Whittle officially done with South Financial

Mack Whittle resigned from the board of The South Financial Group last week, formally severing his ties with the company he founded in 1986.

His resignation was part of a settlement of two shareholder lawsuits over his estimated $18 million retirement package, granted last year when Whittle stepped down as chief executive.

In an interview with The State, Whittle said he would have not stayed on the board beyond his term, scheduled to end 2011, in any event.

‘Amtrak’ is Latin for money pit

 

The good folks who run Amtrak probably did little more than shrug when they learned the Obama Administration had designated $1.3 billion in stimulus funding for the government-owned passenger train operation.

After all, doesn’t Amtrak effectively get a stimulus check every year in the form of a government subsidy?

The operation has never turned a profit and will likely lose money until the stars fall from the sky, but don’t tell that to politicians on hand Monday to witness the unveiling of the first of 81 passenger cars to be restored with the help of economic recovery funds.

NPR: Rich nations harm poor with money

A group of poor and developing nations - dubbed the “anti-G20″ – informally got together recently at the United Nations, according to National Public Radio.

According to NPR, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Khor spoke during the event and offered explanations about what’s kept these impoverished countries down. Their answer: debt to the IMF and wealthier nations. Their solution: Forgive the debt.

So, let’s see if we’ve got this straight: Poor countries are poor because they received money from the International Monetary Fund and nations with more money. In effect, by investing in poor countries, better-off countries made them worse. And because we gave them money, we should now let them off the hook in terms of honoring their obligations. That makes no sense.

If these poor countries had gotten no money from the IMF or from richer nations, and no one was willing to trade with them, then they might have an argument for blaming outsiders, but it’s hard to see how actually lending money to poor countries keeps them impoverished.

Perhaps, as Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek points out, rich countries and the IMF bear some responsibility by loaning money to corrupt thugs in some of these impoverished countries, but why not hold the corrupt thugs responsible rather than simply forgiving the debt?