From: "Richard Hong" 

>> A similarly unsordid act in the early 90s towards the SU would have
saved a whole lot of grief.

Alan,

Exactly.  I find it sad that not only do we not learn from our failures, we
didn't even learn from our success.

Have you heard of an entirely impractical quest called Jubilee 2000?  It is
a movement by most major denominations to get the first world countries to
CANCEL Third World debt (www.j2000usa.org).  In most countries of Africa,
as an example, the govt spends many times more money repaying debt than on
health care and education.  And the debt ballooned not because of how much
they borrowed initially, but mostly because when interest rates skyrocketed
in the 80s they couldn't keep up and refinanced.  So because they are
paying interest on interest, children die.  It's just wrong.  The entire
sub-saharan African debt to the first world is a mere $227 billion.  The
U.S. used to rack that up as a one-year deficit.

Forgiving their debt would help them ascend the development ladder.  They
would become viable trading partners with us, helping our economy as well.
It's silly not to have a perpetual "Marshall Plan" going.

Rich

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