The earth is comprised of countries of varied civilizations who left large lasting reminders created in past generations to remind us of their particular culture. Things like the Coliseum in Italy, the Acropolis in Greece, the Mayan temples in Mexico, the Pyramids of Egypt to name a few that are permanent reminders of the advancements of the people of that region. Wonderful structures to remind us of that country's wealth and civilization. I know that Africa is wealthy in diamond mines and other rare and expensive gems and a beautiful landscape but where are their architectural marvels?

It is ironic that there are no castles in Africa from the Middle Ages like throughout Europe. In fact it is a shame that there are still naked people there starving and living in the mud there. There is  someone that worked in the Peace Corp who was on a  mission  to help the people of Africa to survive. They built basic housing there and told the residents to go up the hill for firewood. Instead the Africans would rip the wood off the house to burn. Hey, this was the story i heard from someone,  not my story.

The fact remains that there is no evidence of advanced culture there. The area is still being dominated by greedy dictator leaders who consume wealth for themselves and do little or nothing for the people of Africa. There are real problems there that should be addressed. For example, in Uganda, 50% of the population is under the age of 15. Places like that need good educational services and jobs for the predominately young population.

There is not a single country in the history of the world that has achieved economic growth and has reduced poverty in a meaningful way by relying on aid to the extent that Africa relies on today. We know what creates economic growth. We know that countries that trade do better than countries that don’t trade. Countries that rely on aid do not do as well as countries that don’t. We need investment , we need job creation all things that are created in the United States that it has become a double standard for Africa. One thing for the rest of the world and another thing for Africa is not good.

One of the biggest hypocritical things about western capitalism is what they do with farm subsidies. Africa has a population of about a billion people which represents 15% of the world’s population yet they have less than 2% of world trade. They are not even in the game worldwide. Yet they have the most untilled farmable land on the planet. I agree with the economist from Africa, Dambisa Moyo who wrote the book Winner Take All who believes that being blocked from world trade has much to do with decimating people’s livelihoods there.

The women and children there living in the dirt don’t need a helicopter dropping a bag of flour on their head once a month, they need a farm of their own where they can grow their own grain. There are tens of millions of Africans there unable to farm unable to work. Budgets for health care are completely unsupported because African countries are not able to earn export earnings from exporting their products.

In this country the big farmers get most of the subsided money. We need to change the makeup of the United States Senate. North Dakota and South Dakota have the same number of senators as California and New York so our entire political system is tilted toward rural America and therefore tons of money are given to very wealthy farmers. The farm program here in America tends to go to wealthy farmers who get the biggest share of the subsidies.

The problem lies again I said it before that the big shot corporations are keeping too much money. Corporate profits are higher than ever since World War II . The problem is that there are 2 ways to make profits. The definition of profit is revenue minus costs. So, you can either reduce costs or raise revenues and in this case American companies have been aggressively cutting costs and through labor costs. Thus so many people out of work and so rich companies.

Look give the people of Africa land of their own to farm to create a monument of their own to represent their country. Let them to be able to export their goods. Keep the diamonds and gems under their feet and create wealth for themselves. Let them live in dignity. Enough of the starvation, disease, flies roaming in their children’s mouths. There must be a real global  effort to create a better  quality of life  for all  humanity on earth.