Comment Re:Giving everyone $2/day: (Score 1) 137
Food aid is a poisonous gift. You might feed a bunch of people, but it undercuts the livelihoods of local farmers, and just creates dependency on handouts. Disaster relief is one thing, but without a transition plan towards self sufficiency it is almost worse than nothing.
I saw a documentary about the aid industry in Haiti, and it was quite disgusting. Local builders and plumbers living in tattered tents without proper sanitation, just living on hand me downs from aid agencies whose interest was already focusing on the next disaster. Real aid would help the locals help themselves, not pay for aid industry fat salaries and materials manufactured in the donor countries.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/09/opinion/where-does-aid-money-really-go/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9545584/Poverty-barons-who-make-a-fortune-from-taxpayer-funded-aid-budget.html