Post: #1

Came across this video of Bill Gates making personal attacks on Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo:




I read her book Dead Aid a couple of years ago and thought it was pretty good, basically she advocates cutting foreign aid to Africa and instead encouraging foreign investment. She describes in her book how after decades of funneling billions of dollars into Africa, western nations have had very little return on investment in the continent and that its time to start looking at other strategies and is optimistic about China's increasing presence in Africa. She also thinks washed up Irish rock stars like Bono and that other dick head should have no say in African affairs, I definitely agree on that one.

Moyo is a highly educated economist with a doctorate from Oxford, MBA from Harvard, among other degrees, born and raised in Zambia so she knows a thing or two about African affairs, she's also pretty hot. Her is a link to her website where she responds to Gates' attack: http://www.dambisamoyo.com/?post=dr-damb...al-attacks

So what do you think of Bill gates attacks on her, was it justified or is Bill just another arrogant westerner who doesn't get Africa?

Post: #2

SWPL doesn't want aid to go away because aid makes SWPL feel like their life has some kind of value. It also lets them feel superior to the aid recipients.

Post: #3

I bet he didn't read the book. And I didn't read it either, so I don't know what it says.

Foreign aid is shit, when it's just giving away (tax) money to a bunch of retards.

But what Gates is doing, is pumping his own hard-won money into much needed research.

First of all, he can do with his own money whatever he wants.
He could spend it on hookers and blow, but instead he donates it.

Second of all, paying for research private companies aren't interested in, is not creating dependency.
It doesn't distort their local markets.
It can benefit Western nations as well, adding to our medical knowledge base.

Besides that, the book Dead Aid sounds good to me, as I think most foreign aid is bad.

Post: #4

Bill Gates is spending his money on foreign aid smarter than governments are.

And Milton Friedman has the reason why...

Post: #5

It's become a bit fashionable to criticize aid in recent years. Another notable book on the subject is The White Man's Burden by William Easterly (which I haven't read though).

Gates make a good point that aid actually has helped a lot of poor people and countries. The Marshall Plan to much of Europeand the country of Taiwan are just two examples off the top of my head where aid has done good. Sure, if you give money to a dictator of a poor country and tell him to do with it what he wants, it doesn't help the people. But like Gates says, how is giving vaccines to children that couldn't otherwise afford it (for instance) a bad thing? Maybe he goes a bit overboard saying that criticizing aid is evil though.

I think the 2013 UNDP report stated that poverty is going down in a lot of places. How much of this is thanks to aid? Difficult to say, but it most probably plays a part, along with a bunch of other things. I think linking poverty reduction to foreign aid is difficult to sustain through statistical analysis. It's one of those instances where it is better to just think about it rationally: Is giving vaccines to dying children good? Yes. Is throwing money evil dictators good? No.

Post: #6

Africa doesn't need aid, it needs fair trade policies.

It's the most tariffed continent. And internal tariffs aren't helping either. Globalization and economic liberalization create jobs and growth. Aid creates entrenched corruption and cronyism.

But Bill Gates is spending his own money on aid, and that's far more efficient than government aid.

Post: #7

didn't hear any 'personal attacks' by bill gates

Post: #8

People always said Microsoft were 'evil' over the years. And Apple were the good guys.

Yet - Bill Gates is giving away all his money. And Steve Jobs died with his.

Just making an observation. I happen to be a fan of Steve Jobs.

Not so sure about Bill Gates - from what I know he got lucky when IBM dropped the ball and hired him to do the Operating System for them. Big mistake.

Post: #9

Foreign aid is taking money from working class and poor people in one country and giving it to rich people in another country.

Post: #10

(05-31-2013 11:42 AM)solo Wrote:  But like Gates says, how is giving vaccines to children that couldn't otherwise afford it (for instance) a bad thing?

If you were a hardcore Malthusian, you'd say higher survival rates aggravate problems created by overpopulation.

The infrastructure in Africa is not improving, yet the population continues to increase. If you feed someone and they go on to have ten children, you've just made the problem five times worse. When people have trouble creating prosperity for themselves, multiplying the population isn't going to help. Bread without birth control means more suffering. Starvation, territorial aggression, disease... none of these are helped by an increase in population density.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/world/...wanted=all

Post: #11

Post: #12

LOL @ Dambisa Moyo being right. Not saying that Billy G is on point, but If you're inclined to think that way, that's on you. Don't think that way cause she conclusively proved her point in the book.

Here's the perfect summation of what is wrong with her book.

"she uses statistics that show correlations between a high level of aid receipts and poor economic growth and then attempts to imply causality (aid causing poor growth) by using emotive, highly selective, anecdotal and even hypothetical (she invents a country – Dongo) ‘evidence’ to back up her assertions."

Now this doesn't mean that a lot of the countries in Africa aren't fucked up.

WIA

Post: #13

Didn't Bill G donate a bunch of infant incubators to India, a country with a massive overpopulation problem?

Post: #14

The other thing about "aid" is that it makes it tough for the actual citizens to get their economy started. How can a farmer sell his good when the UN is flying in tons of food undermining his profession? How can shop a sell clothes if millions of articles are getting dumped into their economy for free by NGOs and other such agencies. Its almost like welfare on steroids, where the process is perpetual and never broken. Rarely, is it ever considered what would be involved in making the countries receiving the aid stand on their own feet.

Post: #15

(05-31-2013 10:05 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

(05-31-2013 11:42 AM)solo Wrote:  But like Gates says, how is giving vaccines to children that couldn't otherwise afford it (for instance) a bad thing?

If you were a hardcore Malthusian, you'd say higher survival rates aggravate problems created by overpopulation.

The infrastructure in Africa is not improving, yet the population continues to increase. If you feed someone and they go on to have ten children, you've just made the problem five times worse. When people have trouble creating prosperity for themselves, multiplying the population isn't going to help. Bread without birth control means more suffering. Starvation, territorial aggression, disease... none of these are helped by an increase in population density.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/world/...wanted=all

Actually to say overpopulation is Africa is a huge problem is just flat out not correct. For one the carbon footprint when you compare the collective carbon footprint in Sub-Saharan African to that of the United States and Europe, there is no comparison, the West consumes more by leaps in bounds. Therefore when people say we run the risk of running out of resources it is because they are being consumed in an unsustainable manner by richer countries. Africa clocks in at an extremely low numbers with respect to population density at 66 people per square mile! To put that number in perspective the UK has a population density of 634 people per square mile. If the population of in Africa doesn't consume much at all, that could only mean that the rich countries are indeed the ones that are overpopulated, since they disproportionately hog all the resources.

In fact even as European countries struggle to cover the population replacement rate their demands for resources are getting higher and higher!

Instead what I think you might be getting at is population density in urban areas, but when you think about what big cities are for it makes perfect sense. They are hubs for a variety of interests and types of economics activity. Ever been to Los Angeles? Manhattan? San Francisco?London?Paris? Cities like that have populations way over what they were originally built for. Africa(for the most part) is underdeveloped like hell sure? But it certainly is not overpopulated by any stretch. Most of problems Africa has come from poor governance, which is by default an extension of the interference of outside forces for the gain of the aforementioned resources. Getting favorable natural resource deals often involves subverting governments to install puppet leaders and this dynamic is certainly not exclusive to Africans as history tells us......

Post: #16

I would like to have a baby with Dambisa.

Post: #17

Bill Gates' whole schtick just seems so lame to me these days. I liked him better as a cutthroat CEO.

Post: #18

Would bang but she's got to lose the hair hat.

Post: #19

@iWIN I take your point, but at the same time, the thrust of basilransom's argument still holds true.
In a continent which is predominantly poor, in some places extremely poor, and very dependent on aid, to perpetuate a system which only results in the continuance of extremely poor people having upwards of 6 or 7 kids (largely doomed to a life of poverty and continuing the cycle themselves), is crazy, and totally unsustainable for Africa and any nation contributing to aid for Africa.

Post: #20

Bill Gates has probably saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in Africa from AIDS.

Getting HIV retrovirals to people on the continent has helped turn the tide against the disease. It's now in the beginning of a decline.

That's good enough for me.

But as far as aid in general goes, the best sort of aid that can be given to Africa is assistance to improve agricultural productivity.

In the 60's, the U.S. provided agricultural assistance aid to countries in Latin America and Asia and this helped lead to the Green Revolution, in which agricultural output skyrocketed. It involved the use of modern irrigation, pesticides, nitrogen fertilizer, and better crop strains.

A lot of Asian countries until then suffered from periodic famines and were not food self-sufficient. Not anymore.

And for people who worry about over-population - after these countries saw a rise in agricultural output, fertility went down. Women had less babies despite food being more abundant.

But then these programs pretty much stopped. So, the Green Revolution didn't really come to Africa, although there are ongoing attempts to bring some of these techniques there.

Post: #21

(05-31-2013 12:03 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  Africa doesn't need aid, it needs fair trade policies.

It could use both.

Also, no matter how you feel about Gates, he presented an argument--aid has saved lives. Moyo does not address that point at all in her rebuttal. Because Gates is coming from a humanitarian perspective where saving lives, helping kids be healthy and go to school, increasing the quality of life for people in villages and cities on the ground, etc is the primary goal. Moyo, with her talk of governments, the World Bank, and Africa as a whole, is coming from a hard political/economic/international relations perspective where a lot of African nations are still relatively poor even after years of aid, therefore aid has been a failure.

So they're coming from two very different perspectives. For me personally, after centuries of raping the entire continent and taking away/killing literally millions of the best manpower, I think it will take a while for Africa to recover and I have no problem with giving aid to keep people alive and help those governments that are trying. (Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, etc.)

Post: #22

´Moyo, with her talk of governments, the World Bank, and Africa as a whole, is coming from a hard political/economic/international relations perspective where a lot of African nations are still relatively poor even after years of aid, therefore aid has been a failure.´


Go and read CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN.

The whole point of so called áid to Africa to in fact keep the place fucked up so that resources that the First World needs can be had for dirt cheap.

Dambisa is exactly right. Think of it like how welfare has essentially destroyed entire communities in the US by distorting behavior and incentives.

of course Gates diasgrees, he represents First world corporate America. Furthermore, he´s a eugenicist. For all the help he´s giving , his actual goal is to kill off Africans, he´s actually infected many and introduced polio into areas where it had been irradicated for generation . the most recent example is in Nigeria

Post: #23

...perpetuate a system which only results in the continuance of extremely poor people having upwards of 6 or 7 kids (largely doomed to a life of poverty and continuing the cycle themselves), is crazy, and totally unsustainable for Africa and any nation contributing to aid for Africa....


You don´t get it do you ???

Africa has no population problem ..... at all. Furthermore, it has high infant mortality and low life expectancy ' therefore, there is no population problem.

In fact, it is one of the least densly populated places in the world. The propaganda about the need for populaton reduction and Africa is racist, eugenicist propaganda. fear mongering at its worst.

And, the people there dont consume or pollute nearly as much as we do. Popoulation reduction today is needed primarily in the developed world where people consume like mad and maybe India.

Post: #24

All you people talking about what's good for Africa...

...How many of you have even stepped foot here?

Africa will become prosperous not because of the presence or absence of aid.

Africa will become prosperous because of Africans.

We don't need your aid and especially not the political interference that almost always accompanies it.

Post: #25

We don't need population reduction anywhere.

Some of the richest countries in the world are the most densely populated.

Vast expanses of the earth have hardly anybody living there. Much of the U.S. is empty, a lot of public land. Russia - empty. Canada same thing. Half of China doesn't have many people, they're mostly in the eastern half. Australia, the size of the lower 48 states, mostly desert but still plenty of decent land. South America - tons of empty space. The population's huddled on the coasts for the most part.

Population reduction is one of those things people always recommend for those *other* people. Nobody ever volunteers themselves.

If you really are willing to countenance millions of people dying to get to some theoretical population ideal, start with yourself and commit suicide.

As it is, the visions of doom and gloom predicted by people like Paul Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb", predicting worldwide famine haven't happened. Ehrlich predicted in the late 60's that by the 70's, hundreds of millions of people would starve in a global famine. He's still making these predictions. It hasn't happened.

In fact, famines are much, much less frequent today. They don't happen in India anymore, not since the 70's really. I remember when mothers still told their kids to eat dinner because "there are kids starving in China". There are no kids starving in China anymore. Even in Sub-Saharan Africa, famines have become quite rare. People still talk about Ethiopia but that was back in the 80's. Still plenty of undernutrition in Africa, but not many famines.

In other words, we have more people than ever but we're also better able to produce food than past generations. Doomsday never seems to arrive, because human ingenuity beats it every single time.