> I guess at stake is not as much seducing the natives (the ordinary
> armstwisting works just fine), but the prevention of theft and
> mismanagement mentioned in the original Doug's posting.
>
I believe the reverse is true: the money is given with the intent that
it be stolen. I saw this kind of collusion with my own eyes in Russia.
How else do you rpepare a country for plunder? You create a rotten
oligarchy which fears its own people and is universally despised in
turn. You turn a natural resource base into a debt-ridden beggar; and
you bind a country into underdevelopment duress forever. That's what
they planned to do in Russia and that's just exactly how they did it.
The loans sit in Swiss banks and their very sequestration from global
capital circulation wipes them out as a burden on the lender; but the
debtor is bound into a usurious relationship with the West: what else do
you call 150% interest rates on Russian GKOs (state bonds) but usury?
Corruption among recipient kleptocracies is not a perverse by product of aid, it's the heart of it, and designedly so.
Mark
-- Mark Jones http://www.geocities.com/~comparty