Mittwoch, 29. April 2009

Foreign Aid ...

"The Operation Mils Mopti project in Mali is typical of AID African agricultural assistance. In 1976, AID launched a project to boost food production and marketing in the Mils Mopti area of Mali. AID plowed over $10 million into this project, which included the usual development array of applied research, more tools and fertilizer for farmers, better roads, and better grain marketing.
Almost everything went wrong, but AID kept financing the program long after its failure was evident. AID paid for the building of eighteen warehouses, but five were not built, three were not finished, three collapsed, two had their roofs blown off, and three more quickly crumbled owing to "serious structural deficiencies."[37] Fifty-four open wells with contaminated water were to be sanitized, but only nine were actually improved. A hundred mills for grinding grain were to be constructed; the project managers built and tested one mill, then gave up. The road-improvement project repaired less than one-quarter of the roads scheduled for upgrading.
Operation Mils Mopti sought to increase grain marketing, but the government marketing board paid farmers only the official price for their crops, which was far below free-market prices. To fulfill the marketing goals, the government forced farmers to sell their crops, thereby effectively expropriating their harvest. Instead of increasing sales, Mils Mopti resulted in a fall in total procurement by the government marketing board of over 80 percent by the time the project ended in 1979."

Source: Policy Analysis Article (1986)
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa065.html

Samstag, 25. April 2009

New birds in the sky


After the decision to phase out the F-22 abruptly at 187 planes (so far there are 183), the US Air Force seems to put more weight on the future F-35 JSF and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) like the predator family.
A new hot development is the predator C "Avenger", with a jet enginge.