Keep on rocking in the free market
Bill Emmott
June 30, 2006 03:58 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bill_emmott/2006/06/post_187.html
Did Bob Geldof, Bono et al really think that they could "make poverty
history" by campaigning during Tony Blair's presidential year of the
G8? Yesterday's report on Live 8 a year on revealed a record that, in
Geldof's words, is a mix of "the good, the OK and the ugly". The truth
is that it is always worth campaigning for more aid, especially for
debt relief, famine relief and health care, and also worth shaming
governments that don't live up to their promises.
This week's news that America's two richest men, Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett, plan to combine their wealth to try to ease the problems of
disease and poor health care in the poorest countries shows the power
and lure of publicity, but also the fact that private initiative can
produce greater flows of money than governments answerable to taxpayers
who suspect that behind every poor African there
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