The Foreign-Aid Micro Credit (FAMC) -- Micronizing Foreign Aid for Mega Impact

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Concepts Foreign to Foreign-Aid Jingoists -- & Micro-moaners ! -- Disintermediation, Self-determination & the "Invisible Hand" of the Poor "Consumer" in Africa

Now you see it, now you don't ! -- "A billion here, a billion there, before you know it, you're talking about real money." -- Ronald Reagan


A recent article in The Wall Street Journal vindicates again my "other invention" -- the cell-phone-based Foreign-Aid Micro Credit (FAMC) -- about which I have written at length in this blog before:

"The Foreign-Aid Micro Credit (FAMC)"
[ 13 December 2008 ]
http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2008/12/foreign-aid-micro-credit-famc.html

"The Foreign-Aid Micro Credit in a Time of Famine"
[ 19 December 2008 ]
http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2008/12/foreign-aid-micro-credit-revisited.html

"The Foreign-aid Micro Credit (FAMC) -- U.S. Marines style"
[ 31 January 2009 ]
http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com/2009/01/foreign-aid-micro-credit-famc-us.html


Here are some quotes from The Wall Street Journal article:

"Why Foreign Aid Is Hurting Africa" -- 21 March 2009

By Dambisa Moyo -- The Wall Street Journal

"Money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty. Cutting off the flow would be far more beneficial, says Dambisa Moyo."

"Dambisa Moyo, a former economist at Goldman Sachs, is the author of 'Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa'."

"Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades."

Reference: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083-email.html

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My proposed cell-phone-based Foreign-Aid Micro Credit could eliminate 80 - 95 % of the opportunities for graft, theft and fraud in the dispensation of Foreign Aid. Intercepted any photons lately to steal your neighbors on-line banking transactions ? Not likely, even among the sophisticated electronic apparatchiks, digeratti, cognoscenti and uber-mobilemeisters in America & Europe. Hence, the chance in Africa of electronic interception and theft of 1,000s or 10s of thousands of Foreign-Aid Micro-Credit balances sent in-country or directly from overseas banks & governments is almost nil. Zero.

Would 1,000s or 10s of thousands or 100s of thousands of African consumers with cell phones in hand with cash balances received directly from Britain, the U.S. Government, the IMF or the World Bank make better investment and consumption decisions than Generalissimo Dictator Mbenganyakinkisosubaboboloco and his henchmen in African country XYZbia? A few percent of the families might buy beer. But most would buy the first shoes ever for their kids. Others might send their kids to school for the first time because even elementary schools charge tuition in Africa. Others might buy a goat or a cow that produces milk for years. Etc. Etc.

What would Generalissimo Dictator Mbenganyakinkisosubaboboloco do? He would steal the entire foreign-aid balance as soon as it was wired in to his central bank, as recently happened to 100s of millions of dollars of IMF loans to the Ukraine. Or, he would undertake a single infrastructure project such as damming a Nile River tributary ostensibly to produce hydroelectric power because he knows his buddies at all the cement, construction and engineering companies will pay him a 20 % kick-back. And so the Cycle of African Foreign-Aid dysKarma repeats itself, as it has for the past 60 years. As Dambisa Moyo writes above.

Not to mention ! -- You don't like dictators damming Nile tributaries ? Understood. So what is the chance that 10s or 100s of thousands of Poor African Families might make micro-investment and micro-consumption decisions that would displease you? Again, almost nil. Zero.

So how to securely deliver a US$ 20 or $100 or $250 Foreign-Aid Micro Credit to 100s of thousands Poor Africans in an afflicted country or zone ? Please re-read the 3 earlier and detailed posts above, and please note this recent photo caption from our Facebook group:

"When US Airways flight 1549 splash-landed on the Hudson River on 15 January 2009, the US Airways emergency-response team showed up a few hours later with dry clothes for the passengers and mobile phones like this Kyocera KE433 prepaid cell phone already loaded with paid airtime and a pre-assigned telephone number. Sound like a drug smuggler's dream come true? Yes, but it's also the exact delivery vehicle needed for the Foreign-aid Micro Credit (FAMC) that I have described several times on my Carbon Manna blog: http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com. Photonic delivery of foreign-aid in "micro" amounts will frustrate graft, fraud and corrupt foreign governments. In sum, disintermediating, cell-phone-based delivery of micro credits has many revolutionary applications."

--->> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52270598714


Will the career bureaucrats at the IMF, USAID, the World Bank, the U.N., and the NGOs, charities & foundations "like dust" throughout Africa ever learn to "Think different" ? Will they instinctually yearn to disintermediate themselves out of a job, their generous pensions, sinecures, honoraria and lifetime healthcare benefits ? Hee, hee. Silly you.

Therefore:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Take action today to do your iota to free Africa from Dante's Inferno of government-administered foreign aid. History awaits you. And me.

Very historically yours,

David A. Palella
Chief Credit Micronizer
CARBON MANNA UNLIMITED
San Diego, CA
cell: 619-787-5767
email: dpalella@san.rr.com

http://carbonmanna.blogspot.com

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Carbon-Manna-Unlimited-953397.html

Carbon Micro-Credits / Carbon Manna groups on:

--->> http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/1794312/

--->> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52270598714

http://community.keithferrazzi.com/profile/DavidPalella

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