an idea why you might have thrown out these comments about the War on Poverty and Vietnam. You made this assertion which I discounted as point 4. As I rebutted earlier, I never in my original comments said a thing about helping Africa. I brought up the economic competition that China, Japan, and India have created and debated the issue on those merits. I repeat, a topic about poverty in Africa is a worthwhile topic. It is not the debate in this thread. I never referenced it. I noticed that subsequently you dropped the topic and the assertion. That was a positive on your behalf. No sense continuing to argue something that you completely made up. Finally the last point. You asserted, and I quote.... I highlighted the last part of that sentence before and after. I don't believe, nor have I seen statistics that would bear out that the post war boom was a result of women entering the workplace. Your response on this one is a joke. You didn't do a lot but you cited this link....http://post.economics.harvard.edu/fa...worldwarII.pdf The title of that piece of research is "The Role of World War II in the rise of women's employment." The conclusion of the study was that WWII had minimal impact on the rise of women's employment. No wonder you didn't try and comment any further then supply a link. Reading the report would have totally negated your assertion. I maintain that women's involvement in the economy probably didn't have a big impact until about the 1970's and beyond when women started to make progress in positions of greater value, and salary. It was an interesting read though. The research found that there were substantial numbers of women employed in the work force prior to WWII. The number increased during the war. It dropped immediately after the war as men took back the jobs that women held while the men were overseas during the war years. Then following a couple of years women started to return to the workforce, though not at tremendous numbers or in a significant volume of higher value, higher paying jobs. Thanks for the reference. It seems to back up my point. Finally, in responding to PingPong's comments I pointed out that foreign aid was extensively used after WWII to provide money to Western Europe to help rebuild those nations after the devastation of the war. Your commentary on that was opinion. You stated that Germany recovered fastest. That slides right by the point and is opinion, not history. In fact the program was called the Marshall Plan and provided between $12-13 billion dollars to many European nations. It was provided to nations that did not fall under control of the Soviets. All the nations took the money. All the nations used the money. None of them gave it back. They all rebounded economically from WWII. It was part of the process. Some rebounded faster than others. That makes sense. West Germany responded economically faster than Britain and France. More power to them. The Germans didn't refuse the money or give it back. They used it as part of their recovery program. More power to the West Germans for rebounding economically. The aid program helped them. Of interest, there were political ties to the aid program that required buying items from the US and later during the years of the program, items from Canada. The aid program enabled the European nations to rebound more quickly and additionally helped fuel the Canadian and American economies. Seems like a win win situation in my book. I don't claim that all aid is wonderful. I made subsequent comments responding to PingPong's comments. It would seem that some aid to some governments is wasted and falls into the wrong hands. Other aid is well used. I'd suggest rather than eliminating all aid America looks at it with a far better eye, in part by studying the successes and failures of the past, and move it in directions where it will be most beneficial. If it falls into dictators hands, eliminate it. If it is used to promote economic well being, terrific. If it benefits American policies and strength, excellent. If it has bought peace by the Egyptians, I'd say that on an overall basis I'd consider it a plus. Meanwhile, if you can come up with a reason why American government actions and aid shouldn't be used to allow existing American businesses to continue to compete on an ongoing basis in a changing world economy, facing new challenges from China, India, and Japan, please feel free to express it. If you are going to go off on some political tangents and misquote me....drop the topic and move on to some other issue. 1
Earl, 1800 words is ridiculous. If it is your intention to bury me under thousands of words, you're winning. I posted around 300 words, and you reply with an argument 6 times longer. But you're still saying very little, despite using so many more words... That's protectionism, not free trade. I've asked you to backup these assertions before. They are strictly conjecture. It could cause plagues, earthquakes, famine bla blabla. You're not explaining by what economic principle any of these things might happen, and how correlation would equal causation. The "dampening effect" has been caused by a recession, triggered by loose monetary policy. That same monetary policy has driven up the price of oil in USD as I have empirically shown you numerous times. Oil is sold on a world market, typically in USD. Your entire argument is redundant and fallacious. Please stop trying to appeal to authority. Competition is the enemy of subsidization and protection. So why mix your terms? And "for whateve reasons" is not a valid argument. What you are proposing, which is a lot of neurotic paranoia and conjecture without basis, flies in the face of my beliefs. The Gulf of Tonkin is a historic truism. America started the Vietnam war. You brought the French into a discussion, that was based around America starting the Vietnam War. You are the one trying to avoid addressing, that America started the Vietnam war. In fact, you still haven't refuted my statement, that America started the Vietnam war. No, I mean American involvement. America entered the war, after fabricating a false flag attack. During that war, 60,000 Americans were killed, and over a million Vietnamese. On a fake, contrived war. I never brought up the French, nor do I think the French were relevant to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, or the false flag attacks engineered to get us suckered into one of our worst wars ever. The suckering of course being done by our government and military. What were my comments specifically that history does not bear out? Source? Right, like bringing the French into the discussion on Vietnam, you have to change the argument in order to fashion any sort of position. Go back and read what I wrote. It is 100% accurate to the facts you supplied. Thanks. It only backs up your point if you like to smoke crack cocaine. That's from page 755, or page 16 of the PDF. I don't have to supply more than the link, not when you are incapable of supplying the minimum amount of reading imaginable. I stated that Germany recovered quickest. I was correct. Germany implemented a free market approach, against the wishes of America and England, and it succeeded. Other countries like Britain, tried managed economics and protectionism, and they were slow to recover. History is full of such examples. Managed economies and intervention inevitably fail. Of course. When did you ever say anything that cut to the chase? Yes, we should form committees, generate reports, hold hearings, conduct analysis etc. I have. You are not capable of addressing it honestly or directly, which is why you post 5 times as much content as I do, still not making your points, refuting me or adding anything to the discussion. All you've shown is that you can't make a good argument, you can just argue. And that means that continuing to debate with you, is pointless. We're not going to get anywhere if you are going to disagree because things do not sit well with you (Vietnam was a contrived war) but not offer anything meaningful in return. You don't understand economics, you don't understand business, and you don't understand history. It's absolutely frustrating on my part, because even lorien, Mia etc and I can find common ground economically, if not politically. But you are a state apologist playing the contrarian. It's a shame the state doesn't have anyone better to defend it. Foreign aid is immoral. There are people in this country who live in poverty, who lack opportunities and medical care. To appropriate their funds and give it to the Saudis, Israelies, Egyptians etc is criminal. The entire notion that such is needed for our economy is also false, implying that we have to "cash back" to keep the economy that we work in going. I stand behind my other comments as I have defended some of them to you twice, despite the lack of your contributing anything honest or meaningful to the discussion. You haven't mounted any sort of fact based opinion, except that if we don't give aid to Africa, terrible things (which you can't name) will unequivocally happen to our economy. It's just nonsense and babbling in my opinion. As far as I am concerned, the topic is dropped.
This is completely false. The postwar German picture was one of government under the Chancellorship of Konrad Adenauer and his finance Minister, Ludwig Eberhard, who created and pursued a policy of soziale marktwirtschaft, or "social market economy." It is a mixed economic model, which combines market economics with a mind on national strategy and social goods. It was under this system that Germany experienced its "economic miracle," its Wirtschaftwunder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy#History Another view: http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/history/bl_soc_market_economy.htm And so forth. It is simply false that Germany recovered under the aegis of a "free market" economy. France similarly experienced its golden recovery, its "Trente Glorieuses," or "Thirty Glorious (years, 1945-1975)" - under an extremely directed economy, dirigisme. The dirigiste model took a view of national prioritization in economic sectors, particularly in state/private credit and financing instruments (Crédit Agricole and other financing entities; in many ways, France's model was something like MITI and the state in postwar Japan), seeing economic health, by state-directed strategy and a mixed economy, as the key to recovery. The postwar history bears this out. The same system of soziale marktwirtschaft was pursued in Austria, with similar positive, "miraculous" results - in particular, it should be noted that postwar Austria nationalized its industries. Please note: I am not advocating here a particular economic weltaunschaung, to keep it to theme. I am saying that (1) The theory of "free market" genesis for the German recovery, as promulgated, doesn't square with the reality of the postwar history. It's important to look at actual history to know whether the theory we come in with squares with what happens between human beings on the ground; and (2) the real world often requires precise solutions to precise historical contexts and problems, that cannot be crammed into the formulae derived from ideologically informed worldviews. Bit of a plug for a book by my old prof, Dr. John Zysman, whose work in comparative political economy among the Western European nations is exhaustive and sound. See in particular his seminal work, Governments, Markets, and Growth: Financial Systems and Politics of Industrial Change (Cornell Studies in Political Economy), which discusses these issues rigorously.