The American electorate has acquired an ingrained prejudice against foreign aid. The public suspects that foreign aid is something the government takes from the poor in a rich country and gives to the wealthy in a poor country. This suspicion— like many of America's populist wisdoms—is the tragic truth in one of the world's poorest nations, Bangladesh.

Only a pittance of international food aid to Bangladesh feeds the starving or destitute. Even in this bumper crop year an estimated 368,000 babies and young children will die due to malnutrition or related diseases. Food aid generally does not reach the poor; 90 per cent of the 1.6 million tons of foreign food aid shipped to Bangladesh this year was used to subsidize a ration system for the middle class.