Thread: What about the world's poor?

^ Thanks for that mate and you will be surprised about how many of us feel that way.

I remember my mum chastising me when I was a kid when I didn't clear my dinner plate and telling me about all the starving kids of this world.

Now we have starving children in first world countries or at least some who are definately going without basic food, services and proper housing.

I wonder where all this is going to end up and as the economic downturn bites deeper.

The French and Italians have already reneged on promised aid to Africa. Any world leader who gives money to the third world will be castigated at home by increasing ranks of poverty stricken people. But lets get this in perspective. Poverty at home in the west is different to poverty in parts of the world where clean drinking water is no longer available.
At least our poor kids can get to tap water.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

I remembder my mum chastising me when I was a kid when I didn't clear my dinner plate and telling me about all the starving kids of this world.

Likewise. It's not a new phenomenom. Wherever there are to many people living in a place that they cannot find/grow/make or buy enough food, Mother nature will have her way. Now that this is happening in "first" world countries,(ever seen a beggar on the streets ?), it is inevitable that the next war is just around the corner.Not for oil, but for food. And theres the rub. Now that the people living in places where food is not the major concern, are faced with people for whom it has become the major concern, do we just "feed our faces"?

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

it is inevitable that the next war is just around the corner.Not for oil, but for food.

If you really believed that, you should put all your money into food commodities.
For myself , I don't think it's a good idea.
Plenty of food around. Production can be easily increased should demand rise.
The problem is not the lack of food, but the lack of money for the most desperate people to buy it. And that's a political problem much more than an economic one.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Poverty at home in the west is different to poverty in parts of the world where clean drinking water is no longer available.

I agree there Chas but how can you expect some parents with 3 kids who have been kicked out of their family home onto the streets to accept that billions are being siphoned off the top to races of people who shouldn't be having the sizes of families that they are pumping out.

Something has to be done now and I am not sure what the answer to that is.

Maybe as withnallstoke said > "it is inevitable that the next war is just around the corner.Not for oil, but for food" is spot on the money but I hope not!

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Originally Posted by chassamui

Poverty at home in the west is different to poverty in parts of the world where clean drinking water is no longer available.

I agree there Chas but how can you expect some parents with 3 kids who have been kicked out of their family home onto the streets to accept that billions are being siphoned off the top to races of people who shouldn't be having the sizes of families that they are pumping out.

Something has to be done now and I am not sure what the answer to that is.

Maybe as withnallstoke said > "it is inevitable that the next war is just around the corner.Not for oil, but for food" is spot on the money but I hope not!

Indeed. The next resource war will most definitely centre on water. The sustenance of life.

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

The next resource war will most definitely centre on water. The sustenance of life.

Are not our bodies composed of over 70% water? To survive on water, we need only to kill 2 people, and take their body water. Then eat the dessicated remains. Within the next few days, we do it again. Instead of throwing money at these folk, why not farm them for water and food instead of labour?

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

The next resource war will most definitely centre on water. The sustenance of life.

Are not our bodies composed of over 70% water? To survive on water, we need only to kill 2 people, and take their body water. Then eat the dessicated remains. Within the next few days, we do it again. Instead of throwing money at these folk, why not farm them for water and food instead of labour?

The new "Dominion". Corporations. Corporate government, corporate control and suppression, corporate dependency. Why?......because we allow it.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

The next resource war will most definitely centre on water. The sustenance of life.

Are not our bodies composed of over 70% water? To survive on water, we need only to kill 2 people, and take their body water. Then eat the dessicated remains. Within the next few days, we do it again. Instead of throwing money at these folk, why not farm them for water and food instead of labour?

You been reading Dune?

Let's narrow our focus on this planet first, Bob.

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

Originally Posted by Rural Surin

The next resource war will most definitely centre on water. The sustenance of life.

Are not our bodies composed of over 70% water? To survive on water, we need only to kill 2 people, and take their body water. Then eat the dessicated remains. Within the next few days, we do it again. Instead of throwing money at these folk, why not farm them for water and food instead of labour?

Oh I 'm sorry, for a moment I thought this was a serious thread...leaving now and I promise not to disturb you anymore.

Trouble is that most donations to especially Africa disappears down some tossers trousers

How do you get around that?

Originally Posted by Muadib

Those that are left to fend for themselves turn to more profitable endeavors, such as becoming pirates, kidnappers, drug dealers and scammers... If they are going to fvck like rabbits, produce more children to 'save' and not look out for their own future, I have little sympathy...

Some of the scenes that we have all seen on TV of these poor kids suffering from malnutitian has brought me too tears but at the same time we will see a degradation of our own nations living standards to unseen hardship that we have not seen for the last 80 years if things don't improve soon.

There is a saying "help those that are willing to help themselves" and although these poor rural and tribal people in the third world don't have any control over the powers at be they should be aware of their situation and stop popping out kids they simply cannot provide for.

There is clearly not enough funds let alone food to go around anymore and why are these "Pompous Nights in Shining Armour" still demanding aid when as they know is simply not available> quote "Pascol Lamy of the World Bank".

Originally Posted by DrB0b

What makes you think that's a lot of money? 500 Million is the cost of a couple of hundred cruise missiles.

I get your point 100 % BOb but will the rank and file Fred and Mary's think about cruise missiles and when they are standing on the sidewalk with their kids and belongings by their sides wondering about where they will spend the night after being kicked out of their family home by the banks.

I have donated money to many charity organizations in the past but charity starts at home and that is where money will be needed in the future and if it is not desperately needed already.

As I understand a number of countries have already reneged with regard to their pledges for aid money and you will see many others pulling out and or restructuring their contributions downwards and with the full support of the rank and file voters.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Originally Posted by DrB0b

What makes you think that's a lot of money? 500 Million is the cost of a couple of hundred cruise missiles.

I get your point 100 % BOb but will the rank and file Fred and Mary's think about cruise missiles and when they are standing on the sidewalk with their kids and belongings by their sides wondering about where they will spend the night after being kicked out of their family home by the banks.

They should be thinking about where their money went and none of it went to the world's poor. It was stolen by the world's rich, that's who should be paying for it - not some poor sod of a refugee in darfur.

An excellent thread.

I particularly like DrBob's logic in post #15. This does make a lot of sense.

I've been trying to understand how these NGO's tick. I see folks driving around in top-of-the-line 4x4's - both foreign & local. The local lads look ever so full of themselves, with their new-found wealth & parent's financial muscle. The foreigners seem to be living on another planet & must be having a ball. Money seems to be no real object.

Where on earth is all this money coming from?
Who on earth measures the impact & effectiveness of this money?

How much of the money - from source to end - actually reaches the 'poor'?
(Some figures talk about 90% attrition rate).

Originally Posted by watterinja

I've been trying to understand how these NGO's tick. I see folks driving around in top-of-the-line 4x4's - both foreign & local

Why?

Originally Posted by DrB0b

The reasons for aid donations are simple. Donation money is a small drop in the ocean and if it leads to prosperity and stability (big if, I know) then it pays off for everybody, a stable and peaceful world is a world where countries can trade and people can work towards prosperity rather than a world where they spend their lives dodging terrorists and grubbing in the dirt

It seems to only pay off for those that didn't need it in the first place. I agree that "a stable and peaceful world is a world where countries can trade and people can work towards.............", but the reality is different. Trade has moved on since the days of exchanging surplus to requirements for something another culture deems surplus to their requirements. Man needs little to survive. Water and food. Everything else is ornamantation.

^^ Again I agree with you and these facts (stolen donations and food aid) are well documented.

The vast percentage of monies that are contributed by first world countries across the globe are generated by way of income tax collection and whilst the overall size of these funds is insignificant when compared to for instance sake, arms investments your random empty pocketed Joe Blow on the street is going to question why are we doing this.

I can just see the well running dry in the near future and for these third world destitute communities that really are in desperate need of these funds.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

^^ Again I agree with you and these facts (stolen donations and food aid) are well documented.

...

I can just see the well running dry in the near future and for these third world destitute communities that really are in desperate need of these funds.

I wonder how much foreign aid & NGO money ever gets into the hands of the poor?
What I see is the rich getting richer & the poor getting a set of tokens.
The current 'Development Model' is a poorly-orchestrated farce.

Originally Posted by TSR2

Trouble is that most donations to especially Africa disappears down some tossers trousers How do you get around that?

Don't donate.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

China's massive donations to African countries, their donations dwarf western donations and in 20 years time they'll be the ones who control Africa's resources - thanks to the money, infrastructure, and training they've donated.

I think in this case the last word of the quoted post should read invested instead of donated. Apart from that, spot on Bob.