>>For every $ spent in 'aid' many dollars are grabbed in crippling debt payments in the less developed areas >>of the globe.
(TEd)
>WHOA!!! Are you saying that we forced loans on people against their will and then charged them interest >on the loans against their will? I must have missed that one. In my experience what we have done is lent >massive amounts of money to countries all over the world and then we wrote off most of the loans as >good will. I challenge you to support your statement that we have "grabbed crippling debt payments in the >lesser developed areas of the globe.
Your words, TEd are an apology of all creditors from Babylonian changers to Gobsek and Christoper Nicklby. Of course, loans are not forced on people but I wouldn’t say that about the interest. There are situations when one would take a credit on any conditions. And countries are not men in terms that almost always a government that took (and spent or as it often happens stolen) the money is not the same as that has to pay the debt plus the interest.
>I believe you will find on closer inspection of the books that this is not the case.
I never thought about this before I red a translation of the engaging book by Paul Johnson “The history of modern world” (ISBN 954-426-084-6). He describes the world political and economical history of XX century. The book is full of unexpected facts but I’d like to say only about the sources of “humanitarian aid” provided by Western countries, for example US to the developing countries.
Imagine some Saudi Arabian Prince that sells oil to an American Company, say, American Oil, Inc . Both the Prince and the Company keep their money in The Bankers Trust Bank so “selling” means just writing off some figures form the account of the Company and adding them to the account of the Prince. And as the Prince doesn’t immediately spend his money on buying racing horses and sport cars or whatever princes spend their money on, the Bank can use his money as a loan to some African country. This loan as a rule is used to pay for goods like medicaments and food produced in US. Result: money did not leave the territory of US, US producers got rich, food is eaten by Africans, which have to pay both the debt and the interest e.g. to ask for new credits.
I realize that this is an oversimplified interpretation but if you really want to know what books say, please, read this one.
