A Quote by Wilbur Smith

A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.

Wilbur Smith

Quote Topics

Accounts Aid Bank Bank Account Bank Accounts Black Black People Countries Cynic Defined Gave Had Money People Poor Poor Countries Put Rich Rich Countries Simply Swiss System Which White

Quote Author

Wilbur Smith
British - Novelist
Born: January 9, 1933

Aid is the process by which the poor in rich countries subsidize the rich in poor countries.

Peter Thomas Bauer

Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

Rand Paul

In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer.

Margaret Thatcher

The great question for our time is, how to make sure that the continuing scientific revolution brings benefits to everybody rather than widening the gap between rich and poor. To lift up poor countries, and poor people in rich countries, from poverty, to give them a chance of a decent life, technology is not enough. Technology must be guided and driven by ethics if it is to do more than provide new toys for the rich.

Freeman Dyson

If the level and amount of consumption and waste of the western rich countries ever reaches the poor countries, it will mean the end of humanity. The big world corporations are busy doing it...The production, selling, consumption, accumulation, wastes' and advertisement explosions in the western rich countries and the continued population explosion in the poor countries will turn into major catastrophes.

Robert Muller

Rich countries have been sending aid to poor countries for the last 60 years. And, by and large, this has failed.

Iqbal Quadir

Gore Vidal, the American writer, once described the American economic system as 'free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich'. Macroeconomic policy on the global scale is a bit like that. It is Keynesianism for the rich countries and monetarism for the poor.

Ha-Joon Chang

If the "rich" were swarming into poor neighborhoods and beating the poor until they coughed up the dimes they swallowed for safekeeping, yes, this would be a transfer of income from the poor to the rich. But allowing taxpayers to keep more of their money does not qualify as taking it from the poor - unless you believe that the poor have a moral claim to the money other people earn.

James Lileks

Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country.

Ron Paul

There is a considerable polarization taking place here, increasing the gap between rich and poor. It's most dramatic in Third World countries, of course, but in the rich countries it's also very noticeable.

Noam Chomsky

The globalization that has rescued so many in poor countries has harmed some people in rich countries, as factories and jobs migrated to where labor is cheaper.

Angus Deaton

A nation as such does not give aid to another nation. More precisely, the common citizens of our country, through their taxes, give to the privileged elites of another country. As someone once said: foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country.

Michael Parenti

The public doesn’t have to be hostile to the rich. ‘Robbing the rich to help the poor’ will only drive the rich away to other countries along with their money. As a matter of fact, their wealth should be respected. All wealth in China belongs to the country.

Zong Qinghou

Growing richer every day, for as rich and poor are relative terms, when the rich are growing poor, it is pretty much the same as if the poor were growing rich. Nobody is poor when the distinction between rich and poor is destroyed.

James L. Petigru

If you neglect those who are currently poor and stable, you may create more poor and unstable people. There has been a tremendous concentration of donor interest in countries that are seen as particularly fragile - but it becomes harder to mobilise money for sub-Saharan, plain poor countries.