The UK I understand it still gives aid to India and many other countries. About £280m to India per annum?
I read in the Telegraph just now that India is to build a new statue:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/8581241/India-to-build-worlds-tallest-statue.html
The world's tallest costing around £300m. So why are we still giving aid? I can see why we give it to Pakistan as it's a payment for them to hopefully not support harbour terrorists (not working too well)... but who else thinks this takes the biscuit with India?
Parp! Parp! :-)
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 17 Jun 11 at 23:27
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There is some real poverty in India which really needs money to help with it, but I think your argument is not that we give India aid but it is actually if they can spend £300m on a statue, they can use the money we give them instead to spend on their poor.
I suspect there may be political reasons even the media don't know about.
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Indeed Rattle. If we give them money to help a country with so many poor then that is where the money goes. But how can the same country (or a region) find money to build a stupid statue?
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Think of it this way Rattle, a customer gives you £50 to buy a new hard drive, but instead you go down the pub and spend it.
You then go back to your customer, and demand he gives you another £50 for the hard drive.
Would he be happy to give you the money a second time?
The hard drive being the poor of India, and the session down the pub being the statue.
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Unfortunately, not far off the mark....:-(
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Logically, if we let the poor starve in this country, the money should start flowing our way then...?
Why we are expected to prop up citizens of other countries who choose to let their people live in poverty, I do not know.
I forget if it was India or Pakistan that actually gives out huge international aid itself, saw that mentioned on Question Time in the last few weeks, which makes a mockery of the need to send any money their way, they have enough to give out to other countries - if they can do that, why on earth do they need ours, or if they really do need these vast sums, why not spend it internally on their own poor.
Its like knocking on a neighbours door to give them all your money then turning to your neighbour the other side, hand out pleading poverty. Its bizarre.
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>> The world's tallest costing around £300m.
We British are a worldwide byword for stinginess. And here is yet another example. We leave the Indians - our friends, the world's most populous democratic country filled with winsome babes, holy men and damn good cooks, who have taken over responsibility for the entire British motor industry out of the goodness of their hearts and who are anyway perfectly nice for the most part, TWENTY MILLION POUNDS SHORT of the full price for this no doubt essential statue.
Have we no shame?
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Could it be that they are so poor is that we are so rich in the west?
Think about it.
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>So why are we still giving aid?
Maybe the UK govt thinks it should be looking after former colonies. Dunno.
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I'd always assumed that this sort of 'aid' was really a form of grant/subsidy to fund the purchase of stuff made in the UK, or for re-investment in the UK. A backhander if you like,to make sure TATA keeps Jaguar/Landrover manufacture in the UK for example... ;-)
Peter
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>>I read in the Telegraph just now that India is to build a new statue:
Are you saying they shouldn't have statues?
The west is rich because corporations make money. But they do not literally make money, it's the world economy as a whole, including all the people who make and consume things, that generates wealth. The corporations and the individuals who run them (not own them - that's us through our pension funds) just happen to stick on to a lot more of the money that the people in places like India who are making many of the things we use and profit from.
So aid to countries that are MUCH poorer than ours is a way of sharing out a very small part of what they have played a major role in generating.
You can pick holes in the above as an explanation of the mechanics of wealth generation, but it's pretty much the view held by Warren Buffett, which is why he is giving away vast sums - as Buffett has said, rich men can only get rich from the society they inhabit - there aren't many multi-billionaires in sub-Saharan Africa.
Now you can have a whole different argument about crooked officials and politicians appropriating and misusing aid, but to me that's a problem with the system, not the principle.
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>> So why are we still giving aid?
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For a fully researched reply, see this timely report:
www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/jun/14/uk-politicians-back-aid-to-india
The argument for aid generally is two fold
- first, it makes the donor feel good,
- second, it makes the donor feel that he/she is buying some instant goodwill, which will turn in to much greater monetary payback at some later date through trade by the grateful recipient.
Aid to any country has the same effect - it displaces what that country's rulers would/could have spent on their own people and frees that money for those rulers to spend in other ways, such as buying arms, or or wasting it on some pet egotistical projects, or paying it in to their Swiss bank accounts, or whatevea.
Innit! Though! parp! parp!
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In answer to the OP's question; in a roundabout way, on buying British steelworks and car manufacturers.
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India UK Aid and Where it is spent....? - RattleandSmoke
