Dear Ralph...I like your style.

"mene mene tekel uparsin" :) look it up mate... never have truer words been written... applicable to our age.

Care to drop in on "Politics and Perception" thread and have a go at the vid ?

you can't make greedy people think responsibly & you can't expect ignorant people to know any better. So, where to now ? I'd say let's start with education. No,no, not the academic kind, the real life one. The pragmatical such as apprenticeships rather than frivolous theories.
Then, pay people at least %20 of the resale of the goods they produce. The wheeler-dealers can easily do with a %50 cut in profit. Then the fairest of all things- introduce flat tax. No excemptions. That will weed out the incompetent in our midst. No freebie superannuation or excessive travel allowances for pollies after only one term. Simplistic ? I don't think so. Simple solution ? Yes ! What's that got to do with third world aid ? Well, it could prevent Australia from sliding further towards third world status & reduce the need of charity as we are experiencing here now in many cases. Don't believe me. Give the Smith Family mob a call..

The third world has had far too much capital, given or loaned to them, rather than not enough.

As soon as some loose capital appears the smarties damn soon get hold of it, & it’s never seen again. Just how many huge loans to third world countries have been forgiven?

You only have to look at Rudd & co to see how much capital can be wasted, & he was nothing compared to many third world leaders.

A couple friends of mine were volunteers in the Kennedy founded US Peace Core. It had been going for some time, in the Pacific islands, when they became involved. They saw many of failures of their predecessors, where large effort had been put into developing cash crop plantations, then giving them to the village/island community. Almost the only ones to succeeded were those where the peace core people joined the community, & stayed.

In nearly every case these developments were reverting to scrub in a short time. The locals would not do the work for others who were not prepared to do anything themselves. A viscous circle.

Their approach was to pick a few goers from the community. These few were allocated land. & loaned seed, or young plants, & given some material & technical assistance, but no more.

As a few succeeded, & became prosperous, others wanted to have the same help. In 6 years they had half a dozen thriving communities.

They had been pretty far left in their ideology, almost communistic in outlook. They said they could now see why good ideas, with handouts, to simple peoples just don’t work. The communities are not ready to act as a co-operative, or a company.

They reckoned their best assistance cane in the form of a tinny, & outboard. Once one of their starters had bought such an outfit, the entire village wanted in. It was symbol of success they could all recognise, & aspire to

I agree with the article's title- while some charity funds may initially be needed in the form of food and health supplies, to continue to throw money at third world countries is to throw money into a bottomless pit.

Predictably, Partimeparent blames all the world's poverty problems on single mums (all their kids having been conceived by immaculate conception of course), but it is much more to do with over-population and lack of education.

Third world countries have needed help more or less all the time over the past centuries, and many people have taken advantage of this needy situation.
Religious charity organisations have gone in to provide much needed aid. However, they have also passed on their own 'ideas' on how these poor people should live their lives.

These poor third world countries could have done without the 'ban' on contraceptives that some of these religious charity workers thrust upon them.

They need more education (including sex education) and freely available contraceptives if they are ever going to have a chance at surviving on the already limited resources.

I also believe we have to stop being politically correct, and place some more effective controls on the money our governments do give to third world countries.

If we give the money for starting local businesses, building local infrastructure, or ensuring good education opportunities, then we should be ensuring it is used for this purpose, and is not lining the pockets of some dodgy 'officials' instead.

Oops...SUZ is on one of her regular 'whack a Christian' rampages :)

Suz..you say:

//to continue to throw money at third world countries is to throw money into a bottomless pit.//

close...but not spot on.. more exact is "to send money to corrupt politicians' swiss bank accounts"

claim: "What's keeping poor people poor isn't that they can't get food or water, it's that they don't have access to the most important thing needed to create wealth - and that's access to capital. "

Need only look at many of our A* communities, where ongoing poverty is linked to actions by the corporate landowning bodies, with some community management support, which prevents community members from entering into agreements to access capital for themselves - this relates to ongoing refusal to issue valid leases for property.

Without valid leases no-one can obtain loans to improve things....

Debate on related lease rates issue in NT Parliament - improved or unimproved capital value %rental rates.

Sadly still far to many in communities think money flows to communities without strings attached !

http://notes.nt.gov.au/lant/hansard/hansardd.nsf/WebbyDate/42B094CF3DCD231D692577CA000198E5

Debates - Eleventh Assembly, First Session - 10/19/2010 -
Parliamentary Record No: 15
This is an uncorrected proof of the daily report. It is made available
under the condition that it is recognised as such.

Topic: MOTION
Subject: Motion - Peppercorn Rental Agreement for Government
Facilities on Aboriginal Land
Date: 10/27/2010
Member: Mr WOOD
Other Speakers:
Status: Nelson