Subject:
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Re: Poverty myths?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 3 Feb 2003 21:35:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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111 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Petrucelli writes:
> Here is an article that really makes one think.
>
> http://www.Creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?next=2&ColumnsName=wwi
>
> As of posting the article refers to the January 22 article.
In my utterly limited study of dynamic systems analysis, I remember several
examples (most of which I forget the specifics of, tho remember the jist)
where the 'gut reaction' was to help people/societies/etc by giving
money/aid/etc, which just turned out to make matters worse.
Low income housing reduced real-estate for business, encouraged a larger
lower-class and welfare-dependant population, and in general made things
worse for cities. Providing food to starving nations meant that more
children would survive and give birth to more starving people, who in turn
require *more* food, and *increase* the number of starving people.
Installing efficient water pumps to water-starved areas simply drained the
water supply faster than it could recouperate naturally, hence making things
worse after a year or two-- requiring bigger & better pumps (MORE money),
then simply running the wells dry.
According to the article, "most recipient nations are poorer now than they
were before they first received development assistance". Now-- that implies
that some have actually improved? I guess the question is, did they improve
beyond their previous norm? Basically, I would expect that the ones that
showed improvement either only *recently* were receiving aid or simply were
within what might be an expected 'norm' without aid. Essentially what I'm
wondering is, has any country been genuinely HELPED by foreign aid policies?
To what extent do all you pessimists out there think that foreign aid is in
some instances *INTENDED* to 'keep them down' for political reasons?
In a more global system dynamics view, what happens if poverty is truly
eliminated? Does the world have the resources to maintain a human society at
the level of what we might consider to be a 'non-impovrished' nation? And to
be more specific, at what population level? (IE maybe we could support 500
million, but can we support 5 billion? etc) IIRC world models predicted that
there was a 'pinch-point' around 1995 (or so-- I forget) after which no
matter *how* much we reformed ourselves (in terms of polution, resource
consumption, etc), human society was doomed to plummet. Anyway, that date
also got pushed back with progressive models and better technology-- but not
by much. Anyone know anything about the 'current status' on that one?
DaveE
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Poverty myths?
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes: <snip> (...) I can't remember the day, but I was watching "live, on television" when the world broke 5 billion folks. They had this counter going up like a Lotto or something... Like wow, we have 5 (...) (21 years ago, 3-Feb-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Poverty myths?
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| Here is an article that really makes one think. (URL) of posting the article refers to the January 22 article. -Mike Petrucelli (21 years ago, 1-Feb-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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