TED Community » Ehis Odijie

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An idea worth spreading

true freedom is the freedom from fear

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• TEDCred score: +15.70 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Will you make a pledge to give away all the income you make over the national median in your country/state/or province?

  Dec 27 2012: You are all saying the same thing but you all choose to accentuate one part over the other. The fact is there is no straight line to affluence but hard work increases your chances and guarantee an escape from poverty.
  
  Those who started poor all attribute it to hard work but they know better.

• A reply on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?

  Dec 27 2012: Thank you for this short and insightful comment.

• A comment on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?

  Dec 27 2012: Mali lost 1.7 per cent of GDP and 8 per cent of export earnings yearly, which amounts to an annual $43m loss to local cotton farmers as a result of U.S. cotton subsidies (Oxfam, 2002: 3-10). Similarly, due to US subsidies, Burkina Faso sustains a yearly loss of $28m; Benin $33m; Cameroon $21m; the Central African Republic $2m; Chad $16m; Côte d’Ivoire $32m; and Togo $16m (Oxfam, 2002:18). The list goes on to include all of the 32 cotton-producing countries in Africa, comprising roughly 30 million cotton farmer in Africa sacrificed for 25 thousand in USA .. .
  
  In light of this you have people talking about aid not working . . . What a load do rubbish

• A comment on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?

  Dec 27 2012: There seem to be a pretend ignorance in this discussion, which i don't think most of us can afford, that aid is a development tool that has failed. That the United States and all the aid donors provide aid for development and now they are confused because they want development for the poor so badly.
  
  Aid, by its very definition, is a way of getting leaders of poorer countries to do what you want more like a refined gunboat diplomacy. There is no better way to bring this out than constant treat to withdraw support when the recipient goes out of order. Aid and development doesn't mix because the problem of the poor or underdeveloped in not shortage of funds but lack of what I call productive value.
  
  Americans are actually creating more poor people with its trade policy. The example I like to give is the case of cotton. In. In Mali, more than three million people – a third of the population – depend on cotton to survive, while the United States has 25,000 cotton farmers. The U.S. cotton farmers are paid approximately as much from government subsidies as they earn from the total value of their harvest. In the 2001/2002 period, the value of U.S. cotton production amounted to $3 billion at world market prices with subsidies of $3.9bn in the same year. What makes the level of U.S. farm subsidies so significant for the world market is that the United States exports half of the cotton it produces, so that America’s export prices have a great influence on the world price of cotton.
  
  Several studies have attempted to describe the effect of US cotton subsidies on African cotton producers. A study by the Fair-trade Foundation suggests that cotton subsidies from the U.S. are costing West African cotton producers (Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso and Chad) £155m a year (Jowit, 2010). Another study by Oxfam estimates the lost income for West Africa cotton producers as $191m (£118m) each year, while sub-Saharan cotton exporters lost $302m as a direct consequence of US cotton subsidies.

• A reply on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?

  Dec 27 2012: You are correct but our definition of poverty, remember that poverty is a subjective and relative concept, has changed
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  A reply on Conversation: If there is so much aid in developing countries, why poverty is increasing in these regions and the industrialized world?

  Dec 27 2012: I'd put it differently. Don't prevent a man from fishing by giving him a fish

• A reply on Conversation: Is there a time to kill?

  Dec 27 2012: If you bring it down to demons and evil spirit then it's no longer the fault of the individuals. By logical extension the solution falls down to prayers, a curer from heaven we all have to wait for. You are both Nigerians I suspect -Feyisayo and Gabe- and I suggest that the thinking you both exhibited is the problem with the Nigerians.

• A comment on Conversation: About U.S. hegemony.

  Dec 27 2012: Global annual military spending amounted to $1.5 trillion the last time I checked. America military spending is more than 700 billion, yearly, taking almost half of the cake - and that is the reason for her military leadership.
  
  There is no such thing as 'moral leadership' principles of right and wrong are context determined.

• A comment on Conversation: â��That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.â�� â�� Christopher Hitchens. Do you agree?

  Dec 19 2012: How does one accept that with no evidence? For in acceptance comes assertion . .What is the acceptance or assertion based on? Nothing
  
  I agree with Christopher Hitchens
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  A comment on Conversation: Can we ever have an unbiased classroom.

  Nov 19 2012: The term unbiased is the very meaning of bias. In this context to be unbiased to a Japanese student in the classroom, if taken to the extreme, would mean applying a different language therefore you are being biased to the Americans. The important point is this: it is not fair to the Japanese student either because the whole point of schooling in America is to learn it the American way.