On 6/15/2013 10:15 PM, nestork wrote:
Metspitzer;3078821 Wrote:
I have seen lots of pictures of Africa. It shows entire towns
carrying water on their heads. The thing that makes me suspicious
about these pictures is that all of the water containers are plastic,
modern plastic. These have obviously been supplied by some type aid.

Why not send some PVC and a pump?

Living in a first world country, it's hard to understand the problems
faced by people in third world countries.

Much of the problems of Africa arise from the fact that many African
governments are extremely corrupt.

For example, the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, won an election
in the early 2000's by sending people out to the country side (where he
is detested) to register everyone who is old enough to vote. However,
the people doing the registering told everyone that what they were
signing was a pledge to defend Robert Mugabe in the event the USA
invaded Zimbabwe just like it did Iraq in the second Persian Gulf war to
get rid of Saddam Hussain. Consequently, almost no one signed the voter
registration lists, and so only Mugabe supporters were able to vote in
the election.

And, with Mugabe paying the army well, he stays in power.

With corruption like that, no companies want to invest money developing
Zimbabwe's natural resources because they're concerned that their
investment can be lost with the passing of a corrupt law. That puts the
brakes on foreign economic development, and everything else follows.
With little industry in the country, there are few high paying jobs, and
little need for universities to train people to fill those jobs. So,
the countries depend on agricultural exports to sustain their economies
and often corrupt government leaders take most of what little money that
brings in.

So, it really all starts with corruption and snowballs from there. Law
and Order, like we have in the west, Europe and most places in Asia is
critical to economic development, and it's something that's lacking most
places in Africa.


Isn't Chicago turning into a third world country? ^_^

TDD