Let's Bang Our Head Against the Wall Again

Short on time, but I just can't let this one go unaddressed.

Live 8 or Aid or whatever the hell it's called.

Ugh.

Idiots.

OK here people, let me explain it for you nice and easy so that even those of you with public school educations can understand.

Remember back when we were kids in the 80's and we all sent our money into Ethiopia? And then 5 cents would feed a kid for 12 weeks or something like that. Yeah, look at Ethiopia now! What success!

Africa has received over the past 30 years roughly $200 billion in aid. Adjust for inflation and you're looking at more around $350 billion - Marshall Plan levels of aid. And I'm willing to bet that figure is a little low.

Yet, despite this aid Africa is the only, ONLY continent where standards of living have actually gone down! The only other country in the world where this has happened is Venezuela where (surprise surprise) a socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez, has taken the reigns and driven living standards down despite high oil prices.

The problem isn't that money won't help, it will, but it's who's delivering the money. Thus far it's been the most incompetent entities the world has ever created; government, international organizations (UN), NGO's, and charities. Bastions of employment for those who are not only leftists, and not only people who majored in worthless subjects like peace studies, but incompetent oafs as well with no practical skills to speak of.

Don't believe me? Look at the latest member to this fine front to fight poverty in Africa; artists!

“I look at the news, I see people starving, I am crying, I’m a total mess”
Icelandic singer Björk

“We’ll jump if you jump and we’re all jumping on behalf of those who can’t even crawl”
Bob Geldof warns G8 leaders meeting in Scotland to take action against poverty

“For Aids in Afghanistan, is it?”
Marty Gradwell, from Ontario

BONO, LEAD SINGER OF U2 (London)
"The rock stars and the hip hop stars can't change anything, but our audience really can.
"We're not asking you to put your hand in your pockets, but we are asking people to put their fists in the air."

What insane insight to the inner workings of geopolitics and international economics! Certainly the University of Chicago should award all of these geniuses honorary doctorates in economics! With such geniuses playing music to alleviate poverty, how can it possibly fail?

No, sorry, the only entity thus far capable of delivering money to a country and having it make any significant progress towards eliminating poverty, raising standards of living and increasing the health and wealth of a nation is capitalism, namely foreign investment.

Don't believe me? Look at China and India. They've done more to raise their massive populations out of poverty by opening their borders up to investment from foreign companies than any government, charity, aid or debt forgiveness program ever would.

Of course, you don't want to believe this, because it's contrary to what you've been told this entire time. That, or perhaps to the average liberal, it's more important to feed their ego than to actually accomplish anything (which is why, by in large, most of your projects fail, but hey, even though Jamal is starving in Somalia, at least you feel good about it because you went to a concert!) But don't worry, you're a liberal, we understand. We're getting used to dealing with such ignorance and hypocrisy.