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From: turner@ucbesvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Using tax money to feed hung
Message-ID: <7500079@ucbesvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 01:49:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbesvax.7500079
Posted: Thu Mar 29 01:49:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Mar-84 04:18:36 EST
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Nf-From: ucbesvax!turner    Mar  1 22:49:00 1984

> /***** ucbesvax:net.politics / watmath!saquigley /  2:03 am  Mar  1, 1984*/
> Subject: Re: Re: Using tax money to feed hungry people
> My understanding of foreign aid is that the US gets more money back from
> the governments it is "helping" than the original amount of money given to
> these countries in the form of "aid".  If this is so, arguing about whether
> your tax money should go to "charities" is simply ridiculous, since "aid"
> can simply be considered as an investment of the taxpayers' money by the
> state, and not as money that is thrown away never to be seen again.

Frances Moore Lappe' of the Institute for Food and Development Policy in
San Francisco has written a book called "Aid as Obstacle" which might have
some supporting data and further references.  There is nothing wrong with
*profitable* foreign aid per se, but at the moment much of the profit is
made at the expense of the supposed beneficiaries.

These claims might be out of date, however, by having been based on expected
returns (via interest payments) on loans to the third world.  Basically, it
seems that western nations went way out on a limb to lend to nations that
turned out to be economically represented by groups of people on the take.
Of course, you know who will pay for setting them up in style: us.  IMF and
the World Bank will absorb their losses out of tax money.

So much for do-gooder banking.  And the U.S.-designed land reform programs
("We'll be breeding capitalists like rabbits", said an AID official in
El Salvador) seem, at this point, to be a similar disaster.  Frances Moore
Lappe's basic message is: our aid has done more harm than good.  While
she sees possibilities for *real* aid, she would probably take a total
cut-off as a good sign.

(This doesn't make her some kind of Libertarian/isolationist, however.
She has spent time in Nicaragua trying to help them sort out their
mess.  She returned somewhat discouraged, by her own lights.  She is
now an official in Democratic Socialists of America, and heads up
the Institute mentioned above.)

She also co-wrote "Food First", a good place to start for those who
are serious about problems of world hunger.  I don't mind saying that
she is one of my all-time heroes.  Those who advocate contraception
and industrialization as panaceas for feeding the world are advised
to stay away from her books if they really want to keep their comforting
old opinions--at least, until the disaster is fully upon them.
---
Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)