The wholesale destruction of the economy of Libya. A country that 40 years ago was considered
the poorest country on the face of the earth.
Libya and Mohamar Gadaffi reigned for 42 years. He was not a nice man in many ways. But I believe he gave his nation much more than we have today in 2015.
1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the
world. By 1979 Libya had a per capita
income and standard of living that exceeded that of Italy and the U.K.
They were enjoying a quality of life to be had greater than
the us after the credit crisis.
No mayors senators or legislature. Every Libyan had the same vote and power.
They enjoyed benefits that are only dreamed of in America.
Bank loans to all citizens at 0%
50% subsidy on cars.
Everyone had a house.
Because houses were considered by Gadaffi as a human right.
Each month every family received $400.00 from the sale of
Libyan oil.
Education from kindergarten through post graduate school was
free. As was all healthcare.
If a graduate could not find a job after graduation, they
were given unemployment compensation equal to the average salary of the
person’s profession until employment could be found.
Literacy jumped from 25% in the pre-Gaddafi era to 83%
today.
25% of Libyans had a university degree
If a Libyan would take up a career in farming, he would
receive the farm, including land, house, equipment, seeds and livestock, all
for free. It was an incentive Gaddafi
used to move the country toward agricultural independence.
The price of gasoline was 53 cents per gallon.
15 cents would buy 40 loaves of bread.
Electricity and water also considered human rights by
Gadaffi and were also free.
At the time of Gadaffi’s death he had a 90% approval rating
from the Libyan people.
Libya had no debt and boasted some of the largest surpluses
of any county in the world, and enjoyed one of the very lowest crime rates.
The country was known regionally as the Switzerland of North
Africa.
Gadaffi’s most ambitious project was the digging of hundreds
of deep fresh water wells, and building an aqueduct system that was hailed by
many as the 8th Wonder of the world to reclaim 100’s of thousands of
acres of Sahara dessert into production farmland. Libya was thought to have enough fresh water
underground to last 6,000 years even with agricultural use.
The government owned 144 tons ofgold which was the second
largest amount of any nation in Africa. That’s about 20 times more per capita
than the U.K.
Gadaffi successfully formed the African Union a political
bloc of 54 nations with a combined population of nearly 900 million people.
Gadaffi was about to launch the first fully gold-backed
currency to grace the globe in over 78 years.
And was proposing to trade oil in that currency and not the $$$$$.
I wonder why the U.S. was so intent on seeing him
overthrown?
