Financial aid to impoverished nations' governments should be ceased.

"In fact, stimulating production of raw materials will INCREASE a trade deficit that is originally caused by the fact that the country exports raw materials and imports finished goods!" Ok, I should have corrected you on this in round 1, but developing countries do not have a trade deficit, they have a surplus. Their surplus is our deficit, for the most part, not to say that we're the only country that has a deficit, but it is by far the largest. If you stimulate production of a primary export, you will increase the trade surplus or decrease the deficit; this says nothing about an effect on importing finished goods. "1) I do not mean to suggest here that your argument in and of itself is irrelevant - but it IS irrelevant to my first point in Round 1. I spoke of government corruption. Loans to Haliburton do not have any bearing at all on the corruption at the governmental level that is the root of the problem." If anything I was further proving your point that the loans don't really help the recipients, but I was also proving my point that the loans benefit the country of origin. "2) Yes - and when it makes the price cheaper for us consumers, it leaves the producers with less money, which is a bad thing as far as their development is concerned, and supports my rationale for giving the developing countries LESS financial aid to their governments." Right, but I don't care about their development, I care about benefiting our consumers and our economy and am ignoring their plight. (in this debate) "Actually, the developed world doesn't need to make sacrifices for the developing world to develop." Everything else aside, developing countries need oil in order to grow to where they can be considered developed. For example, as China goes through its development, it has caused the price of oil to skyrocket. But oil is only one of many factors necessary for development, albeit the most important. If there is no longer a large supply of cheap labor as people in the third world demand higher wages, the price of goods in America will go up. Similarly, if the demand for consumer goods in these regions increases from an expanding middle class in developing countries, the price will go up even further. "Using our aid to help developing countries won't necessarily drive the price of raw materials up. When demand is high, and availability is high, the price goes down. When nations develop, their production of raw materials will increase anyway, but they'll have the infrastructure and resources to lower their cost of production without changing the price they charge, which will increase their profits." By availability I assume you mean supply. When demand goes up, price goes up. When supply goes up, price goes down. You're assuming that the supply will increase to accommodate the increased demand resulting from billions of people who suddenly have money, but the problem is that it's simply not possible for the supply to increase that much. It might increase, but not enough so that everyone in the world could own a car. Not so much that everyone in the world could eat meat every day. Not so much that everyone in the world could flush their sh*t away in 3 gallons of potable water. It's not the western model, it's the exploitation model, and it's working just fine.