Last year, I took an economics undergraduate module, called "Development Economics". Dr Mani, the module teacher was talking about the size of the international foreign aid, saying it was an enormous amount, that she could not believe it when she first saw the figure, more than $100 billion annually.
I have just thought about it, and realised actually it is not that big number considering the extent of poverty in the world and the gap between the richest and the poorest nations. I did some research, and that actually makes that "$100 billion" number even worse, in terms of quality and therefore making the effective size of the international aid significantly lower than the $100 billion.
I will write about the problems with international aids and donor countries' policies in Part 2, but here I just want to show why those numbers are low:
1. The number is low in nominal or absolute term:
The estimated total amount of international aid is $123 billion in 2008.
The World Bank estimated there were 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day (at PPP) and 2.7 billion people living on less than $2.00 a day.
That makes it $0.24 per person (or $0.13) a day.
That number is clearly not enough to support or take those people out of poverty.
(I know it's not meant to spent on everyone in a single year and hence reducing poverty, but this is just to show the size of the aid in relation to the problem it's trying to solve. Part 2 will explain it in more detail.)
2. The number is low in relative term:
There are 34 countries in "Advanced Economies" (by definition of IMF), which as a group has a nominal GDP of more than $40 trillion. That means the total international aid equals to mere 0.3% of GDP of these 34 rich nations.
The renowned illusionist, mentalist, magician and much more, Derren Brown has a new show "Derren Brown Investigates".
In today's show he goes to Holland to learn Bronnikov's method with a blind lady from Coventry. The course is conducted by Vladimir Bronnikov, the son of the founder of Bronnikov's method, Vyacheslav Bronnikov.
Their main ability seems to be that they can make people see while blindfolded, hence making it possible for blind people to see, even though their eyes cannot see.
You can see the show through youtube, which shows more about it (although doesn't explain much about the method and how it works, but let me point out that it is not Derren's fault, but rather the 2 Bronnikovs' fault).
However, to me the last 10 minutes or so, when Derren interviews the founder of the method, Vyacheslav Bronnikov.Vyacheslav Bronnikov claims that he knew that he was coming to this world before he was born and it was his choice to be born. He also claims that he already had lots of capacity when born (although I am not sure what capacity he refers to).
When Derren asks about the 'energy ball', which was central to the beginning of the course, Bronnikov gets very defensive, saying lines such as "You don't have any understanding of what you are saying", "Let your scientist in England organise the test".
Yet his explanation to the original question doesn't go much further than "when you touch your hands, it creates a connection and everything else is secondary. It's all in the mind." I don't know about you, but that doesn't look like much of a statement, let alone a logical explanation, which is what you expect from the 'expert'.
Then Derren moves on, he brings out a box and puts it in front of Bronnikov, asking if Bronnikov is able to see what's inside the box. Let me point out, that's what they do during the course, seeing what's inside the box and going blindfolded without bumping to obstacles. People who have mastered the Level 3 of the course are supposed to have that kind of ability, seeing things blindfolded etc. However, Vyacheslav Bronnikov has mastered the Level 6, therefore it should be a trivial thing for him to do, and it would have shown that his methods work, he is able to do this extraordinary things and that would have shut up his critics.
But, no, he simply refuses to do it and his mood changes to cold and almost anger. Then, he makes some illogical statements once again, blaming Derren: "You form a negative show, your documentary", "You create problems by yourself", "You don't have a scientific understanding", "You don't have an understanding of this technology" and he concludes his nonsense comments by refusing: "I am not playing circus here. I won't prove anything to you. This is not serious".
It is up to him to prove that his methods work. If he is not able to do a 'simple' task, I don't know how he is going to be able to go under any scientific experiment?
Yes, Derren doesn't understand his technique, that's the point! That's why he asking those questions to clarify and make sure they are true, yet he refuses to give any proper explanation or indeed a simple illustration at work. His excuse: Derren is doing something negative, so blame him (this is so often used by those who claim to posses any kind of superpower, blaming the person in question if something doesn't work out).
His answers become even more bizarre: "I see you're trying to see weak-spots. But that's OK, because you're from England", "You are not a scientist, why do this? You don't deal with proofs".
Is he implying, anyone who is not a scientist, doesn't need proof, just believe without questioning, yet he talks about his method as "human development", that seems to be "human un-development" to me. Or is he simply saying ordinary people should never ask for a proof? Whichever way, it's a bullshit, just a way of not answering the question.
After so much refusal of giving any proof or illustration, he mentions about a boy in Rostov na Danu (apparently a small town in Russia), who never developed eyeballs, yet able to see, and he never knew he was actually blind. Oh, the boy just doesn't see, he can see much better than Derren.
Derren gets happy, as he thought he got some example, so asks for the name of the boy. Bronnikov simply says "I don't have this information". Whaaaaat? So that's nothing other than a myth and a legend, or just a made-up story by Bronnikov himself. Indeed Derren's team could not find such a boy after research in the town Bronnikov mentioned.So all in all, Bronnikov has been completely busted. Oh, did I mention that his courses lasting between 16 and 20 hours, costs a mighty sum of €600.
He offers 3 courses for Stage 1, and 1 course each for Stage 2 and 3, making the grand total of handsome €3000 for the entire course.
It sounds lot like a scam to me, yet there are people who has re-taken his courses (although retakes are at discounted price) over and over again, but still seems not be able to do those extraordinary things that they have been promised. In their website, they claim that up to 80% of the brain power will be used against 2-5% for most people. I don't think so, I simply don't believe that's actually physically possible. I think those people's ability to think clearly is gone down, otherwise why would they keep paying for the same courses, that hasn't worked for them?
