Kristalina - ready for a global bureaucrat at the UN

In 2000, the UN presented its “Millennium Development Goals”, an ambitious program that was supposed to show what humanity should strive for in order to improve life on the planet at the beginning of the new millennium. One of the main goals of the international organization was to reduce the world population living in extreme poverty (i.e., with less than $1.25 a day) by half from 1990 to 2015, or in other words from 47% to 23% in just 25 years. Surprisingly, this was not only achieved, but even became a reality five years earlier, when in 2010 the number of extremely poor people decreased to 22% of the entire population of the Earth.

These successes come after major changes in the two most populous countries, China and India. In the last two decades of the 20th century, in both countries, as well as in parts of Eastern Europe and Africa, we have seen an unprecedented abandonment of the planned economy, an opening to free trade, and at least a partial turn to a market economy as the main source of prosperity. The difference before and after the reforms is clear - the extremely poor made up 65% of the population of China in 1981, in 2007 they were 4%. In India, from 51% in 1990, those living in absolute poverty decreased to 22% in 2015.

The merits of the UN

Achievements that have nothing to do with the work of the UN or its experts. The organization, as well as the American government, became famous for its failed attempts to “re-educate” African dictators through international (financial) aid. Currently, countries on the black continent receive about 5% of their budgets from aid coming from the rich West, while the inhabitants of Zambia have 20% less purchasing power than in 1960, real incomes in the Democratic Republic of Congo are constantly falling, and autocrats like the now deceased Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia are becoming famous for allowing aid to reach only their closest party entourage. Even Time magazine came out with the headline in 2014 – “Stop Sending Aid to Dictators”.

And what has already been sent is not a small amount - according to estimates by the Institute of Economic Affairs, the amount of international aid to Africa and Asia since 1950 has amounted to $ 1 trillion. If the huge infusion of money from Western taxpayers into Africa had worked, perhaps we would already be talking about the economic miracle of Tanzania and Chad. We rather hear about the huge salaries (on average 29% higher than those in the American administration) and privileges of UN employees, about the bribes they received under the “oil for food” program, about the multi-billion dollar budget of the New York-based organization.

A new tax for global bureaucrats

In this economic and historical context, Kristalina Georgieva comes to the fore, who, together with experts from the UN, proposes a new tax to finance even more spending by supranational bureaucracies. Examples of what could be taxed are football matches, taxi services, concerts, all of this to further finance the 25 billion dollars that are already spent every year on "humanitarian aid" - this, according to Kristalina's own report, is 12 times more than in 2000.

The demands of politicians like Ms. Georgieva and officials like the UN should not surprise us – every bureaucratic system needs lofty goals that it cannot achieve with its centrally planned approach. The longer they remain unresolved, the more money can be thrown at expert assessments, reports, plane trips, salaries and conferences. And if people themselves, by turning to freer market relations, reduce world poverty by half – some new crisis will still be invented.

Did you like it? Take a minute to support the EKIP on Patreon!