How Can We Help the World’s Poor?

"The new synthesis should embrace specific interventions that all sides agree have merit, while also borrowing from an important insight of the aid critics: trade is usually preferable to aid."

I am happy to see the above remark. I makes me feel like "There may be hope for the world yet." Having done a lot of volunteer work, therapy for my own personal issues....etc, ad nauseum... I have concluded that heroics and "saviors" typically cause more problems than they solve. For example, welfare and many other programs require recipients to psychologically identify themselves as pathetic enough to merit such help and actively encourage them to keep failing in some significant way so as to continue to qualify for aid. The harm to identity and self esteem and the bad habits they encourage are likely to cause long-term harm in the form of learned helplessness.

A couple of good books with relevant points:

Diet for a Small Planet -- One of the points it makes is that foreign aid to prevent starvation often comes in the form of foreign foods which cannot be grown locally and therefore aren't locally sustainable or economically viable once the locals are hooked on them.

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed -- In essence, this explores some of the problems with top-down solutions and how unrealistic they so frequently are.

1 - see them good stuff for fair prices. cell phones especially

2 - hire assassins to kill their incredible corrupt crap leaders.