Just read Jeffrey Sach's the End of Poverty

[Kiouni]

and I have to say it was quite compelling. I saw some video of him with Angelina Jolie speaking out about poverty in Africa and decided to get his book. It's been out for a while but it is still captivating. His approach to ending poverty is methodical and appropriate.

I was surprised to hear that his big plan to end poverty is to simply get the U.S. and the rest of the world leaders to keep their promise of donating .7 percent of their GDP to ending worldwide poverty. In fact he only really needs .5% of the first world's GDP to end extreme poverty globally. The G7 have already promised this much and never followed through on it.

If you get a chance to read it you really should. I picked up Easterly's "The White Man's Burden," the other day because it is supposedly the opposite of Sach's book. Easterly contends that there is too much corruption for extreme poverty to end just by throwing money at it. But, I haven't read it yet and will update shortly after I finish it.

[GreenZoneLT]

1. Yeah, it's not just a matter of money.

There have been some studies that show that countries that received the most direct cash and food aid are worse off now than before they got it, because of corrupt misgovernment. Of course, the reason they GOT all that aid was because they were so fucked up, so it's not like it CAUSED the corruption.

There's an awful big jump from "Well-governed countries do not suffer from extreme poverty" to having actual well-governed countries, of course. The only thing we really know for sure is that violent revolutions don't get you there, and neither do colonialist puppet regimes.

[Captain Hilts]

2. I guess Sachs learned something after helping screw up Russia's economy. nt