Same Old, Same Old

Here is an interesting post by Alex Tabarrok on the Marginal Revolution web site:

From Bill Easterly's, Can the West Save Africa.

I get a kick out of all the noise about "lifting Africa out of poverty". The efforts of high profile people like U2's Bono gets the media excited, but as the above table implies, this never changes anything substantively. I remember all the talk in the 1960s of aid to Africa (part of the Cold War strategy to keep African countries "on side"). That aid created boondoggle show pieces. Factories that never produced anything. Highways to nowhere. Just a big waste of taxpayer dollars.

In the end, the only people who are going to lift Africans out of poverty are Africans. The only real help the rest of the world can do is lower tariffs for all African goods, then step back and let Africans figure out how to solve their own problems.