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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:09 am Post subject: |
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| I vote for douch on the policy front and mildly talented on the musical front. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:00 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
| butlerian wrote: |
| You're great with insults |
Thanks, B. Honestly, that is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me today. It was a tough Monday.
I'll reciprocate:
I admire your single-mindedness. |
Bono has donated millions of dollars to Africa, has tried to help people with AIDs. Arguing that charity simply creates dependence is like saying giving college grants makes university students lazy. There is a Canadian youth who is building water wells in Africa. With the way some are arguing, Africans should be left to die of thirst... Africans need certain fundamentals before they can develop. I do not believe in just donating money to people. There has to be tangible development and no one can really say Bono doesn't donate to that. Anyway, you people seem to think it is okay to leave hungry people to die and chastise Bono for that.
Yes, he is wealthy, but he was not born wealthy. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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You have essentialised Africa.
At the time of post-colonialism, many African states were doing very well. Ghana was among the most wealthy states of the British Empire. Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa. And so on.
But the last 60+ years have been a disaster. They don't need Canadians with guilt going over there building water wells. They need their governments to get the hell out of the way of them building their own.
So naive. Seriously, check out the "credibility of rules" development framework. Bono and his millions don't matter jack and/or sh.it in the grand scheme of things. Neither does their debt. They need to grow their economies and develop markets. And their governments stand in the way of this. The Western aid props up the structures of power just enough that the people are unwell but not mass starving to death and at the same time too weak and poor to challenge the state.
Unfortunately, the big problems won't be with naive Westerners anymore but with the Chinese. They don't give a damn. |
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koon_taung_daeng
Joined: 28 Jan 2007
Location: south korea
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| hey OP *beep* you! he has done alot for the world, while all you do is try to rag on him, foreign aid goes straight to the people, this affects individuals in corrupt countries that need food. How can anybody say that feeding a starving child is bad? Plus since he is a celebrity with a huge fan base he can have his voice heard. he is simply saying " LOOk AT THESE STARVING ASS PEOPLE" so lets feed them |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| he has done alot for the world |
He may be making things worse but distracting donors and Western states from real ideas developed by development economists. Read the article the OP posted.
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| foreign aid goes straight to the people, |
No, it doesn't. Almost 100% of the time, there is a middle beuarcacy that absorbs a huge amont. In addition, food aid (think North Korea) ends up being sized by government and given to security services. At the same time, this food aid wipes out the domestic agriculture industry (hard to compete with free).
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| this affects individuals in corrupt countries that need food. |
They need food because our aid has wiped out their ability to grow their own.
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| How can anybody say that feeding a starving child is bad? |
Nobody would say that. But, facilitating a system in which all kids are likely to be hungry isn't just bad, but down and down evil.
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Plus since he is a celebrity with a huge fan base he can have his voice heard. he is simply saying " LOOk AT THESE STARVING ASS PEOPLE" so lets feed them |
Well, no. He is saying quite a bit more than that. He is a big believer in using aid (google "Jubilee") to pay down debt (which the governments use this new equity to borrow more, from China) rather than building a real economy.
Leave the singing to Bono and the economics and development to development economists.
Last edited by thepeel on Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| �If someone wants to help you, they shouldn�t do it by destroying the very thing that they�re trying to promote" |
- George Odo explains the decision of CARE - one of the world�s biggest charities - to stop administering US food aid for African countries, since it undermines agriculture in those countries. Interviewed in NYT (via The Insider).
http://www.johannorberg.net/
Here is the original article.
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The elite technology show has come to Africa. Africans are pleading for investment, which angers the Irish rock star.
Bono, of U2, attended the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Tanzania.
Technology, Entertainment, Design, Chris Anderson's invitation-only conference for the good and great of technology, has come to Africa, but on the first day we heard very little about technology.
Anderson somehow convinced about a thousand people to come to rural Tanzania.
Many of the princes of Silicon Valley are here, including Google's Larry Page, the venture capitalist John Doerr, and Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline and Walker Digital. The rock star Bono (who suggested to Anderson that he host an African show) turned up. But there are people here from 40 countries, including (mercifully) many Africans.
Anderson says the purpose of the show is to tell the story of an Africa that is newly entrepreneurial, growing in wealth, more and more tech-savvy, and increasingly politically stable.
He says, "It's a story that is unfolding in villages, towns, and cities across the continent--and it's a story that's not well known outside of Africa."
So far, the show has been bluntly promotional. I felt I might have been attending a meeting of the heads of different African Chambers of Commerce. Indeed, the first speaker was the U.S. head of the South African Chamber of Commerce.
There have been some consistent themes. The first is that the media is morally culpable for propagating images of African poverty, famine, war, and despair. This made me feel impatient. Surely we can agree that while there are other, more benign stories in Africa, journalists are not misrepresenting reality when they write about poor, hungry, beaten, and despairing Africans?
But the second, more interesting theme--echoed by every speaker--is that traditional aid and charity, whether distributed by nation-states or nongovernmental bodies, have failed. Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist and social worker, now a fellow at Stanford, made the case most strongly. He argued convincingly that 30 years of Western aid to Africa has achieved nothing at all. More, he said that the persistence of African poverty could be explained, in part, by aid. He explained that aid had convinced the brightest Africans to work for corrupt governments rather than as entrepreneurs, and it had "distorted the incentive structure."
"What man or nation," Mwenda asked, "has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?"
Far better, he said, is finding Westerners to invest in African entrepreneurs or businesses, which would create wealth. Mwenda, like other speakers, described at length the investment opportunities in Africa. (I half expected the pitch to be directly addressed to Doerr et al.)
This line of argument enraged Bono, however, who began heckling Mwenda.
"Bollocks!" he shouted. "That's bullshit."
Bono is a strong supporter of intelligently managed aid. When it came his turn to speak, he said that Ireland's current prosperity is explained by government investment in its people, particularly education. He said that listening to Mwenda was like listening to an African Margaret Thatcher.
Oh, and everything you've heard about Bono's height is entirely true: he really is remarkably short. |
The aid has achieved "nothing at all". |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
Here is the original article.
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The elite technology show has come to Africa. Africans are pleading for investment, which angers the Irish rock star.
Bono, of U2, attended the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Tanzania.
Technology, Entertainment, Design, Chris Anderson's invitation-only conference for the good and great of technology, has come to Africa, but on the first day we heard very little about technology.
Anderson somehow convinced about a thousand people to come to rural Tanzania.
Many of the princes of Silicon Valley are here, including Google's Larry Page, the venture capitalist John Doerr, and Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline and Walker Digital. The rock star Bono (who suggested to Anderson that he host an African show) turned up. But there are people here from 40 countries, including (mercifully) many Africans.
Anderson says the purpose of the show is to tell the story of an Africa that is newly entrepreneurial, growing in wealth, more and more tech-savvy, and increasingly politically stable.
He says, "It's a story that is unfolding in villages, towns, and cities across the continent--and it's a story that's not well known outside of Africa."
So far, the show has been bluntly promotional. I felt I might have been attending a meeting of the heads of different African Chambers of Commerce. Indeed, the first speaker was the U.S. head of the South African Chamber of Commerce.
There have been some consistent themes. The first is that the media is morally culpable for propagating images of African poverty, famine, war, and despair. This made me feel impatient. Surely we can agree that while there are other, more benign stories in Africa, journalists are not misrepresenting reality when they write about poor, hungry, beaten, and despairing Africans?
But the second, more interesting theme--echoed by every speaker--is that traditional aid and charity, whether distributed by nation-states or nongovernmental bodies, have failed. Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist and social worker, now a fellow at Stanford, made the case most strongly. He argued convincingly that 30 years of Western aid to Africa has achieved nothing at all. More, he said that the persistence of African poverty could be explained, in part, by aid. He explained that aid had convinced the brightest Africans to work for corrupt governments rather than as entrepreneurs, and it had "distorted the incentive structure."
"What man or nation," Mwenda asked, "has ever become rich by holding out a begging bowl?"
Far better, he said, is finding Westerners to invest in African entrepreneurs or businesses, which would create wealth. Mwenda, like other speakers, described at length the investment opportunities in Africa. (I half expected the pitch to be directly addressed to Doerr et al.)
This line of argument enraged Bono, however, who began heckling Mwenda.
"Bollocks!" he shouted. "That's *beep*."
Bono is a strong supporter of intelligently managed aid. When it came his turn to speak, he said that Ireland's current prosperity is explained by government investment in its people, particularly education. He said that listening to Mwenda was like listening to an African Margaret Thatcher.
Oh, and everything you've heard about Bono's height is entirely true: he really is remarkably short. |
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You do realize that, except for the lack of colour, this is giving the rest of us IGotThisGuitar flashbacks, right? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| I was excited... I really like the article! |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:22 am Post subject: |
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| Zulu wrote: |
| caniff wrote: |
| ...when I was a young un' smoking pot on the sofa with my friends... Of course, I wasn't helping to save Africa like you and Bono, but at least I wasn't perpetuating their chronic dependencies. |
You actually blame guys like Bono for perpetuating chronic dependencies? Amazing. The guy isn't perfect by any means, but let me get this straight -while he was helping to raise millions and hobnobbing with world leaders to eliminate/rethink debt restructuring payments, you were smoking pot on the sofa with your buddies. Which begs the question - who's the bigger tool? |
What gain do you think comes from these "debt restructuring"? Or, do you think that the money freed from making interest payments buys guns or butter? Also, do you think that once this debt is reduced that the governments then move towards fiscal responsibility or borrow more from a different source?
Bono has done reasonably good things with AIDS funding. But his work towards policy, debt and the like are dangerous, at best. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| caniff wrote: |
Naw, we just had it out on a couple of other threads. From my perspective, arguing with him is like shooting fish in a barrel. He doesn't really seem like a bad guy, though.
Sorry to take the thread off topic. We were talking about Bono's sunglasses, right? |
Says the fellow who has added zero to the thread and apparently is following around other posters with zingers because of what they said on other threads?
You're a fine fellow, caniff. I hope someday I might match your matchless intellect and rhetorical style.
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:57 am Post subject: |
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| riverboy wrote: |
| BJWD, You are making me feel guilty for sponsoring a child. I agree 100 percent that charity is not the sloution to the whole problem, but at the same time, I know that I may be helping one child achieve a better life. Kind of putting your finger in the damn. I'm not Bono, or a major corporate entity. Just one guy. |
Giving to any charity of any kind should involve a little detective work. Personally, I avoid giving to any with low ratios of spending on the target of the charity. 90%? That's nothing but a racket. 10%? No problem. |
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koon_taung_daeng
Joined: 28 Jan 2007
Location: south korea
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| well the point is how can you call someone a douche that is trying to help people. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
| caniff wrote: |
Naw, we just had it out on a couple of other threads. From my perspective, arguing with him is like shooting fish in a barrel. He doesn't really seem like a bad guy, though.
Sorry to take the thread off topic. We were talking about Bono's sunglasses, right? |
Says the fellow who has added zero to the thread and apparently is following around other posters with zingers because of what they said on other threads?
You're a fine fellow, caniff. I hope someday I might match your matchless intellect and rhetorical style.
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ELT, I don't have time in my schedule to regurgitate what I have already learned for the benefit/erudition of the Dave's masses. I come here to enjoy myself, not to get into a caulk-pissing-fight over who can dig up the most links on subjects that should already be clear to all.
But I do honestly appreciate you and others digging up your own sources, as I do get a fair share of my new, sometimes bizarre, and otherwise hard-to-find information from people posting on this site.
Cheers.
caniff |
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