Mile Zero
No matter where you go, there you are
April 3, 2009
Righteous
The World Bank slows down a lot during the late summer, until it ramps up for the annual meetings again. I've actually been fairly busy, but only because about half the department is out on vacation. So there hasn't been much in the way of new B-SPAN material, and the most recent podcast pulls from the archives.
But it's a great pull: Jeffrey Sachs, author of The End of Poverty and Director of the UN Millennium Project, spoke in 2004 on his approach to poverty. Sachs is kind of a brute-force development expert: he believes that while corruption can be a factor, the real problem in development is donor stinginess and lack of will. Whether or not you agree (William Easterly, author of the excellent The Elusive Quest for Growth and no fawning Bank panderer, considers it foolish), Sachs is a gifted speaker whose passion is inspiring to hear.
P.S. If you want to see something really disgusting, check out the comments on this Daniel Drezner post about Sachs' plan. Perhaps my "favorite" is here:
Don't kid yourself. Poor Africans are mentally deficient, and giving them $50 a year will no more raise them from poverty than giving each American their SS money will provide for their retirement.
$150B in the hands of 3 billion retarded people will cause every huckster, con man, fast talker, religious nut, and hoodlum to devour the entire continent.
Wow.
You know, I've commented on this before (back when I had my own conservative troll), so I probably shouldn't be so shocked, but it still takes me by surprise. Even if you think Sachs is an idiot, $150 billion for his initiatives isn't really that much money on the scale of the US budget. The fact that some are so disproportionately opposed to aid really worries me.
