Aid payments are dwarfed by what’s lost to spurious debts, profit extraction, and dodgy invoicing, but help to feed a narrative of the industriousness and benevolence of developed countries.

“What this means is that the usual development narrative has it backwards. Aid is effectively flowing in reverse. Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones.”

In other words, for every $1 of aid that developing countries receive, they lose $24 in net outflows

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries

Quoted An economy that works (CUSP)

Prosperity itself transcends material concerns. It isn’t just about earning more and having more. It has vital social and psychological dimensions. To do well is in part about our ability to give and receive love, to enjoy the respect of our peers, to contribute useful work, to feel secure, to have a sense of belonging and trust in our community. Prosperity consists in our ability to participate meaningfully in the life of society. All the things, in short, that had gone missing for ordinary people over recent decades.

the ‘increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions in the operation of the domestic and international economies’

http://www.ippr.org/publications/definancialisation-a-democratic-reformation-of-finance

“One of the most worrying long-term consequences of financialisation is the reduction in the capacity of democratic states to meet the demands of their citizens over the demands imposed on them by financial and corporate institutions, institutions which are increasingly free from the responsibilities that were imposed upon them by confident social democracies in the middle of the last century.”

http://www.ippr.org/publications/definancialisation-a-democratic-reformation-of-finance