Bush Opposes UK Africa Debt Plan

It seems pretty obvious that the Bush administration serves the banking and the business class and nobody else. I'm not economist but everything I've read up to this point says that countries struggling to get on the development ladder need debt relief or they become mired in paying back money to the banks and then their people suffer for it. Instead of investing in more infrastructure or job creation, the money pays the interest ad infinitum. It's like someone making 5 dollars an hour and having to pay off a credit card with %10.9 financining and only being able to afford the minimum balance each month. That person will never get out of debt nor will said person ever be able to invest in his livelyhood. It's like a comic once said, he'd be working for VISA.

This chauvanistic protectionism in this country has got to stop. It is rediculous to think that other countries should open up their markets for our products and in return we shut our markets to them. I understand that we have a tremendous trade defiicit and I further understand that we've given plenty of aid to Africa in the past. So what? The author of the Commission for Africa (CFA) report, Sir Nicholas Stern was stated that , as he saw it, one reason to continue to give aid and debt relief to Africa is how far Africa has come in the last ten years. Africa has been growing more rapidly, economic policies have been getting better, there’s been more democracy. And that’s starting to be understood outside according to Stern.

According the article, part of the plan is to create an International Finance Facility (IFF) to help pay for immunisation programmes in Africa. Disease is one of the major sources of poverty cited by developmental economists and other experts who do work there. It has been proposed that if Africa were to stem the tide of overwhelming disease then it would be easier for the continent to climb out of abject destitution.

You'd think Bush and company would be all for stemming the tide of disease in Africa but you'd be wrong. Instead President Bush said that that the IFF for Africa "doesn't fit our budgetary process". Right, the budget only has room for cutting the income tax and dismantling Social Security, I can see that <----insert sarcasm here.

Blair appears to be going forward with this plan without the US and to that I say good. The next time Mr. Bush wants Blair to partner up with him on a war in the Middle East, PM Blair should recall this rebuff and tell Bush to stick it in his nose.

Here's the article from

All Africa.com