When analysts attack

Per the National Post, there's growing concern in "financial circles"that the upcoming G8 meeting will be "hijacked by the Africa agenda".

Of the two "political analysts" quoted, one takes the bizarre position that such an Africa focus would only be justified if there was a true Marshall plan in the making. I have to wonder how such a plan would be formulated without some serious discussions.

The other, reliably pushing the Cato Institute position, argues that since the high-interest development loans which are now being forgiven were themselves foreign aid, any foreign aid including debt relief will be ineffective. The debt from past attempts to help is crippling, therefore let's not relieve debt now. Instead, this analyst argues that the problem is Africa's lack of openness to business - while conveniently ignoring the fact that rich countries often do their utmost to prevent imports from African countries.

The underlying position of both analysts (at least according to the Post) is that Africa as a whole is too corrupt to merit any increase in aid. Of course, this argument conveniently neglects that tackling corruption is a precondition to aid under the current deal.

Normally if I was going to analyze something, I'd try to make sure I at least paid attention to readily-available facts and made coherent points. I suppose this is why I don't work for the Cato Institute.