We are some of the luckiest people in history

[Lawman]

No country has a legal duty to give anything to another
country. The US has anyway. The "strings" are attempts
to keep other governments from using the money to pad
the Swiss bank accounts of their politicians. Most of the
"strings" you hear about are for "loans" from the World
Bank. They try to control the economic policies of the
borrowing countries so hopefully they will get paid back.
By the way, the US is the World Bank. We forgive loans
and refinance loans regularly...a disguised way of giving
money without calling it foreign aid. The Marshall Plan
rebuilt Eruope after WW II. We helped rebuild Japan and
give it a successful form of government. We send food and
aid everytime there is a disaster in the world. We've taken
over countries in war and turned them back to their people.
It isn't a perfect record, but it's better than any other country
in the history of the world.:flags: :flags:

 

[DivePartner1]

In the time it took me to fly back from Honduras, this thread really fell into the dumper.

Rick is entirely right. Don't whine. Do something, whether it's a business plan, or volunteer work, or forming your own foundation to do good, as you see it.

And let's stop embarrassing ourselves with this internally focused off-topic jingoism. There's a whole big world out there.

Sheesh.

 

[DiverBuoy]

wetman once bubbled...
Have you ever thought about just how fortunate we are to be able to go to the places we go and see the things we see?

...

100 years ago none of this stuff was really possible on the scale it is today.

I also think we should remember to thank the people who are willing to teach this stuff.

steve

The world is much tighter in communciation technology, international travel, money exchange, even business language for the most part. To say nothing of actual dive technology for the individual. 100 years ago it would not have been possible on such a small budget to travel the world and dive anywhere with the "show your ticket at the front door, step onto the coach, and sit back and enjoy the ride mentality" we have today.

It goes beyond the dive professionals, thank business commerce, and economic education, governments focused on tourism and trade, capitalism backed by a little greed, science, medicine, industry ... there are many contributors.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

gedunk once bubbled...
Sorry, don't buy it. Former President Carter has certainly done some good humanitarian work in his day but that is a ridiculous statement.

It is not too hard to verify, it is all over the internet. There was also a 2hr documentry about Carter's rise, fall and rise again and in the interview with him, he re-iterated again and again.

 

[Lawman]

I agree. On this board you can find very sophisticated
discussions of diving. Not foreign and economic policy.
This has degenerated into sophmoric crap.

End it.