it's hard for me to see foreign aid as anything but a band-aid and a mostly useless one at that. it's like giving a permanent monthly donation to a bum - not much will be accomplished. taiwan, s. korea, japan, china, indonesia, etc. all climbed their way out of poverty how? by...wait for it....creating jobs! wow, there's a novel idea. after half a century of giving aid to africa, etc. it's accomplished not very much. i guess if you count paying off dictators for favorable energy and mining contracts as an accomplishment then there's something. it also may be harmful besides supporting corrupt gov'ts in that it encourages poor people to have even more kids they can't afford to feed. yeah, it's nice to help people recover from droughts, etc. but i have a really hard time seeing how life's much better by donating this money. if aid money were slowly turned off would the world change? probably not much. kind of like bailing out people in Galveston, TX and Houston....wtf do you live that close to the coast if this keeps happening?
that said, ultimately, it's easier to pay off gov'ts like Eypt and Pakistan so we can have

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: it's hard for me to see foreign aid as anything but a band-aid and a mostly useless one at that. it's like giving a permanent monthly donation to a bum - not much will be accomplished. taiwan, s. korea, japan, china, indonesia, etc. all climbed their way out of poverty how? by...wait for it....creating jobs!

Do you mean this in all cases? Did you think the Marshall Plan was a mistake? And here's something I don't know much about, but isn't it true that US foreign aid helped some of the countries you listed, particularly Japan and Korea, get themselves to the point where they could be in a position to build a growth economy? And isn't it the case that there are at least some success stories in Africa, in which at least part of the success came from US aid? Again, this isn't something I know much about, but I have a vague sense that it's too sweeping to say all aid to Africa yielded no long-term benefit whatsoever.

I thought the discussion of diaspora constituencies lobbying for their native countries' aid projects was interesting. I'd like to hear more about that. The positive role of those communities is discussed in Paul Collier's "The Bottom Billion."

Is it really fair to value U.S. Foreign Aid at 1/10th of 1%? We have military expenditures in Korea, Japan, and Germany that have guaranteed those countries and regions the ability to develop economically without the threat of invasion or disruption from outside entities. Also, our expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan should be counted as foreign aid-- we are supporting the democratic development of these two regions by supplying military force. Where is the credit for that? I'm not arguing the right or wrong of those military interventions, but it is clear that neither of those countries were suitable to receive development aid with the Taliban or Saddam in control, so why don't we count the military expenditures as our "aid"?

Quoting bookofdisquiet: Is it really fair to value U.S. Foreign Aid at 1/10th of 1%? We have military expenditures in Korea, Japan, and Germany that have guaranteed those countries and regions the ability to develop economically without the threat of invasion or disruption from outside entities. Also, our expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan should be counted as foreign aid-- we are supporting the democratic development of these two regions by supplying military force. Where is the credit for that? I'm not arguing the right or wrong of those military interventions, but it is clear that neither of those countries were suitable to receive development aid with the Taliban or Saddam in control, so why don't we count the military expenditures as our "aid"?

This is worth keeping in mind, but I think it's useful to maintain the distinction. While in some large sense, the two can be argued to be seeking the same goal -- investment as a bulwark against bad things that might happen without it -- there are also differences. For one thing, our military presence is not always as appreciated as more "pure" foreign aid is; e.g., food, medicine, cash, loans, non-military training, etc. It's also hard to

we're not talking about rebuilding after ww2. this is about foreign aid accomplishing nothing substantial towards its stated goals for the past 50 years. i guess i'd have to pass the burden to you by asking what, exactly, it has accomplished? big picture - not much. not really "building democracy" just buying off dictators and barely keeping a few starving kids from dying sooner rather than later.

yes, that's all fine and dandy. what i'm trying to say is that africa isn't gonna get anything done until they learn how to build an iPod. everyone knows they have corrupt leadership, slavery and no roads. i was referring to the '70s and '80s when japan, etc. started making all the world's electronics.
again, big picture - foreign aid obviously hasn't accomplished
anyting substantial as there are still billions of poor while certain countries in asia planned their way out in mere decades with little or not much aid. africa has got us half a trillion dollars worth of not much we couldn't get by other means.

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: we're not talking about rebuilding after ww2. this is about foreign aid accomplishing nothing substantial towards its stated goals for the past 50 years. i guess i'd have to pass the burden to you by asking what, exactly, it has accomplished? big picture - not much. not really "building democracy" just buying off dictators and barely keeping a few starving kids from dying sooner rather than later.

As I said, I don't know much about this. I do know, vaguely, that I've read some positive reports over the years, and that we have achieved some successes. I also know that we have a whole lot more than most people do, and I think it's both a shame and stupid not to act accordingly. But, since I don't know enough about the specifics, I'll leave it there.

this is the first un plaza ever where i really struggled to stay engaged. ray
offenheiser's answers rarely went beyond something that i feel i'd read on a shiny oxfam pamphlet, except not as succinct, informative, or free of sugar-coating. he expends an awful lot of breath suggesting relatively poorly spelled-out strategies and goals. his description of the problems could hardly be more superficial - earmarks, corruption, incoherence, and a lack of individualized approaches need to be resolved. and when he does flirt w/ a specific suggestion, it's still posed in terms too abstract to really be all that compelling in itself. bring it all under a cabinet-level roof devoted solely to foreign aid, the man says. okay, maybe, but who's to say that dept. wont be run by appointees equally or more inclined to divert monies to their own friends and pet projects, simply making the alignment of aid projects w/self-interest more centralized? i need more to be convinced. mark really could have managed the discussion a lot better, but to be fair, he made at least a couple of attempts to get a little more specificity on earmarks and parties we can

Good critique, chucklefist. While I appreciate Ray's work, he could stand to work on communicating his ideas and goals with more specifics and fewer bromides.