Foreign aid: taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries.

Though a fair amount winds up in the hands of politically connected "consultants" of the donor nations. US and Italy are supposedly the worst for that.

An excellent book was written by a British Forein Office employee stationed in Africa somewhere. Had 'stop' in the title but unfortunately that is all I remember now.

Many of these countries would improve vastly if International bodies (especially the IMF and the World Bank) and Western countries (particularly the CIA) would quit meddling in their affairs, quit dumping subsidized agricultural products onto their markets and kept Western resource companies on a much shorter leash. Ensure young girls learn to read and much of the rest would eventually take care of itself.

Originally posted by haven123
wiki is verry relyabe soure isnt it now any one that want to can change info on there

You're more than welcome to read the primary source which is linked on the wikipedia article (in this case the IMF) if you feel it would help.

and why would we want to improve relatoions with a courupt but buitlful country

You may wish to re-read the latter half of my post.

Originally posted by Jessica6
It is misleading to describe countries as simply rich or poor. There are many extremely rich Brazilians, very adept at extracting wealth from other poor countries like Angola. Brazil's problem is that far too few benefit from the country's vast wealth; it certainly doesn't trickle down much to those below.

At a shade over $11,000/person, the country doesn't actually have "vast" wealth. Having the world's 7th biggest economy is fairly easy when you have the world's 5th biggest population, without your people actually being very well off.

Income disparity is dreadful in Brazil, has been for decades. There's little will to fix it either

Efforts to improve income equality often seem to hamper growth, something the nation can't afford at the moment. It's hard to support a first-world style welfare state on what is essentially still a third world budget.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
Well if there are many rich Brazilians as you say then surely Brazil should be taxing those people to help their poor, rather than British tax payers paying for their poor.

Generally a bad idea, the rich would likely migrate to more favourable parts of the world. The taxes also wouldn't cover a huge amount due to the vast population of Brazil.

If countries are rich enough to develop their Militaries, they should be rich enough to look after their own poor.

Brazil, as an emerging superpower with a large amount of resources would do well to develop its military if it wants to ensure its own long term success.

But should that be at the expense of Britain's long term success?

Our nation is in for long term decline (relative to the rest of the world of course) whether we like it or not. Foreign aid helps us to build good diplomatic relations with the future big boys and provides us with some leverage when discussing trade terms and the like.

If you hadn't noticed this country doesn't actually have any money. It's why there are massive cuts to our own welfare state and military.

Foreign aid which is very useful to us in the long term isn't to blame for massive state overspending over the last 14+ years. Preventing tax evasion of some of our wealthiest individuals (not likely considering our current crop of politicians) would be far more effective than eliminating foreign aid.

While I understand the arguments for giving aid to countries such as Brazil and India, I do have reservations about it at the same time.

For example, why do we give India in excess of a Billion quid a year when they have a Space program? So does Brazil, if I am not mistaken. The UK doesn't and only plays a small part in the ESA, although that "small" part is a key part.

I don't have a problem aiding them out, as they do have massive social issues, which if not dealt with will undo all their economic progress, but if they are lobbing rockets into space I think we should be asking them why we are donating money to help their poor when they clearly don't give two hoots themselves.

And as pointed out, these raw economic stats don't really prove much. Yes, Brazils overall economy may be a fraction larger, but they have massive amounts of poverty and illiteracy, corruption is a problem and the GDP they have must be shared amongst population much, much larger than the UK.

Originally posted by stumason
For example, why do we give India in excess of a Billion quid a year when they have a Space program? So does Brazil, if I am not mistaken.

Now this is a good question.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
But should that be at the expense of Britain's long term success?

It isn't necessarily at our expense. A lot of foreign aid has conditions attached, such as engaging UK companies etc, so it does feed back into our own economy and boosts relations. That said, the amounts we send (£9 Billion last year) would be better spent in the short term within the UK and boosting our own manufacturing base which we need to get out of our reliance on Banking, which we all know is not a horse we should be backing.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
If you hadn't noticed this country doesn't actually have any money. It's why there are massive cuts to our own welfare state and military.

To be fair, we need massive cuts to the social welfare budget. It isn't right that almost 50% of the economy under Labour was Government spending. It isn't right we have hundreds of thousands of people being paid to not work, whatever the reason. Labour used the Welfare budget to create client voters, so that needs reversing as it is a trend that cannot be supported in the long term.

As for Military spending, it hasn't been cut, but actually increased. The MoD, however, is under massive pressure to cut costs that are needless wastes, such as the army of civil servants which is larger than the Army it supports. Trust me though, by the end of 2020 our Armed forces will be far better equipped and funded than they ever have been, but the newspapers don't focus on what is coming, but just the headline grabbing articles of "No Carriers! Arrrghhhh!".

Give me a break!

Do you really believe that Brazil *NEED* that money?

According to the article cited, we are talking about £13.6 million per year.

Get a clue: Brazil's government had a revenue of more than 800 billion dollars in 2011, from their own taxpayers.

Those £13.6 million are a drop in the bucket both for Brazil and for Britain. That's probably just a bureaucratic glitch, a remnant of the past. That has absolutely no importance neither to Brazil nor to Britain.

Originally posted by GLontra
Those £13.6 million are a drop in the bucket both for Brazil and for Britain. That's probably just a bureaucratic glitch, a remnant of the past. That has absolutely no importance neither to Brazil nor to Britain.

Indeed. Remember, this article is from the Mail for starters, but even their article says at the bottom that the payments are mainly historic and many are included due to an "IT error".

That said, this does raise the larger issue of aid in general and quite why, in a time of austerity, we are giving away an amount of money in the region of £9 billion a year, which is god knows how many schools or hospitals, jet fighters or tanks or several large manufacturers propped up.