I see the strangest interview with an african farmer one time. He argued the manipulation of his country is so sophisticated that even the people excuting it dont understand it. He showed his rice and pointed out that it was gray, had rocks in it and wasnt uniform in shape. I would like to sell it but they are handing out free rice, perfect White uniform. There is no competing with this. Its a con but no one understands. If they sincrely wanted to give aid they should give me a bag of fertilizer. I would have more rice, i could sell it and next season i would be alle to buy it myself. Problem solved
Most of the USAID spending that was cut should be funded by charity contributions. I'm just not a fan of foreign spending using taxpayer funding at all. There's plenty of room for charity in the world, and less bureaucracy in the middle.
My therapist had a saying I like to repeat. "Shoulds" are a lie we tell ourselves.
There really should be enough private charities to keep every man woman and child fed and healthy. There are not. I imagine that this is in large part due to the greed of small men and women who own 90% or more of our economy.
> I'm just not a fan of foreign spending using taxpayer funding at all.
If only things were that simple.
The US spent billions of dollars for food from US Farmers. Ask them about their lost billions for sorghum, corn, beans, soybeans, rice, vegetable oil and other crops that they could sell to the US government in bulk. Not just the farmers, but also the small town USA communities that benefit from the farms.
Or the US AID funded innovation labs that "was providing market access to U.S. farmers [...] not just in trade negotiations but also in indirect ways by creating a populace that is not starving so they have extra income to buy poultry, for example, which in turn expands the global market for soybean-based feeds.”[0]
Here is a site[1] that attempts to piece together a "reconstruction of USAID's agricultural connections across America" "following the removal of the official USAID website, which contained comprehensive data on agricultural partnerships" from archived reports and other public sources.
The US government used USAID to buy soft power around the world to spread influence; private charity contributions don't do that, and doing things on a larger scale and at a higher level leads to economies of scale that small-scale charity contributions can't ever reach.
The primary purpose of Foreign Aid isn't about charity.
McGillivray, F., & Smith, A. (2008). Punishing the prince: a theory of interstate relations, political institutions, and leader change. Princeton University Press.
It's about influencing governments. It's a really nice way to "bribe" foreign officials for things that a government wants.
USAID was charity in name only. It is, or was, more of a marketing and not-quite-coercion-but-something-softer-and-gentler-than-that body.
And it was a pathetically small attempt at it, too.
Bureaucracy is irrelevant. What matters is bribes. China and Russia are bribing the shit out of everyone and everything.
USAID was practically our only way to do that quasi-morally and almost certainly on the order of their masters the administration destroyed it.
All to save a rounding error’s worth of annual spending we fucked ourselves and its absence will only benefit our adversaries.
Edit: it could just be stupidity and not conspiracy. These are the same people who think vaccines cause autism and don’t understand how space research leads to cordless power tools, a hippie studying lizard spit in the 70s leads to GLP-1 drugs, and nuclear warheads lead to microprocessors. The simple clay of the new America. You know, morons.
Actual study: Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis
It means helping people is imperialism and imperialism is bad, so actually it's a good thing these people are starving. At least now they can finally pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Or something, I don't know. I don't understand these people.
My best guess is that it means if red state Americans start dieing of malaria they will go to hell since even a tiny amount of dispensation bought by humanists was not selfish enough for them.
It's a half-baked narrative meant to make you tune out caring how abruptly stopping aid hurt actual human beings, and to support the denial that these actions aimed destroying America's stature in the world have anything to do with fiscal responsibility or taking care of our own. Trillions of dollars in new inflation have since shown the latter to be an abject lie, but the fascist movement relies on constant isolated "questioning" to feel superior and justified while never actually following through with a full analysis.
Why don't you look it up... why'd there be so much opposition to USA-ID in Africa, India, Brazil and South East Asian countries if it was preventing 14M deaths.
I believe the technical jargon for it is "soft power" - bribing locals to do what you can't force them to do, militarily.
depends on what you define as "force". Force doesn't necessarily come from the barrel of a gun - Sean Diddy was just tried for forcing women into sex trafficking under American law.
Russia, Ukraine, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, El Salvador, and just about the entire Africa & South America have complained about political strings attached to USA-ID. yet, they'll gladly accept Chinese aid because it often only comes with economic conditions.
I define force as force. I don't know anything about "Sean Diddy". I don't see how this person is germane to what we're talking about.
"complain" is not the only option when one objects to "political strings" attached to a donation. There's another option, known as "decline".
Revealed preference tells whether the "political strings" are actually maybe ok or just some haters doing what they do.
Hell, I don't even know what specific "political strings" you're talking about or how they differ from China's "economic" conditions. I'm just taking it on faith they exist, but you might be lying for all I know.
Upvoted. USAID has been misused plenty: political meddling in Bangladesh, Cuba's ZunZuneo op, boomerang aid in Haiti, Afghan contractor enrichment, etc. I could go on.
But understand: the soft power isn't going away, just the doctors, food shipments, and vaccines.
I see the strangest interview with an african farmer one time. He argued the manipulation of his country is so sophisticated that even the people excuting it dont understand it. He showed his rice and pointed out that it was gray, had rocks in it and wasnt uniform in shape. I would like to sell it but they are handing out free rice, perfect White uniform. There is no competing with this. Its a con but no one understands. If they sincrely wanted to give aid they should give me a bag of fertilizer. I would have more rice, i could sell it and next season i would be alle to buy it myself. Problem solved
Most of the USAID spending that was cut should be funded by charity contributions. I'm just not a fan of foreign spending using taxpayer funding at all. There's plenty of room for charity in the world, and less bureaucracy in the middle.
My therapist had a saying I like to repeat. "Shoulds" are a lie we tell ourselves.
There really should be enough private charities to keep every man woman and child fed and healthy. There are not. I imagine that this is in large part due to the greed of small men and women who own 90% or more of our economy.
> I'm just not a fan of foreign spending using taxpayer funding at all.
If only things were that simple.
The US spent billions of dollars for food from US Farmers. Ask them about their lost billions for sorghum, corn, beans, soybeans, rice, vegetable oil and other crops that they could sell to the US government in bulk. Not just the farmers, but also the small town USA communities that benefit from the farms.
Or the US AID funded innovation labs that "was providing market access to U.S. farmers [...] not just in trade negotiations but also in indirect ways by creating a populace that is not starving so they have extra income to buy poultry, for example, which in turn expands the global market for soybean-based feeds.”[0]
Here is a site[1] that attempts to piece together a "reconstruction of USAID's agricultural connections across America" "following the removal of the official USAID website, which contained comprehensive data on agricultural partnerships" from archived reports and other public sources.
[0] https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/usaid-dismantling...
[1] https://www.usaidstopwork.com/agricultural-impact
The US government used USAID to buy soft power around the world to spread influence; private charity contributions don't do that, and doing things on a larger scale and at a higher level leads to economies of scale that small-scale charity contributions can't ever reach.
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The primary purpose of Foreign Aid isn't about charity.
McGillivray, F., & Smith, A. (2008). Punishing the prince: a theory of interstate relations, political institutions, and leader change. Princeton University Press.
It's about influencing governments. It's a really nice way to "bribe" foreign officials for things that a government wants.
USAID was charity in name only. It is, or was, more of a marketing and not-quite-coercion-but-something-softer-and-gentler-than-that body.
And it was a pathetically small attempt at it, too.
Bureaucracy is irrelevant. What matters is bribes. China and Russia are bribing the shit out of everyone and everything.
USAID was practically our only way to do that quasi-morally and almost certainly on the order of their masters the administration destroyed it.
All to save a rounding error’s worth of annual spending we fucked ourselves and its absence will only benefit our adversaries.
Edit: it could just be stupidity and not conspiracy. These are the same people who think vaccines cause autism and don’t understand how space research leads to cordless power tools, a hippie studying lizard spit in the 70s leads to GLP-1 drugs, and nuclear warheads lead to microprocessors. The simple clay of the new America. You know, morons.
Actual study: Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
>Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Corrected version should read: "14M people could die in 5 years due to USA-ID cuts, AND LACK OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS' CARING, study finds".
USA-ID was not preventing deaths so much as it was funding the Western Elites' preferences over local priorities.
What the fuck is this even supposed to mean?
It means helping people is imperialism and imperialism is bad, so actually it's a good thing these people are starving. At least now they can finally pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Or something, I don't know. I don't understand these people.
My best guess is that it means if red state Americans start dieing of malaria they will go to hell since even a tiny amount of dispensation bought by humanists was not selfish enough for them.
It's a half-baked narrative meant to make you tune out caring how abruptly stopping aid hurt actual human beings, and to support the denial that these actions aimed destroying America's stature in the world have anything to do with fiscal responsibility or taking care of our own. Trillions of dollars in new inflation have since shown the latter to be an abject lie, but the fascist movement relies on constant isolated "questioning" to feel superior and justified while never actually following through with a full analysis.
Why don't you look it up... why'd there be so much opposition to USA-ID in Africa, India, Brazil and South East Asian countries if it was preventing 14M deaths.
I believe the technical jargon for it is "soft power" - bribing locals to do what you can't force them to do, militarily.
Is there "so much opposition" actually? No one is ever forced to take money.
depends on what you define as "force". Force doesn't necessarily come from the barrel of a gun - Sean Diddy was just tried for forcing women into sex trafficking under American law.
Russia, Ukraine, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, El Salvador, and just about the entire Africa & South America have complained about political strings attached to USA-ID. yet, they'll gladly accept Chinese aid because it often only comes with economic conditions.
I define force as force. I don't know anything about "Sean Diddy". I don't see how this person is germane to what we're talking about.
"complain" is not the only option when one objects to "political strings" attached to a donation. There's another option, known as "decline".
Revealed preference tells whether the "political strings" are actually maybe ok or just some haters doing what they do.
Hell, I don't even know what specific "political strings" you're talking about or how they differ from China's "economic" conditions. I'm just taking it on faith they exist, but you might be lying for all I know.
Upvoted. USAID has been misused plenty: political meddling in Bangladesh, Cuba's ZunZuneo op, boomerang aid in Haiti, Afghan contractor enrichment, etc. I could go on.
But understand: the soft power isn't going away, just the doctors, food shipments, and vaccines.
Good ol Elmo. Caused more unnecessary deaths than any richest man in history.
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I assume this means you've looked over the study referenced and have examples of data you disagree with?
Or did you just hear on Fox News that "USAID == bad" and have nothing substantive to contribute?
They are probably pointing out similarities in the grammatical structure of the title and that of Onion articles, lol.
On a completely unrelated note, how often are you invited to parties?
Considering the following actual headlines by The Onion, I think that's less clear who's who these days:
"Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be" (https://theonion.com/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he...)
"‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens" (https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation...)
Bill Gates could single-handedly fund USAID and still half $70B remaining. Can private philanthropy not step in here to cover the gap?
USAID spent $20B in FY 2024.
Because systemic philanthropy > individual philanthropy