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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Yep, It's Official, We're Now A Third World Country

Was watching 60 Mminutes Sunday night, and was intrigued to see one of their segments on RAM, Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps, a group of volunteer doctors, dentists who fly into poor, impoverished, medically underserved areas throughout the world to bring much needed medical care to residents. It's a non-profit organization (with over 90% of contributions going directly to the RAM programs) started by Ray Brock , of the old Mutual of Omaha's TV show, Wild Kingdom, fame, if memory serves.

And here's the kicker. Over half of their expeditions to remote, impoverished, underserved areas are to the U.S of A.

How pathetic is that?

You can check out their website at http://www.ramuse.org

And On A Related Issue

In the Fall 2007 Smithsonian, which featured young up and coming movers and shakers, is a profile of Matt Flannery, co-founder of the non-profit Kiva.org, "a microlending site" that "operates on a people-to-people model, allowing private individuals to make loans to borrowers seeking to estqablish small businesses in developing countries.?

If you click on their website, www.kiva.org, you can see profiles of the various folks asking for loans, the total amount, and you can click on a donate all or a portion. Continues the article, "When you loan on the Web site, you get to choose whom you loan to -- a goat herding business, a retail business, a fruit stand. Most of the time, you hear back about what happened [through the web site]. We allow the lenders to ask questions and the partners to report. . . . " "repayment rates in the microfinance industry are much higher than for U.S. domestic loan lending. That's because microfinance institutions are lending to people for whom getting a loan is their only shot any anything. If you're given a sixty-dollar loan, your chance of getting another loan is contingent on you paying that back. "

The interesting thing about "micro loans" in general, is that when you give money directly to the husband or wife of a family, for example, to start up a small business (selling eggs, buy a sewing machine) the impact of even a small loan is enormous on improving the financial postition of that family and from hence to improving the outlook for the kids (chance to get to school, get medical care, & etc.) The ripple down effect is huge.

Now, in light of the first posting, will have to ask, Will Kiva be showing up in the U.S. of A, our newly created Third World Country, to give micro-loans to struggling Americans? Oh, wait, I forgot, Silly Me: It's big bailouts for Corporations, and bankruptcy and the back of the hand and visits from RAM for the rest of us.
Posted by Churadogs at 7:17 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ann:

Kiva is great! EVERYBODY should contribute to private enterprise. It is private enterprise that can truely save the world. This is something that I have contributed to for years, and have always been repaid. It is people helping people.

Now when you bring this into comparison with government bailing out US corporations, your thinking is warped. Think of the union employeees who have kept their high priced jobs ( union shop ), union bosses doing even better, all continuing to pay taxes, buy goods and services, and the sort of salvation of stockholders who actually OWN the corporations after they have seen their stock values tumble. Think of the workers, small towns, and economic destruction that would occur.
And yes, the CEOS of corporations are rediculously overpaid, sort of like sports heros. But the stockholders decide.

Bailout cannot be done by presidential decree, it takes a majority of congress, and they DO sometimes think of unintended consequences, but mostly not!

Sort of like you, who only give half of the story, since you separate people from corporations.

I think programs like Kiva should take the lions share of foreign aid. Maybe the Mexican illegal aliens would stay home. Kiva is proven, it works, and is a better investment than the stock market or real estate speculation. Most of all, it encourages individual responsibility, entrepreneurship, and makes a lie of the socialistic dream, which has done nothing. FAILED!

Work needs to be rewarded, and capitol is the engine of success.

Too bad in this country, socialists want a hand out and not a hand up. Kiva represents a hand up!

I am a Jack Kemp republican, deplore the ghettos, and wish that individual Americans could take care of their own. The government, after forty years of semi socialistic leadership has not helped a bit. And it actually prevents us from doing so.

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of your readers. As of this time I have a good hunk invested in this program, and it grows. I am well awarded. I am suprised that you would support it, the result is everything that the socialist progressives do not support: Responsibility for individuals, etc.

Good bit, however.

5:52 PM, March 04, 2008
Churadogs said...

Spectator sez:"I am suprised that you would support it, the result is everything that the socialist progressives do not support: Responsibility for individuals, etc."

I suspect your "surprise" comes as a result of your being blinded by using words like "socialist" you use to describe some vague group or policies you disagree with. It's the same sort of word like "liberal" or "communist" or "anti-sewer obstructionist" that blinds the user into a pre-cut box that stops thought dead. And where do you get the idea that "progressives" don't support individual responsibility & etc?

Spectator also sez:"Sort of like you, who only give half of the story, since you separate people from corporations."

Yes, I do separate corporations from people. I know very few people who are given wonderful tax breaks then allowed to shelter even more money by locating "offshore" so their assets are further sheltered, all the while enjoying the "rights" of citizenship but with few of the obligations. I also know few people who are legally immune from civil lawsuits, people who can steal big time, even ripping the government off really, really big time, get people killed, etc. yet are protected by the courts and by hastily written laws from any civil damages or any sort of accountability, like Blackwater and/or Haliburton's recent operations in Iraq, for example. Such a Sweet Get Out Of Jail Card not often allowed "people."

On the other hand, think what an organization like KIVA could accomplish in this country? Tax free, tax breaks, subsidy-loaded the way corporations and mega farms are subsidized with all kinds of props. You want an engine of prosperity, that's a pretty nice model. Alas, most of our government subsidies go to corportations and other mega businesesses, not some little guy opening a small shop on the corner. After all, the mega corporations can afford the lobbyists and the money needed to buy congress that then votes in those nice kick=backs. I know very few "people" who can do that.

Apropos of which, one of the funniest things around is the Western Rancher, staunch symbol of individual responsibility and self-hoisted boot-strapping, (picture Ronald Reagan on a horse squinting into the sunset) raging on about welfare queens and g*d d***ed socialists and god'd***ed commie gummint giveaways, all while gazing out on his herds of cattle grazing on public lands for grazing fees well below market price, with cows slurping at below-market, government subsizized and/or paid for water, or grazing on land subsidized by the government (i.e. taxpayers) and sold for a song to private settlers (i.e. his granddaddy) in 1903 at a song, subsidized again by the taxpayer to encourage settlement in the western states & etc. Bwa-hahahahah.

5:54 AM, March 05, 2008
Anonymous said...

To Ann:

Words are defined by dictionaries.

In order to communicate properly I use the meaning of the words found in a dictionary. Otherwise, the reader would not understand me.

Thank you for admitting the way you look at corporations. You fail to mention that a corporation is a legal entity, and treated the same as an individual. It can be sued, forced to make payment for an adverse judgement, and officers of the corporation can be jailed for violation of the law. Enron comes to mind.

However, it is a creature of the state. It's nature is protected by international treatys.

The tax code is another story. Governments, through their legislatures, give tax breaks to certain kinds of corporations to achieve a purpose that they deem necessary.

Individuals also receive tax breaks, if their income does not rise to a certain level. They also receive "kick backs" such as social services, renter deductions, etc. People can actually pay no federal or state taxes and receive a tax refund for taxes that they never paid.

Perhaps you do not know many people like that, but certainly you are hiding your eyes.

I guess it all comes down to the concept of egalitarianism, which is the mainstay of communist doctrine. Also is the concept that all real estate property and capital goods belongs to the people (ie. government).

So you are a communist. So is Ralph Nader, but he is honest about it, since it affects and effects his views. I respect him, but would never vote for him, and very few do.

As far as your warped version of the western rancher, you might extend it to the small rancher also, and the small farmer struggling. Like to eat food? Figure it out, and why subsidies exist. You might even contemplate why farmers are paid NOT to plant certain crops and leave their land fallow.

And certainly any property owner in California is subsidized by prop 13. Want a re-assesment?

You are so blinded by the war, corporate greed ( which certainly exists for the benifit of the stockholders ), and the work of lobbyists to benefit their clients, that you can't see the good that occurs. AARP is one of the strongest lobbyist organizations anywhere. The Red Cross has lobbyists, almost all church groups, Chamber of Commerce, etc. Lobbyists bring forth information to legislators. I guess you just like to pick and choose.

If you like the communist system, it is alive and well in the US. Become a NUN. There are many very happy nuns here, and they bring many joy in the nursing field and other fields. So far, this is the only place where true socialism/communism has worked around the world. If you were a male, I would suggest you become a monk.

Thanks for the discussion and the wit. Much of what you say is half correct, but you deal in half truths, and omit the rest of the story. Let us take a fair and balanced view of everything. The voters will decide.

Maybe we should discuss the recent election returns and the battle between Hillory and Barack. It is my opinion, looking into my very hazy crystal ball, that pitbulls will hang on, continue to fight, and will bleed to death by the convention. EGO.

9:27 AM, March 05, 2008
Churadogs said...

Spectator sez:"So you are a communist."

Yep, just as I said, you use words to shut down thought. Call someone (wrongly) a communist and that's that. End of discussion.

You also say:Maybe we should discuss the recent election returns "

That would be pointless. After all, I'm just a communist, right? And what could a communist say about anything? Right. Nothing. Communists (even wrongly identified communists) have nothing to say. So, See? End of discussion. That's what labels, even incorrect labels, do. Stop thought, which is their point.

8:29 AM, March 06, 2008
Churadogs said...

Oops, forgot to add. Jon, please consider how oxymoronic your statement is. I just got through touting and praising KIVA as a great program, worthy of my readers' attention and support. KIVA is not only antithetical to "communism" but no "communist" would tout KIVA, ever.

What's wrong with this picture? Yep. False statments shutting down thought and discussion. Tsk-tsk.

7:20 AM, March 07, 2008

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