The G8 Summit 2005

[formerly known as hf]

I was speaking to someone at my university today. She's a mature student, born in Ghana, and managed to get a sponsored placement here in Leeds in the UK. She originally worked as a matron in a school for children in Ghana. One day, one of the children got an asthma attack, another was having a miscarriage. She rushed them to hospital, but was told that, because neither she nor the chool had enough money, that only one of the kids could be treated.
The reason for this? A scheme implemented in Ghana by UK and US 'aid' named 'cash and carry' (not a cheap supermarket). The premise - to fully privatise all healthcare, and make that healthcare only available to those who can pay.


This July, in Gleneagles, Scotland, the annual G8 summit will take place.
The leaders of the eight most powerful nations on the planet - Bush, Blair, Putin, Chirac, Schröder, Berlusconi, Koizumi and Martin - will meet to discuss a range of issues that affect the whole planet and everyone living upon it.

In the time it took to read that, three people will have died in the poorest countries from illnesses that are easily cured. Others will be working for wages that no person could ever live on. Thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide will have been added to an already over burdened atmosphere. Jobs, in a factory or business, not very far from you, will have been lost as business relocate across the world.

These are the issues that are on the agenda for the G8 - but they will be discussed, and decisions will be made, behind closed doors, with minimal consultation of those that the decisions will affect.
The decisions will affect everyone.

Do you trust these eight men with things that affect your life? Do you trust these eight men to protect the jobs of yourself and your nieghbours? Do you trust these eight men to make decisions that are literally a matter of life or death for millions in poorer countries? Do you trust them to make decisions that will actually change the causes of these problems?

They are the causes - and they've done good by it - why would they change anything? The 'aid' they provide is not 'aid' - it comes with attachments. Over $4million a year are given to the very right wing 'Adam Smith' Foundation - labelled 'aid' - this foundation 'assists' governments in privatising every essential service, and opening borders to 'free trade', and reducing restrictions on working conditions. 'Aid' to Mexico, has been the provision of cheap maize - what do Mexicans want with extra maize? They are now net importers of the stuff... Stories like this continue across the globe - all decided by these eight nations.

Moreover - for evey dollar that the US gives in aid, it recieves ten in return for debts. The other eight are just the same.


The G8 is fundamentally wrong. And against any principles of democracy, freedom or liberty that many of those nations claim to stand for.
If you live in the UK, you can join the march (www.makepovertyhistory.org) on the 2nd, or, no matter where you are in the world, there will most probably be organisations, charities or unions raising awareness. These are issues that affect you and those around you, jobs and your health. Decisions on these things should take place openly.

[kinvoya]

You make a lot of good points hf and I'm sympathetic to what you say. I just want to make it clear that the US government is failing lots of people right here, also, though.

More and more people are becoming marginalized economically here. A huge percentage can't get medical treatment for serious illnessess. Homelessness is rampant. People actually starve to death here, too. Every year more women and children live below the poverty line (which means they don't technically make enough money to live on).

I don't understand economics. I can't figure out why every business seems to be loosing money (are they really? or is it going into the pockets of the executives as the labor force takes pay cuts while being required to do the work of two or three people because of lay-offs?) Why are hospitals and emergency rooms closing because they can't afford to stay open? Where the f**k is all the money going to?

Just a rant to say that, although the US may not be the nightmare that some people live with, it's not a picnic for everybody here.

I'm not an America basher, I have it pretty lucky, actually, and I'm grateful. But I'm not happy at all with the economic direction we're taking...where the very rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle-class is disappearing.

[Yo_Yo]

Well to say that they are loosing money is more of a way of thinking moreso then the fact that they are actually loosing it.

What they mean is that they at one time made a certain percent profit. For that, execs made tons of money. Now for certain resons, they are still profiting, but maybe not at the rate they were. They may stay at a steady line of progress, not moving up or down, or they may be moving slightly down. But the execs still want/need more money. So the company fires a few people to pay the execs what they want.

They aren't really loosing money. They are just not getting more annualy.

As for the rest of the post, i'm just a simple guy from Ohio. I'd rather someone with more knowledge then me (even if they only know a bit more then me) Make decisions on subjects like that.

And we are a very industry driven nation. If we were to take and make say a global healthcare, then tons of companies would indeed go bankrupt. Is it fair? Probably not. But then again, we'd be loosing alot of companies if we made global healthcare.

And while a couple of you (well, probably most of you) will disagree with what i'm about to say, it's as I feel the truth. People that work sucky jobs (such as ones that make little to no money) are at thier own fault. You always have the options of going to a school (such as a community colledge and even Joint Vocational schools) to better your ability to gain a significantly better job. Will it ever come easy to you? No. Such is life.

And another thing. I am strongly against wellfair. Indeed, some people do need it. They just can't help themselves. But that number is farly overlapped by lazy incompetent people that just want a free ride. With so many taxes here in the US, i'm likely to loose a decent amount of my paycheck. About a dollar and a half for every hour. And I know you say thats not allot, but if you add that up, what could you do with that money?

[Nick]

Just thought I'd add a little correction...
G8 represents the 8 richest nations, not the 8 most powerful.
Or else Canada certainly wouldn't be in the list. Luxembourg has a larger armed forces.

[formerly known as hf]

Ok, rich usually aligns with power, maybe not so in the case of Canada then.

I've just read back over my post, and I don't like it to be honest - I was kinda up on my soapbox yesterday. I'd been talking to frineds about it, and was amazed how many people were not aware of what the G8 is, and it's something that kinda got my goat - I apologise if I sounded preachy at all.

[Nick]

It really is a regional thing. I found that when I lived in Ottawa, everyone knew what it meant.
Here, I'll be lucky if I can find someone my age who knows who the Prime Minister of Canada is.

[Peanut]

Canada?

Isn't that in sweden?

[rklenseth]

Onto more serious issues at hand....

One of the main problems with these countries stuck in poverty is that their governments or leaders are corrupted. If aid is sent then most of the time it doesn't even make it to the people that really need it.

I am also of the philosophy of 'give a man a fish and he will feed his family for one night; teach a man how to fish and he will feed his family forever'.

That is also a main problem with sending aid is that it isn't helping build their societies to point where they can be self-suffecient without the aid of others.

Another problem is that a lot of countries are in poverty due to acts of God and nature that aren't so easily fixable. Others live in places that aren't exactly liveable either. I have heard that Africa's droughts are soon to end and with it the famine but we still have the problem with the wars and genocide over there.

And the biggest problem is that no one nation can try to fix these problems by themselves and a lot of these nations are often criticized by their own people for helping people in other nations when they have people in their nation in the same conditions. In fact, this happens a lot in America.

Here is my solution to corrupted governments and leaders (and this will require balls that no leader these days have), instead of giving the aid directly to the governments, have them brought into the country with armed escort and given directly to the people that need it. This way it won't fall into the hands of people that wish to profit off of it. And if they shoot then we shoot back and maybe we will be lucky in taking out those that are the problem. The problem with this is that it would not be publically supported, the UN would condemn it, and most of the world's leaders would condemn because it would be seen as creating unnecessary violence. But lets face the facts here. The reason why the aid isn't getting to the people that need it is because of these bastards that use it to profit or worse. And people in general these days are against committing violence even if it is the right thing to do. These people are being starved and murdered and we stand by doing nothing to stop those that allow this to happen. I think Edmund Burke said it best (even if you don't agree with his politics) with "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing." We aren't doing nothing but it isn't enough and it isn't stopping those that are doing what we know is wrong. And sometimes the only way to stop them is to fight back.

I read a book about Mexico once where one of the leaders showed disdain for charities. How is giving your pocket change at the counter of McDonalds going to help getting people jobs or finding a way to support their families? Yeah, it might give them food for one day but in the end it isn't doing much for them. We have to find ways to build the economies of places. Create jobs and make it easier for people to support their families. Now this isn't exactly easy to find a solution for. We would have to take each area individually and see how they can do this. I think the best solution overall would be a New Deal driven policy that helped pull America out of the Great Depression. Create jobs, pay the people well, and use this workforce to build up your country's public works. Allow companies to form to do this and monitor them to make sure that they are treating their employees well. At the same time people are working and getting money which they will spend in other markets improving their conditions and this creating more jobs and better pay there. At the same time, having these people build up the public works of these nations will improve their living conditions.

[formerly known as hf]

I agree with a lot of what you've pointed out there.

The unfortunate problem is, that, in terms of aid, the US and EU are just as corrupt in what they provide it for and how they provide it.

I very much agree with the 'give a man a fish...' statement. Most aid, as far as food is concerned, is in the terms of 'we'll make imports of the food from our countries cheap for you'. That helps no one in the country recieveing the aid, they become 'dumps' for the excess produce of the US and EU. They don't need food, that employs no one, they need to be helped to produce their own food, and then the US and EU needs to be prepared to buy it...

For using aid for profit - both the corrupt leaders of these countries, and those providing the aid use it for profit. Huge sums of aid, most of the 'economic' aid infact, gets put into schemes to privatise very important public services, such as water. These services then fall into the hands of the companies based in the country that gave the aid to help the privatisation. Meaning the money filters back to the country it came from, not to where it's needed.

As for getting the aid direct to the people, not via corrupts governments, that's been being done for many years by charities. Oxfam and Christian Aid (you don;t have to be Christian to support them) have been setting up small scale, grassroots schemes for decades. These schemes, by their nature, focus on small communties, tailoring the solutions to that community. The argument that this can't be done on a large scale is false.

We need to target corruption in the governments the aid is going to, but we also need to target the corrupt way the aid is being provided.

[Schme]

People do not work crappy jobs because of their own lack of effort, for the most part. That is quite simply untrue. If that were true, I'd have a crappy job.



The G8 is useless. But I like them better than anarchists. I hate those kids so much....

[Schme]

Canada is one of the worst countries to get aid from. We tell people what to spend it on, we give credits to buy Canadian products rather than hard capital, we are isistent that we get photo opportunities, and we want the flag on everything. If I was an exetremly poor country, I wouldn't want aid from Canada.



Ghana sucks. Want a good country? Somalia. Those Somalians, them, solid people. Only a matter of time before they sort out which warlord gets to call themselves president or something...Only a matter of time. And then you'll see.




I hate democracy.

[Missy]

Let me add, that even a large percentage of the US military families are below the poverty line. Thats how messed up things are.


Have you seen that www.one.org program?

I do believe everyone in this world could live comfortably, but I can hardly imagine half of the supporters for one.org giving up enough of their wealth so that people could. However, I commend their attempts.

A shame.

[Pirog]

I would like to point out that living below the poverty line in USA can still put you in the category of extremly wealthy compared to a lot of people in the third world...

Regarding the G8 Summit, I heard that Bush had (finally) admitted that mankind has a large effect on the environment of this planet. I really, really hope the terrorist attack doesn't make him forget that...

[Missy]

I would like to point out that living below the poverty line in USA can still put you in the category of extremly wealthy compared to a lot of people in the third world...

...

Indeed.

[Talapus]

Hopefully all of this school I have been forking out the big bucks for will pay off. Then perhaps I will be able to dig myself out of this huge red hole I have dug for myself.

Make a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.