Proof That Kofi Is An Idiot--Example 125

Kofi Annan--hero of wealth redistributers everywhere--has a new, sure-fire plan to reduce AIDS in Africa:

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, on Wednesday threw his weight behind a proposal to impose a levy on international airline tickets to help finance the fight against HIV/Aids in Africa.

Mr Annan told the Financial Times he was encouraged by efforts to find new sources of finance for development and particularly the idea of a solidarity fund based on air ticket levies, which could provide “a constant stream of money”.

The proposal of a €1 or €2 charge per ticket “seems to be taking hold,” he said. It would provide “a supplementary source of constant income coming through, rather than going constantly to the same governments.”

France and Germany are expected to give new impetus during the Group of Eight summit to their plans for an aviation tax to finance health programmes. But the plans, which have been discussed for months, are likely to encounter renewed resistance from some G8 members, which say the tax would impose another financial burden on an industry reeling from high fuel prices.

Hey Kofi, I have a low-cost plan for "financing" the fight against AIDS in Africa: Teach the African men to wear condoms! It's a novel idea, I know, actually asking a man in Ghana to put on a $0.50 piece of latex. I know that that is not in their culture but maybe it should be.

That is Kofi in a nutshell; a 100% preventable situation can be solved by providing a few million Trojans and Kofi decides that it would be better to tax people who fly on aircraft.

But Kofi couldn't come up with something this stupid on his own, he needed equally moronic collaborators:

French and German officials argue an air ticket tax would be flexible, easy to collect, legally simple and have the additional benefit of penalising polluters.

“This would be an exemplary initiative, a first decisive step in the indispensable implementation of innovative financing mechanisms for development adapted to the realities of the modern world,” Jacques Chirac, French president, told an international financing conference last month.

Emphasis mine. What the hell does penalizing polluters have to do with AIDS in Africa? I will repeat this for the hundredth time; AIDS is a preventable disease that is stopped in its tracks by either preventing contact with another persons bodily fluids, abstaining from sex or monogamy. By this tax, the French, Germans and UN are doing what American liberals do so well, they are implying that Africans (or in the case of American libs, African-Americans) are either too stupid or culturally backward to be taught things that better their lives.

If you're going to implement a regressive tax such as this, at least use the revenue to fight an unpreventable disease such as cancer.