"to the Africans' warlords, who steal the money and use it to stay in power"
Note the reference to Jeffrey Sachs in my comment. If you haven't read The End of Poverty, he demolishes the "It's all warlords stealing the money" argument pretty darned thoroughly.
I was thinking of my prime giving years as late middle age, two or three decades down the line, and I was hoping less that you would have an endowment than that, you know, you would control the world and dazzle the few remaining people who hadn't advanced to a Stross-ian Economy 2.0 by transforming small asteroids into giant gold nuggets. But I guess an endowment would be nice too.
Haven't read The End of Poverty, but I'm willing to accept that it's other forms of economic displacement, not just the warlords stealing. However, it really doesn't look like ending African poverty is remotely as simple as giving them a bunch of money. You'd think it would be. I wish it were. But it doesn't appear to be.
I'd be really interested to hear what the Less Wrong community thinks of this. Don't spoil it by reading the comments first.
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