From: Avatar Polymorph (way@warehouse.net)
Date: Sat Aug 29 1998 - 21:54:23 MDT
James Rogers writes:
"In the US, you don't have a choice. Typically, at least half your
wealth *will* be put into a fund to advance the interests of your poorer
brethren. Whether the poor actually benefit is another matter."
I meant half my wealth after tax. I'm quite happy to live on 12-15,000 a
year.
It is incontrovertible that foreign aid is under one percent of GDP.
The top 10% in America have 80% of the total wealth. It is very
instructive to do a graph of what that means. The top 355 billionaires
had as much wealth as the bottom 2.5 billion (1978). Do a graph of that.
Let the Y line be population and the X line total wealth. See the
intensity and height of the spike.
Transport costs? For wells and food and communications infrastructure?
Well, if you spend nothing, sure, nothing happens. Before Telstra went
into Cambodia they had 7 IDD phone lines for the whole country. A few
relatively cheap satellite dishes later they were okay.
But debate about food costs isn't the point. It's about not helping your
brothers and sisters in trouble, because they live far away. Australia
produces heaps of grain and wool and coal and so forth, like the US. But
we don't give it away cheap. Just like the English landlords in Ireland
during the potato famine, we let them starve. Why innoculate the third
world - they'll just breed. The old Ronald Reagan argument.
Look at Bill Gates - he finally funds a UN programme to the tune of 2
million dollars... for what...? for... population control.
In the third world.
Affluence is the best contraceptive. But let's control their population
before they get affluent. After all, they're not white and they don't
speak English.
Avatar Polymorph
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:31 MST