The giveaway gang. (Correction, Please!).(Brief Article)

ITEM: The global poverty debate "may delay a solution for the 'pre-eminent moral and humanitarian challenge of our age,' in the words of a United Nations panel...," reported the New York Times for March 18th. "Britain and the World Bank want rich countries to double their foreign aid and begin what Gordon Brown, Britain's finance minister, calls a new Marshall Plan to fight poverty."

CORRECTION: Though some povertycrats now extol accountability for foreign aid recipients, their latter-day lip service is unconvincing. More remain blunt, demanding a worldwide new deal or global taxation. Marxist redistribution of wealth, in one form or another, was the persistent mantra at the recent international poverty conference in Mexico.

Then there's wealthy currency speculator George Soros, who argues for more special drawing rights -- essentially low-interest credit cards for governments. Says Soros: "[I]t's like a credit line [that] enables you to do business ... it's a free lunch."

There are obvious motives to give away other people's money. World Bank officers, for example, are judged primarily by the number of loans they make, not by the ...