United-States

RECENT POSTS

April 29, 2011 | 8:57 AM | By

10 myths about foreign aid, two views

Tom Murphy at A View from the Cave adds his five myths about foreign aid to the Center for American Progress’ John Norris‘ five myths on same, as published earlier in the Washington Post.

Read Murphy’s blog post and Norris’ op-ed at the Washington Post for their rationales.

Here’s all ten, with Norris offering the first five and Murphy providing the second five:

  1. Republicans hate foreign aid
  2. Foreign aid is a budget buster
  3. We provide aid to countries to get them to do what we tell them to do
  4. Foreign governments waste the aid we give them
  5. No one ever really gets weaned off foreign aid
  6. Overhead costs tell you how well an organization is doing
  7. Aid has been a resounding success/failure
  8. Good intentions justify bad aid
  9. The poor can’t help themselves
  10. People in the field/academia just don’t understand
FILED UNDER: Politics, foreign aid, United-States
February 24, 2011 | 9:16 AM | By

Third World America

AidWatch’s Bill Easterly today pointed out some interesting interactive maps that he says show pockets of the “Third World” in America. Here’s a screen grab of one map showing varying health indicators across the U.S. (darker is better on this map)

American Human Development Index

Health index

The actual interactive maps can be found, and explored, at the American Human Development Index site.

Easterly’s characterization of the data (not to mention using the somewhat dated and arguably imprecise phrase “Third World”) has, as usual, provoked some angry denunciations. You can read them on his comments page, which is always entertaining and often enlightening.

For those interested in visual data and the overall indicators of our health/well-being, take a closer look at the rest of the interactive maps provided by the American Human Development Project. They also map out data regarding political participation, environmental impact and other demographics.

FILED UNDER: Basics, development, United-States