17 February 2007 01:16 -06:00 GMT

I credit Charles Khoury for organizing the sweatshirts as modeled above.

I came home from twelve hours of work in the Cooper Green Mercy Hospital today. It was a glorious twelve hours, filled with seeing my regular patients, writing orders, interacting with the team, attending lectures, small-talk chatting with brilliant classmates, then afternoon procedures for a gentleman who needed hemodialysis and a woman who had a pleural effusion. We analyzed some chest X-rays, chased some information, and then called it a beautiful day.

Maggie was already home, in bed, pretending to be asleep with her pencil and 18 pages of highlighted notes on the bed beside her. The television was on despite our having cancelled cable in the last month. (I haven't had time to return the receivers.)

I laid with Maggie and we caught up, laughing at ourselves and life in general along the way. We started to watch a great movie called Juice, featuring Omar Epps and the late Tupac Shakur, both sporting amusing hip-hop haircuts that were once contemporary. Not too long into it, we both fell asleep, awakening after the film had ended - awakened by a smattering of stand-up comedians on a half-hour BET show.

Mwelwa got a job, and today was his first day. He was to get off at 22:00 or 22:30, and Maggie was planning to get him, but I went. Maggie works and goes to school at least as many hours a week as I do, and when I have the opportunity, I like to take care of the errands when I can. I know that she feels like it is more her responsibility than it is mine, since it is her family. But one of the things that works for us is our perception that her family is mine, and my family is hers. So her responsibilities are mine as much as they are hers. No work tomorrow, no three AM alarm, and it was my task. And I was happy to grab the Boss from his first day of employment in the U.S.

So there.

I tell all that as a prelude to something that has been on my mind. I read a disturbing story on BBC this morning, about a court case involving Zambia and something called a "Vulture Fund." Those thoughts were combined with the struggles Mwelwa has faced in trying to get work here on a student visa, made more urgent by his scholarship funds having run out this semester, one year short of when he would graduate from his post-baccalaureate program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Thus a few ideas were running together in my mind, and they are still mucked up a bit, with half-baked disclarity. Nevertheless, given the nature of a low pressure blog that isn't read too often, I got a little excited thinking about trying to get some of these ideas down. Let's see if I can make a tapestry from these threads.

In the first week that Mwelwa arrived here, I made a brief speech to my family, saying that although we live well, we struggle here in the United States. We have a big house, with no leaky roof, and with running water. We keep a comfortable temperature despite a climate that ranges from sub-freezing to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. We eat at least two meals every day. We have (had) cable TV and high-speed internet. We have two cars and gasoline that is cheaper than nearly everywhere else in the world. Despite these riches, I borrow twice the amount that Maggie makes in a year just to maintain these luxuries, and to pay for my medical education.

With my speech I was trying to say that I know it appears we are rich, but we are on the cusp of poverty. We are investing in our future, living on the razor's edge, and given a few adversities, we could easily tip into badness. Two bad car problems, a leaky roof, a broken pipe, or a health issue could each push us into desperation. That was what I was trying to say. I also knew in saying this that I was saying it to a man who had already knew suffering closely, who knows struggle like a best friend, and who has appreciation and ambition as formidable tools in his personal toolbox.

America is the Promised Land.

More broadly, the Western World is the Promised Land. The idea of America, as a concept of freedom and free markets, persists as surely as humans need breath. It is strongly believed by those outside of the West that if one arrives on the soil of the West, one can make it. One can achieve one's dreams. The American dream of riches, of big houses, of cars, of nice clothes and fancy cellular phones and big bellies can become a reality. Even within the United States - large segments of privileged America - this belief holds fast. But there is a disconnect.

The connection between landing at our airports and making a financially viable existence is a wide gap. U.S. Customs protocols go a long way toward disabusing an individual of the ease of achieving the American dream. And Customs is just the baby's first glimpse of my privileged world. The reality of getting that house, getting that education, landing the job, making a career - these paths are fraught with unforeseen complexities that can only be fully understood by walking the minefield and losing a few limbs along the way.

I think now, a year after my warning speech, Mwelwa understands the difficulties I tried to describe. Now, after we have chipped in to make the tuition payments this term, and now, after Maggie has had to provide transportation money each week, and now, after we have taken turns to pick up outside the library long after evening traffic has died down, and now, finally, after a year, and after a job has finally been secured even after the bank account balance is less than $100, I think Mwelwa understands the struggles required to grasp America and her promised dream.

But we will make it. Mwelwa is a strong man, who has lost a common law wife and child, who has struggled in his life, shored up by his faith, given up his homeland and position in his own country for the promise that America has to offer. Maggie and I will continue to provide everything we can, and with fortune, he will graduate when I do.

This is the microeconomic view.

The macroeconomic view is brought to a head by a story reported by the BBC today, about a legal case involving a "Vulture Fund," Zambia, and a United States-based firm. This story involves several characters, including debt management for an impoverished country, business owners trying to make money, and the legal system. There's more, I'm sure.

The BBC story may be read at this link, whose link I hope will remain viable for some time. I will summarize here. A Virgin Islands corporation bought a $40+ Million debt that Zambia owed to Romania. Their purchase price was $4 Million. This was negotiated between Donegal International and Romania. Donegal then turned around and sued the Zambian government $4 Million plus interest and fees amounting to $42 Million USD. In a decision rendered by a court - I can't tell what sort of court nor what sort of bearing it has on this matter - Zambia will have to pay out to Donegal, albeit an amount that may be about half of the $42 Million.

Another piece that is important to understand is that Zambia lies in the top five percent of poorest countries on our planet. Further to this is that an international campaign known as Jubilee that marked the turn of the 21st century featured "debt forgiveness" for some of the world's most impoverished countries. That is, rich countries including the United States agreed to absolve several debts owed to them by poor countries. As a result, debt service that totaled tens of millions of dollars per year for Zambia, for example, were forgiven. Suddenly, with these Jubilee agreements, Zambia and many other countries were free to auto-invest their revenues in health care, education and other basic economic drivers for their people.

Add in this new entity swooping in, the Vulture Funds, somehow able to purchase debt at a far discounted rate, who turn around and sue the debtor for the full amount of the original debt.

These Vulture Funds appear to me, on the face, and admittedly without understanding the details, as the most vile of business strategies where a rich company with assets that permit a four million dollar purchase knowingly purchase a debt with a plan to get a 10x return on investment by lawsuit. Shine again the light of the recent Jubilee movement; these Vulture funds abrogate the work of people whose genuine intent is to allow the poorest of our brethren countries to gain a foothold on the economic ladder of success. I quote Jeffrey Sachs when I paraphrase that it is not necessary for the rich to suffer for the poor to make economic gains.  We can afford to forgive these debts, and the gains of other countries will enhance the global economy, without detriment to anyone.

I know there are problems with my argument. First and foremost, Zambia agreed to assume the debt that they did, and they should pay it back. However, I also argue against this, saying that the debt, like the credit card debt of a youth that doesn't know better, can stifle the life and hope right out of you. I think that the debt should be forgiven in this new age of independent African nations. I think that the debts should be forgiven, and the countries like Zambia should be permitted to stand alone and manage their own affairs, supported by their own GNP, without the burden of debt service to nations that have taken advantage of economic power inequities over the last 50 years.

If, with debt forgiveness, these countries fail, then that is another problem. But let's give the chance, and moreover,  let's prohibit these vulture funds from taking advantage of the debts of poor nations. A clause in international law that involves the debtor nation, that prohibits legal action to penalize the debtor nations would prevent the evil Vulture Funds from existing.

So where, in all of this do my conclusions lie? Well, first, I think, is a simple idea. Dreams of a Promised Land, and perceived quick fixes to massive problems are usually false. That is, no one sees the hundred hidden obstacles that lie in wait along the path to economic success. For example, being a doctor may seem great. You get a terrific salary, and you get to seem cool. That's the face of it. But that doesn't account for the sleepless nights of studying, the loss of social contact that comes with working 80+ hours per week, or the acquisition of six figures of debt. Even these, big scale, "easy" costs of a medical education, while heard, are not absorbed until one experiences them first hand.

Dreams of a Promised Land don't account for being held in a bathroom stall for hours in the Atlanta airport while your immigration status is scrutinized. A big house and a car are unachievable if immigration law prohibits you from working while you are in school. You may have to quit your education just to survive in this new green land, and suddenly you might be fifty years old wondering why you left your homeland. Dreams are miasmic enough to offer hope, and deceitful enough that they leave more detritus of our humankind than we would like to admit.

Jubilee debt forgiveness is an idea whose time is correct, but protections against greedy opportunists clearly must be placed as quickly as possible.  Vulture Funds managed by corporations such as Donegal International, described by the BBC are taking advantage of the poorest of the poor, in pursuit of the Almighty Buck. I think that's wrong.

Shane Joe Lazar offers a deeper analysis of this particular case, complete with a helpful diagram for you visual learners. It takes this story a few steps further than I did. Check it out here.