If government stimulus is supposed to revive moribund economies, why do massive World Bank funded projects and foreign aid fail to lift African countries out of poverty? In fact, using the Keynesian tactic of confusing correlation and causation, one would conclude it exacerbates poverty. Given that aid involves no increase in public debt and that much of the debt connected with major infrastructure projects will be eventually forgiven, these stimuli should be even more effective than what Krugman and Stiglitz propose we need in the US. Is it possible that government is generally ineffective in deploying investment capital and that increases in exogenously derived (as I would describe federal government spending funded by Chinese t-bond buyers) social spending provides no long term benefit, beyond a short-term voter palliative?

If government stimulus is supposed to revive moribund economies, why do massive World Bank funded projects and foreign aid fail to lift African countries out of poverty? In fact, using the Keynesian tactic of confusing correlation and causation, one would conclude it exacerbates poverty. Given that aid involves no increase in public debt and that much of the debt connected with major infrastructure projects will be eventually forgiven, these stimuli should be even more effective than what Krugman and Stiglitz propose we need in the US. Is it possible that government is generally ineffective in deploying investment capital and that increases in exogenously derived (as I would describe federal government spending funded by Chinese t-bond buyers) social spending provides no long term benefit, beyond a short-term voter palliative?

Temp soma. Soma to florida. Pornstar soma. Soma fm….

Cheap zolpidem. Zolpidem tartrate. Zolpidem overnight. Zolpidem and sleepwalking. Zolpidem….

Ultram. Mg er ultram. Ultram addiction stories. Tramadol ultram medicine. Ultram for long term chronic pain. Ultram addiction….

Buy cialis. Cialis attorney ohio. Cialis….

The debate on debt sustainability sometimes sounds to me like debating whether you can smoke one, two or three packages of cigarettes a day before smoking kills you. In my case, after not having smoked one single cigarette in more than ten years—and not one single week goes by without being seriously tempted—I am certain that my own “nonsmoking sustainability level” is an absolute zero cigarettes.

With respect to public debt, we know there are governments really hooked on public debt and then perhaps their debt sustainability level should be an equally big zero. As it must be very difficult to free someone from a vice with as much addictive power as credits payable by future generations, it might be safer if the Bank and the Fund recommend cutting the habit altogether, cold-turkey, instead of suggesting a life on the border of sustainable (healthy?) levels of debt consumption.

This enables those politicians to destroy their subject's productive capacity.

Stiglitz makes just about every economic science blunder Hayek ever identified.

What's up with that?

All about health care, and how the private insurance companies are ruining the health care system.

A former editor in chief of some kind for the New England Journal of Medicine was making the case that Obama wasn't trying hard enough for a truly socialized system.

The purpose of those loans by us'ns was/is not to improve their lives or lift them out of poverty.

See my comment above and Sanm Grove's higher. It is all about binding the nations leaders to us politically, specifically in votes in the U.N., and in trade policies.

"We should call these nations that can't repay their loans what they are, deadbeats.
Posted by: BoscoH | Jul 10, 2009 9:47:44 PM"

Why not call them what they are intended to be, ours.

Who owns the debt?

Is there an international recocognition of odious debt? (an idea AFASIK first proffered by the Soviets after the 1917 revolution).

Exactly. Then own the thug, take over the countries assets as collateral, let multi-national corporations use the "borrowed" money to build things and profit handsomely, privatize public assets… again putting them in the hands of the corporations, then force upon them conditions in which the debt will never be re-paid and you have whole countries indentured to you.

It's the Road to Serfdom and we paved it. Yeah capitalism run amuck is why poor nations are poor in many cases.

If "capitalism" means funding third-world dictators so that politicians can hand out more goodies to their friends, then you will find very few capitalists on this blog, and would be better served by commenting elsewhere.