9/1/06
Eric & all,
The way I look at it, the old idea of population climax was based on the expectation that as people gained competence they’d act in their own interests.  It’s failing because large communities of people didn’t gain competence.  The last 4 trillion in foreign development aid (1) essentially didn’t work.   Putting it in as cartoonish and graphic a way as I can without being quite incorrect, foreign aid put a lot wealth in the hands of friendly businessmen to spend in NY and Paris, and gave the poor peoples it was intended for handouts so they could multiply without learning anything.
What I’m saying is that a major cause of poverty in the ‘developing’ world seems to be the kind of help we’ve been giving.  Pushing just a little over the edge with the spin, we’ve acted as if the only thing missing from poor countries was rich people.  What I think we need to do is directly buy things from poor people instead, not give things to them, or at the very least have the recipients of our giving intended to help poor communities, spend it strictly on buying the products they produce.   Then THEY choose how to spend their earnings.  That generally gives a much larger gift than the price.  There are lots of cultural fit and other issues too, of course, and no pure magic to be found, but discovering our great mistakes, and there are others, is the first thing we can do to help I think. Â
Make any sense?
1)Ken Weimar, Director of Development, KickStart InternationalÂ
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[p.s. please add the private address below to the list, I prefer it for correspondence over the office address that accidentally got onto the original list]
Phil Henshaw                      ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸