Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970611081209.11cfc98e@mail.telecom.net.et> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 08:40:59 +0300 From: Dawit Angelo <mailto:dangelo@TELECOM.NET.ET> Subject: Re: average American's perception of the US role in the 1st To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Selam all,I thought some facts I came accross might help build up a facts and figurs base for the recipient view picture I am grappling to draw. Also, looking at the possible sources of the funds to impliment the technology transfer we are keenly set to discuss is always a good point of departure.
********************** >From _The New Field Guide to the U.S. Economy_, by Nancy
Folbre and The Center for Popular Economics; The New Press, N.Y., 1995, ISBN 1-56584-153-0 --Share of total value of family-owned assets in 1989
The richest 1% of families held:
45% of all nonresidential real estate 62% of all business assets 49% of all publicly held stock 78% of all bonds (including the national debt)
The richest 10% of families held:
80% of all nonresidential real estate 91% of all business assets 85% of all stocks 94% of all bonds(including the national debt)
The few percentages of so called public ownership is in the hands of brokers and mutual funds that sway the remaining ten to twenty percent of the investment capital to their advantage.
Note also that, ownership of the technology we are supposed to transfer constitutes part of the business assets chunk.
How did it go to the hands of these few families? Is that all earned, legit? Are we short of theories and isms on this or do we simply prefer to ignore them? Is that the effect of the brainwashing propoganda of the media that is controlled by these very families who have a lot at stake? Will they ever be willing to volinarily part with the tech ownership and funds to finance our ambitious tech transfer programs as we would want them to? Or will they prefer to keep us eternally panting with our beging bowl in hand? It is a fact that are always short of funds. Can we do it with out the funds? We can't either. Therefore, they either have to atone for the wrongs if any, that made such utterly apparently accumilation of wealth in the hands of so few and willingly part with a chunk of it or somebody has to take away from them be it with the barrel of the gun or whatever.
A good part of a century is wasted on the latter starategy and we remain with only the former to try and press on. Now argueing, presuading and then pressurizing. As I mentioned earlier, thanks to the advent of the info age, the common man is more empowered than ever to undertake such a collective action of global magnitude. May be the info age is here to save us and bring us back to our senses in the privacy of our studies before the glaring facts on the computer screen but safely away from the scrutiny of angy faces if only the cyber cops will allow us to bring out the facts, the figurs, our views and concerns even when they are discussing about us. We can only hope that this course of collective action might eventually lead to make amends to our wrongs and to atone. So help us god. Here comes the sense of atonment I was talking about, the relevance of philosophy to the technology discussion for it will simply be a futile excerice to talk about technolgy transfer with out the funds to execute and the technology to transfer. Cherbert, Rafe! are you there?
If we are to confine our discussion to the bounds of ''indigenous'' and ''freeware'' technology, that is fine. But why? when there is a better one? Beside, what happened to all that deafening ''appropraite'' technology rehthoric(?) that implied what ever appropraite technology around. Also, one needs to note that this is another serious matter the recipient world vehemently resents simply as an insult to its intelligence. The popular view is that given the funds, any body can do that. Local management etc. experise can handle the small village projects and there is no need for a well paid development crusader.
In a related note, in the face of mounting resentment, it rather seems that there is little time to waste with out addressing the vital issues of economic eneqality if we are not to waste another century in another ramble in the land of a cold, hot of freezing war. The simple facts are that man must eat, man must survive. If the systems which regulates these basics are wrought with Greed, and unfairness, then the consequences , effects, and results are well known to any person who has even a simple knowledge of history.
bye for now
yours in discourse Dawit