Honduras and the Millenium Challenge Corporation

Bill Conroy at Narcosphere has a detailed analysis of the Millenium Challenge Corporation scorecard that was just released for Honduras. The scorecard represents a U.S. government assessment of the economic conditions of those countries receiving aid.

It is particularly notable that despite the coup supporters' insistence that Mel Zelaya was pushing the country toward Bolivarian socialism, the MCC rated Honduras as the 68th percentile for "Business Start-Up" and a whopping 98th percentile for "Trade Policy." Finally, a 63rd percentile for "Land Rights and Access" does not exactly sound socialist. Even "Regulatory Quality" was 89th percentile. According to very capitalist standards, Zelaya was given high marks.

Check out the entire article (as well as the MCC data) and I agree with the following assessment:

Honduras’ failure to make the grade in those two measures (“rule of law” and “control of corruption”) can be seen, then, in hindsight, as a red flag pointing to the fact that conditions were primed for a coup in Honduras — and until those areas are addressed going forward, any hope for ensuring real democracy in the nation may be ultimately doomed.