The Egyptian Elections

I hope that people realize that the Egyptian free elections are a huge deal, even for America. Egypt has been a close ally of America for many years and one of the only ones in the area. There are many moderate independent nominees but there is also a presence of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical, in my mind, Islamic political group. They are looking to make Egypt more of a theocracy, this would be bad news for Americas interests abroad. If Egypt were to become a theocracy, similar to what Iran has, it would be harder to communicate with them and we would lose valuable friend. It is important to have allies in that part of the world, especially since we know that Iran is not really a fan of America and is apparently trying to wipe Israel off the map.

Obama's Support of Marriage Equality

I'm going to start out by saying that I am in full support of gay marriage, it is a basic human right and it is ridiculous that it is being denied to some because of their sexual orientation. But Obama's public announcement of his support for gay marriage is nothing more than a campaign move, he has been in office for four years and he could have expressed his feelings about this at another time. I understand that he is a politician and this is what he is supposed to do to get people to vote for him. At this point I really don't think that he can even do anything about the subject. Marriage licenses are issued by the state governments, so defining marriage is up to the state, it would be denying states rights if congress voted in favor or against gay marriage. Yeah it is morally right to have gay marriage, but as our government is set up Obama cannot change any laws about it. Having said that, it is nice to see such a prominent, arguably the most prominent, politician be so adamantly in support of gay marriage, it means that the tides are changing. I truly believe either the next generation of politicians or our generation of politicians will legalize gay marriage.

The Bottom Billion: Post Five

Many people have almost given up hope that they can change the world, but it is definitely possible. If the efforts going to help the 'bottom billion' are unified and they address every single part of the problem then it can happen. First, we need to stop being afraid of military action, yes what happened in Somalia and Iraq were PR disasters but using military force to start change in countries that need it is something that might need to happen. The more peaceful attempts to create change in countries that are poor by the UN have almost all failed, they are too weak and they don't send a very forceful message to the governments of those countries. Also many countries need to be involved in this, it can't just be one, it needs to be a world effort. Change also does not happen in countries that do not want change, the societies of these low income countries need to want it, they need to want the social change in their country and want to fight for it no matter what. It should also be noted that the bureaucracy of international organizations and international committees leads to a slowing of change in these countries, so that should be avoided.

The Bottom Billion: Post Four

The third trap is location, many countries that are the poorest also happen to be landlocked or have bad neighbors and the combination of those two things usually leads to very bad things. Being landlocked is never a good thing because you lose so many valuable trade opportunities. If you are landlocked and you have neighbors that are at war or oppressive dictatorships or you are constantly at war with them it only puts you in a worse position. Because this also limits the supply of natural resources and products that would help your country progress and become more stable. Also it is true that if you are a coastal country you serve the world, you have reasons to be connected with many different countries but if you are landlocked you serve your neighbors, everything you do has to based around them because that is the only way that you will be able to best serve your own country. While helping these landlocked states come out of poverty may not directly benefit us, it definitely benefits the world and is the right and moral thing to do. By helping these countries you also decrease the risk of wars breaking out over precious natural resources.

The Bottom Billion: Post Three

Another trap that keeps low income countries poor are natural resources. On the surface it would seem as if the discovery of natural resources is a good thing for the country, because it brings in a lot of money. There are several problems with that train of thought though because as we know most of the diamond rich countries are in a perpetual state of unrest. The first problem being that since low income countries often have an increased rate of violence that there will be many people going to extremes to get their hands on the wealth that the resource provides. The second problem being a bit more complicated, since this resource most likely will become the countries main export all of the other products the country exports will lose their value. So while a few people are getting very very wealthy many others are falling further into poverty, creating an unstable environment. As members of America we should care about this because it directly affects us, if countries that supply us with much needed natural resources start to fail then it will hurt our economy, we should try our hardest not to let them fall into the natural resources trap.

The Bottom Billion: Post Two

According the Paul Collier the author of The Bottom Billion, the poorest countries in the world usually fall into traps that keep them impoverished. One of these traps is the conflict trap, this typically refers to civil wars or coups. These things tend to keep countries unstable therefore not progressing as they should be. As it turns out the political repression is not the main reason for civil wars breaking out. Take China for example, they are constantly being repressed, but they have yet to have political violence (apart from Tienanmen Square),  this is mostly because the government actually works out for them and has brought so many citizens out of poverty. One of the defining factors for civil war is having a large portion of the population living under the poverty line. People who are most likely to participate in political violence are young, uneducated and without any dependents. Civil wars and political violence are extremely detrimental to not only the country itself but also to all the surrounding countries because of the collapsed economy. Wars and coups keep love income countries from from growing and that keeps them dependent upon exports of primary commodities and because of this they remain poor which leads to wars and coups which keeps them poor, its a never ending cycle, this definitely affects the world in such a way that the G8 should want to step in and interfere with this.

The Bottom Billion: Post One

The poorest countries in the world coexist with the 21st century but they live in a reality that is more like the 14th century because of all the civil wars, sickness and ignorance. Right now around 5 billion people are reasonably wealthy and live in developed countries as opposed to 100 years ago when 1 billion people were rich and 5 billion people were living in poverty. The billion poorest people in this world are living in awful conditions and dying while we live in a 21st century world of material comfort. Being so well off in this world I think that we should be much more aware of the poverty some people face everyday. The least developed countries that are concentrated in Africa and Central Asia, can probably easily be brought into the 21st century, it might take some time, but everyone deserves to live like we do. Many organisations that provide aid for poor countries are focusing on countries that already have the means to become developed. They are sending their best people to Brazil and China when the countries that actually need the most aid are places like Chad and Laos. The problems of these countries usually lie with the government, usually that they are not run by competent people or their leaders are actual psychopaths. So if they want to become a developed country they will need to change their government to something much more effective,

The Occupy Movement

Okay, so many people seem to think I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm going to say it anyway. I truly believe that the occupy movement is wrong in many ways. OWS's goals include a more balanced distribution of income, more and better jobs, bank reform, a reduction in the influence of corporations on politics, forgiveness of student loan debt, and alleviation of the foreclosure situation which accounted for 20% of homes sold in 2011. 
1. Reduction in the influence of corporations on politics- If you look at lists of the top donors from every election since 1989 only 3 of the top 20 donors were corporations, the rest were comprised of unions and one political interest group. So if anything is too strongly influencing politics it is the unions in America. Source -  http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
2. Alleviation of the foreclosure situation- This was caused by the mortgages that were given out by banks to people who really couldn't afford them. If you bought a house you couldn't afford is it really the governments fault, and now that it is public information that you should not take massive loans for houses, I really don't think that people will keep doing this, so problem solved. 
3. Forgiveness of student loan debt- First, if you go to a private college and get a degree in art history or women's studies and you can't get a lucrative job after college, can you really complain? Second, the best universities in the world are in America and they are private. They charge a lot of money so they can have the newest technologies, the best professors and the best facilities for research. The tax payers are already on the line for public education and many other things, it is completely unreasonable to ask them to pay for PRIVATE education too. Third, you don't have to go to a private university, you can go to an inexpensive state school and get a job after college that might not directly relate to your major, so many people do menial labor after college, you can have that job and continue looking for a job that you would rather have, so that you can have some sort of stable income, its been done before and it won't kill you.
4.  More balanced distribution of income- The 'proposed' solution is to tax the ultra wealthy even more. The truth is this: the top 0.1% of income earners in America paid 50% more taxes than the bottom 80% of income earners in 2010. In 2008, the top 1% of income earners paid 38% of all federal income tax, the top 10% paid 70%, and the bottom 50% paid 3%. I included links to my sources. This is completely fair in my books. 
5. More and better jobs- If you tax wealthy corporations more and more they are going to have less and less money in which to hire new workers for their companies, which means downsizing the labor markets. Its a lose- lose situation here. 
         Also, protesting the NATO conference, really? NATO is a military organization that has been putting a lot of efforts into peace keeping. I HIGHLY doubt that officials from Belgium or the Netherlands are going to be able to help you with income inequality in America. 
     And that is all I have to say about it.