To whom much has been given

Yes yes of course it’s “crap”.  And no doubt “ignorant”.  But why is it wrong? 

If you have little or no education, in any sense, as much of Africa does, how will democracy work for you?  What does it even mean? 

“Crap”?  Do most South African Blacks (as opposed to Arabs, in north Africa, or Whites) identify tribally?  If they do, does it effect how they vote?  If not, why not?

Do you know what tribalism means, anthropologically?  It doesn’t mean “I like Dubya” or “I like Obama” or even “My family traditionally votes Republican”.  It is a description of the entire organizational structure of life in much of the world.  It involves kinship, marital, naming, clan, who you can talk to, look at, what you can look at; who you owe favours to; all kinds of things.

Is this real in much of Africa or not?  If it is real, how does it fit in with democracy, how does that relate to the current nations of Africa, what does it have to do with how money is used politically in Africa and what does it say about trade and charity?  Or are such questions beneath you, Lori and etc.?

(p.s. - what if a government job = an excuse to advance your relatives, meaning your clan, as it does in almost all of Africa?  This is not at all necessarily selfish, it is simply a different notion (and an inferior one) of how government power works.  The WASP bureaucracy has dreadful faults  – mainly inifference and stagnation -  but corruption has never been one of them.  What if literally every benefit derived from government was an excuse to give money to your brothers/cousins/clan/tribe?  Some version of this would have been recognizable in ancient Rome.  A bastardized version is recognizable in pretty much anywhere that isn’t WASP or at least Germanic (perhaps even French – certainly not Italian) and is advanced enough to have a bureaucracy.  Is this concievably a problem now, or no, because… why?)

Seriously, if you are smart you can think about these questions.  Try it.

Argh, I’m sorry, but this bait is SOOOOO sparkly!

The WASP bureaucracy has dreadful faults  – mainly inifference and stagnation -  but corruption has never been one of them.

Two words:  Tammany Hall.

And that’s not even the most recent, egregious, or widespread example.  Hell, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is considered to be so mobbed up you can’t drop a shipping container into the Javitts Convention Center without hitting a wiseguy.

Yes, it’s the standard problem of breaking down statistics.  But in the end, if “conservatives” are – I dunno – do something bad, nobody will say “well, it’s because they’re old, white and rich!”  But it we do more charity work, and give more to charity, it’s because we’re rich and junk.  Which I do believe was the argument here.

Yes, I referred stereotypes.  Good Lord, is this stuff controversial?  You want controversial, I can do you controversial; this ain’t it; I’m talking aboutThe Simpsons.  We all deal in stereotypes, all the time, and naturally so:  When you suggested that liberals were too poor to give to charity I basically said “Yeah?  What about Larry David?”  And what about the bitter clingers:  Are they rich?

If you say “young people and people of color are more likely to be liberal voters” then can I say “people who commit violent crimes are more likely to be liberal voters”? 

Can we discuss the overlap?  No?

I welcome stereotypes.  Only fools define themselves or anyone else by them after a good scoping out, but only fools reference them and then play innocent.

Horseshit.

No, pet, I have no capacity to understand anything.  From your article, the very one you posted:  “The aid is ineffective because of the appalling way in which Africa is governed. In recent decades, of each dollar given to Africa in aid, 80 cents were stolen by corrupt leaders and transferred back into Western bank accounts. In total, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo estimated, “corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion from their people in the [four] decades since independence.” All that is left when these regimes eventually collapse is a massive public debt.”

Thank Jeebuz I’m thick, eh?  Yeesh. 

 Thank Jeebuz I’m thick, eh?  

You’re either thick or you’re a deliberate liar or you’re such a bigot that your brain doesn’t work properly. My assumption that you’re not all that bright is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt. 

Again, if someone else wants to discuss 3rd world corruption and it’s actual sources (hint: it’s not race-based) or the ways in which Westerners facilitate that corruption in order to make money off of it, we can do that. 

Dear Lori – Are young people (say, under 30 years old) more likely to “commit violent crimes” than people in other age groups?

Are (and it wasn’t my phrase; for one thing, I’d have spelled it colour) ”people of color” more likely to commit violent crimes than people of palour.

You’re not an aging hippy; you’re 20 and you want to impress your prof.  The uni bubble’s going to burst very soon, Lori, so don’t bet your future on it.  Anyway, there’s something to be said for caring about the truth.

@Dash1: It is never too late to point out the assumptions in the way we discuss “wealth redistribution”. The increase in income inequality in the last 4 decades makes that clear. 

Lori, you’re full of it.

“If you honestly don’t think that the answer to that is obvious then you’re truly a lost cause.”

They’re teaching you to assert, and yell, but never argue, demonstrate, or think, aren’t they, Lori?

Do you know what the trick is to debate, Lori?  Figure out the other guy’s arguments and then figure out your response.  You, Lori, can’t do it; you can just call names when you get upset.  Smug ain’t an argument, dear.  Either you’re stupid or you’re very poorly trained or both.  You write fairly fluently so I suspect it’s not primarily an IQ issue (that’s sort of a compliment BTW).

I said apartheid was evil; slightly later I asked you, more or less to give you a chance to demonstrate whether you can say anything even interesting, why South Africa was better off now than then.  You just smugged (that’s a new verb I’ve just invented).  I could make a case either way, frankly.  Honestly they’re both nightmares.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe?  Who do you like, Smith or Mugabe?  Show your work.

Beatrix your supposed arguments are self-refuting and as a result uninteresting. Your continued insistence that you know that I’m a young student is both incorrect and boring. By your own standards the fact that you keep bringing it up is name-calling. Again according to your standards that means that you’re stupid or very poorly trained or both. The fact that you consistently regurgitate right wing talking points and then accuse me of being taught to assent would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic. As for your obsession with your supposed point about Smith and Mugabe, answer this: Under what circumstances would you be willing to trade being treated as a full human being for your notion of political stability? Show your work. 

There’s a very common genetic marker that something like 90% of all convicted violent criminals share, and it has nothing to do with skin color:  A Y chromosome.

 Don’t forget bumptious!

 It depends on his lifestyle, but he should be able to live decently on $100,000 a year. Maybe he needs more than that, but he shouldn’t have to live in a mansion, and maybe not even in a gated-and-guarded ‘community’. That would mean he’s being paid at least a million dollars a year, which wouldn’t be a surprise: he seems to think like he’s worth that much to his church.

“Under what circumstances would you be willing to trade being treated as a full human being for your notion of political stability? Show your work.” 

When and where was that offered as a trade-off?  To whom, by whom? 

I mean, it’s one sentence, but already you’re talking about “political stability”, which is hard to define and which I certainly didn’t bring up.  It’s just smugging (my new favorite word) with loaded assumptions which refer to nothing.

Lori, I hope you’re a kid (basically of course I don’t actually care because I’ve never met you and never will).  If you’re an aging woman then that is much worse.

On how much should be enough:
I seem to recall hearing that in Japan, for a long time, business executives were restricted to pay that was 40 times the minimum wage. Here, you might want to make it 50 times minimum – that would mean making as much in one week as a minimum-wage employee makes in one year. It’s pretty generous pay….

 Almost any 19th and early 20th century city government. Richard Daley. I suspect there’s been a lot more of it than we know, because politicians don’t seem to like digging into things that don’t immediately help them or hurt their opponents.

And your point? Pretty sure “with great power comes great
responsibility” is a) still valid, and b) a restatement of the Bible
quote above. 

I brought up the comic book because it’s the
simplest version. If Ricky-boy and his congregants can’t get something
the average ten-year-old manages to process…well, it doesn’t speak
well of ‘em, does it?

To be fair, Joe Quesada doesn’t get it either.

 A lot of US farmers are caught in that cash-crop trap – they have to borrow money from banks to pay for equipment or supplies like seeds and fertilizer, so the banks want them to plant high-value crops, even if they’re also high-risk for the area (needing a longer frost-free season than average, or needing a lot of water in an area where irrigation is required for most crops, or needing a lot of fertilizer/weedkillers/insecticides).  

Yes, many US farmers are in very difficult circumstances because of the debt-cash crop issue. I live in the land of corn and soy beans. Those crops are so dominant as the result of subsidies and the fact that once you start down the Round-Up road it’s almost impossible to get off it without losing your farm. 

The difference between US farmers and their 3rd world counterparts is that if someone here in the US loses the farm it’s a horrible thing, but the family probably isn’t going to starve as result. Of course the way things are going with the rightward push in economic policy we may get there before long. 

Milo???

Is that a typo or a real crop? Cos if it’s the latter, I’m woefully ignorant about what I out in my milk!

1) Unfair Tariffs: African manufacturers pay an average 2000% more to import finished goods than manufacturers from “developed” nations. This prevents Africans from exporting value added goods, which is where real growth and development comes from.

2) Agricultural Subsidies: African farmers grow things quite cheaply. However the US pays its own farmers such huge subsidies that they can essentially dump their produce on international markets. The African farmers end up unable to make any money.

3) Contraction of Development Space: Korea and China utilised a particular policy toolkit to encourage development. These had the result of increasing domestic production and developing indigenous technology. The US pushed for international trade regimes to prevent such activity in the future (sanctions etc if you try it).

4) No Heading: African nations can’t place restrictions on how multinationals do business with them. If they attempt to insist that companies employ citizens or legal residents, their overseas assets can be frozen. Any restrictions on currency movement can result in sanctions and frozen assets. Setting “onerous” environmental regulations (like those in the US) can result in sanctions.

I could go on, but I won’t because this is way too long already. Suffice it to say, the US has done a hell of a lot to cripple African economies.