Giving money to people never works, money is nothing more than a means of exchange..
Sweeping statement, That is your opinion, but don't try passing it off as fact. I could give you money on the basis you invested it in a high interest bank account. Therefore it works. True wealth comes from the goods and services created in an economy.
Agree, but again Refer to my original point. Money would be better spent starting up business in africa rather than giving it as aid..
So you want the west to intervene even more in the politics and business of African nations, where we could teach them how to set up their own business instead...? and its not a one time investment, investments give you a return. give a bum food today and he would be still be begging for food tomorrow..
The Old "Teach a man to fish," fits the bill here.
and we need to directly interfere in their government???
By Making business over there, we would be directly interfering in their economy, which would also lead to interfering in their government. I am sorry but this never works out for good, every time another country interferes in another countries government, it just ends up messing it all up and causing more hatred.
Again, sweeping statement. There are plenty of interventions where it has done a world of good, I will take the British empire as an example. Without us there would be a lot more uncivilized countries out there. Its their government, we have no right to interfere. If they don't like it, they will overthrow it given time.
I agree we shouldn't interfere, but it's not necessarily true the people will overthrow the government, See North Korea.
What exactly isn't true? That africa is still poor and ever poorer after all the aid? google it
Africa is a continent, you cannot class it as "the continent" getting poorer with time.
or that prosperity is created with economic freedom and trade? google it..
I think you're forgetting you're arguing with CTW veterans in Qwerty and Fox, people who spend a lot of their free time researching things like this, so i'd advise not to tell them to "google it..."
Kenya is doing better because it opened up its economy more, not because of international aid..
Kenya would never have been able to open up it's economy without international aid, both in money and advice.
I agree its the corrupt, and war like states that are mostly failing, but thats because there is no economic freedom.
Not true.Just look at what happen when Zimbabwe started closing off its economy to the world and the government started interfering in it.. So why even give them aid when mostly all of it is stolen? People tend to overthrow bad governments given time.
See Above point.
and I never said anything about political freedom, just economic freedom, a big difference
Actually there isn't much difference at all, you'd be naive to think that politics and economy weren't linked. one can be politically free, i.e India is politically free but poor as hell because of low economic freedom enforced upon by the government.
India itself isn't poor, it just has a large population therefore the GDP per head is poor.India started doing better economically because of removing a lot of bad government regulation.
Not necessarily true, India started doing well because it embarked on it's own industrial revolution.
A better example would be china, very few political freedom but is gaining more and more economic freedom as government removed a lot of regulations that hindered private business.
Actually the economy has started to falter recently. Also the "private" businesses, are not as private as you might think. A lot of them are linked very strongly with the Chinese government. Their government has a hand in everything.
and Yes the Asian countries you listed has their own problems, but you cannot argue that they are not more prosperous than africa?
My argument is that instead of giving them all this money, just ask them to open upon their economy, actually invest in Africa and start business and trade with them. Heck give them free trade even, Africa would be less poor.. As places that opened up their economies prosper, other countries in africa will take note and follow.
You are assuming by this that Africans will know what to do with the larger economy and businesses. You have seen what's happened in the recession recently, if we didn't have an ounce of self sufficiency then we could have been worse of than Africa. The point is that we need to help Africa build it's own foundations, not place it on some fake ones.
This is what happen in asia, Japan saw what made britian and usa wealthy so they followed, south korean, taiwan and signapore followed japan, then most south east asian countries did the same, china saw all the people becoming richer and followed, India saw china was getting richer and followed.. and all without throwing billions in aid.. If china can lift millions out of poverty without little international aid, so can africa!
China was never in the same poverty as African countries, China for one has quite fertile lands.
