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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On February 18 2025 11:03 Dante08 wrote:
Curious what some people here think of the money USAID was giving out for contracts to overseas countries. I get it's a drop in the bucket but you could argue it's still unnecessary spending. Not to mention some of these countries are so corrupt you could be sure the money didn't end up in the right hands.
Most people especially in Asian countries would be absolutely pissed if the government was giving away money like that.
I think a *verified* itemized breakdown of how much money was being used for each country / each humanitarian scenario / anything else would need to be examined. I'm sure there are inefficiencies and questionable allocations, although the John Oliver video cited several examples of Republicans/Musk/Trump literally fabricating fake contracts as a way to further condemn USAID.
Additionally, if money from USAID is being reallocated somewhere else by Trump/Musk, I'd want to know where the money would be redirected to, as the new direction may or may not be better than the old direction (and let's be honest, Trump/Musk redirecting any money is probably going to end up in a worse place than wherever it was originally going).
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United States41919 Posts
It was a large component of US soft power. It was also predominantly not money but instead food, medicine, other essential supplies etc. It got the US in the door worldwide. Trump’s legacy will be millions of avoidable deaths, children dying of diarrhea etc.
As for waste, the former head of USAID reported that $500m of food the already paid for is going bad in warehouses because of Musk’s cuts to distribution. The US is now spending money to not feed the hungry with food going to waste.
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Northern Ireland23687 Posts
Can’t say I’m too familiar with USAID although I find it slightly odd that it became such a bone of contention all of a sudden.
Perhaps they were just pissing money away, as I said I’m not intimately familiar.
There is a ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’ element perhaps, but to reiterate I’m not especially familiar.
Not an excuse for pissing money away, but a lot of people seem to not realise that rigid admin and assessment itself costs a bit of money.
I do recall reading an estimate of what it would cost to reliably near eliminate benefit fraud (welfare to you Americans) in the UK and that number just dwarfed estimates on actual benefit fraud. And gigantically outweighed by pursuing tax dodging by the wealthiest. There is of course a moral component, some folks aren’t judging such things purely on the balance sheet.
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On February 18 2025 11:32 KwarK wrote:
It was a large component of US soft power. It was also predominantly not money but instead food, medicine, other essential supplies etc. It got the US in the door worldwide. Trump’s legacy will be millions of avoidable deaths, children dying of diarrhea etc.
As for waste, the former head of USAID reported that $500m of food the already paid for is going bad in warehouses because of Musk’s cuts to distribution. The US is now spending money to not feed the hungry with food going to waste.
That was the inspector general, not the administrator.
If he was really gullible enough to believe the US government is shipping half a billion in perishable food that's about to expire, he deserved to be fired. Unless it were really true, in which case they all need to be fired.
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United States41919 Posts
On February 18 2025 12:17 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2025 11:32 KwarK wrote:
It was a large component of US soft power. It was also predominantly not money but instead food, medicine, other essential supplies etc. It got the US in the door worldwide. Trump’s legacy will be millions of avoidable deaths, children dying of diarrhea etc.
As for waste, the former head of USAID reported that $500m of food the already paid for is going bad in warehouses because of Musk’s cuts to distribution. The US is now spending money to not feed the hungry with food going to waste. That was the inspector general, not the administrator. If he was really gullible enough to believe the US government is shipping half a billion in perishable food that's about to expire, he deserved to be fired. Unless it were really true, in which case they all need to be fired.
What do you think happens to food in warehouses if you refuse to pay for distribution? And why would you know better than the guy directly involved and informed about whether food in warehouses goes bad? This assertion that he's gullible for knowing this and you're wise for ignorantly denying it is pretty weird.
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Probably it would get seized by the warehouse owner due to being forfeited, and then eaten by someone else.
If you have any experience of how aid food works, it's specifically shelf-stable, think huge bags of rice, MREs, you can see mukbang videos of Gazans complaining that it's not delicious enough and not figuring out how to use the FRH to heat the meal.
If there were warehouses full of hundreds of thousands of metric tons of food that is days/weeks from expiration (remembering also "best by" and "use by" are different) I'm saying that raises more questions than answers and doesn't help the case of leaving USAID by itself when it's avoided Congressional oversight for decades.
According to USAID staff, this uncertainty put more than $489 million of food assistance at ports, in transit, and in warehouses at risk of spoilage, unanticipated storage needs, and diversion. As a routine matter, USAID pre-positions emergency food aid in BHA warehouses around the world, including approximately 29,000 metric tons in Houston, Texas, valued at nearly $39 million, more than 40,000 metric tons in a warehouse in Djibouti in East Africa valued at $40 million, and over 10,000 metric tons in a South African warehouse valued at $10 million. All BHA warehouses have prepositioned emergency food aid commodities supplied by U.S. manufacturers and American farmers, as required by law.
Also because I read the primary source, he believed "staff" and then intentionally upplayed it by lumping the different categories of issues together, so we can't differentiate what's happening. It's like saying 100% of plane flights end in a landing or crash. Intentional obfuscation, or he doesn't actually know, but printed it anyway as an act of uselessness. They didn't "pre-position" hundreds of thousands of tons of room temperature grapes about to go bad.
I'm familiar with the "shape" of this rhetoric also because I've seen it here as well so it's not a new trick:
https://x.com/ChrisCoons/status/1889726531561279548
Member of Congress transparently lying about boxes of stuff expiring from 2027 and acting like it would be normal for huge amounts of about-to-expire medication to be sitting around desperately waiting for a sick person to appear to take it, were it not for Republican machinations interrupting the status quo.
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United States41919 Posts
So he's saying it would be wasted and you're saying it would be seized by the warehouse owner who would eat it and therefore it wouldn't be wasted?
Doesn't that only work if there are starving children who are also warehouse owners? Letting it get forfeited is not a good way of getting the food where it needs to go.
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United States41919 Posts
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you.
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You asked me what would happen. I speculated. Another possibility would be the government wholesaling stores it wouldn't distribute, like when the previous administration wholesaled wall parts for pennies on the dollar. I wouldn't over worry about the fact that food that was originally in a warehouse yesterday is still in a warehouse now and not being eaten at the moment.
On February 18 2025 13:00 KwarK wrote:
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you.
https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1769065852878323764
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United States41919 Posts
On February 18 2025 13:06 oBlade wrote:You asked me what would happen. I speculated. Another possibility would be the government wholesaling stores it wouldn't distribute, like when the previous administration wholesaled wall parts for pennies on the dollar. I wouldn't over worry about the fact that food that was originally in a warehouse yesterday is still in a warehouse now and not being eaten at the moment. Show nested quote +On February 18 2025 13:00 KwarK wrote:
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you. https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1769065852878323764
Before there was a distribution plan and team and budget. Now there is not. Saying "the food is still in the same warehouse so nothing has changed" is a bad take.
If kids were loaded onto a school bus and the school bus was driving on a busy road and the driver was fired and removed from the moving school bus then saying "what's the big deal, the kids were on the bus before, they're still on the bus" is idiotic. The crash may not have happened yet but there is still cause for concern. The situation is not unchanged.
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Northern Ireland23687 Posts
Aight oBlade everyone else is wrong, we concede.
Donald Trump has nout to do with implementation of policy he enacted (if it’s considered negative, if it’s considered good, great!)
Palestinians are sitting around complaining on TikTok that their aid food isn’t quite Michelin star quality.
Do you ever like actually sit down for a second and consider ‘I might be talking absolutely shite?’ like really?
Fuck me
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On February 18 2025 13:38 WombaT wrote:
Do you ever like actually sit down for a second and consider ‘I might be talking absolutely shite?’ like really?
No because if they did they wouldn’t be so peasant brained and be supportive of CEOs and billionaires in the manner they are.
If they actually benefited from these people ripping copper out of the metaphorical walls of America they wouldn’t be debating with losers like us.
To directly respond to the MRE video, it is still Israeli doctrine (General’s Plan) to starve Gaza in an attempt to “relocate” the civilian population. It is possible to theoretically provide food yet provide food that so inadequately satiates hunger (which they do in particularly bad prison systems for obvious reasons) if the accusation is the Palestinian in that video is being a bitch and whining about aid.
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On February 18 2025 13:38 WombaT wrote:
Aight oBlade everyone else is wrong, we concede.
Donald Trump has nout to do with implementation of policy he enacted (if it’s considered negative, if it’s considered good, great!)
Donald Trump has to do with policy he enacts. Since you are revisiting this misunderstanding, maybe I can illustrate the point?
The difference is if you tell someone to build you a shed and then you go and do other stuff, and they put a nail in, and then take it out and put it, and their coworker or critic asks, what are you doing, and they say, "The guy who hired me keeps changing his mind about where to put this nail," it's not accurately describing what's happening. When someone disputes the quoted sentence, they are not implying you have nothing whatsoever to do with the building of it. Because it is possible for you to actually care about and order specifically where that single nail goes, which is a distinction that gets lost.
Ergo, when Trump fires James Comey personally, he literally personally directly did it. When he tells people to cut probationary workers, and some underlings fire some and then unfire them, "Trump" is not flip-flopping firing/rehiring random specific federal employees. Similarly it's not said that Bush shot Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, and then felt bad about it and court martial himself to make up for it, just because he ordered the war in Iraq.
It is not that in one case, the person is connected, and the other case, not connected. Nobody is ever saying that. It's a difference of who the direct agent is. This is why "Thanks Obama" is ridiculed.
On February 18 2025 13:28 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2025 13:06 oBlade wrote:You asked me what would happen. I speculated. Another possibility would be the government wholesaling stores it wouldn't distribute, like when the previous administration wholesaled wall parts for pennies on the dollar. I wouldn't over worry about the fact that food that was originally in a warehouse yesterday is still in a warehouse now and not being eaten at the moment. On February 18 2025 13:00 KwarK wrote:
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you. https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1769065852878323764 Before there was a distribution plan and team and budget. Now there is not. Saying "the food is still in the same warehouse so nothing has changed" is a bad take. If kids were loaded onto a school bus and the school bus was driving on a busy road and the driver was fired and removed from the moving school bus then saying "what's the big deal, the kids were on the bus before, they're still on the bus" is idiotic. The crash may not have happened yet but there is still cause for concern. The situation is not unchanged.
There are people in the world who are going to die whose lives could be saved if someone spent more money. That someone could be the US. At this moment, that makes the US complicit in the death of lives that could be saved. The bus is unstoppable.
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If Trump tells people to do a thing that's because he should be informed enough about the situation not be immediately reverted because the uninformed decision that was made actually didn't make all that much sense. You pointed to an event in the past about what Clinton did to compare, however this is daily routine for Trump.
It's kind of like in the same ballpark of him being an incredibly bad and sleezy businessman. Weird. What a weird guy you've chosen to become president.
Also, nobody has to spend that money to save people from malaria and aids and cholera, that's a conscious decision to help elevate the rest of the world, to flex and to, as KwarK said, influence your soft power. Nations like you if you help them and in turn help you facilitate business or help you when it's needed. But if the bus is unstoppable, why put a bus driver on thete to push the brakes, right? Too much money and too much corruption to get him in the bus in the first place, need to have that sorted out first..
Just like for you when you get seriously ill, nobody has to save you, but we collectively understood a long while ago that helping your fellow human in need is actually a good thing because hands and brains can achieve quite a bit if there's as much of those as possible.
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On February 18 2025 13:06 oBlade wrote:You asked me what would happen. I speculated. Another possibility would be the government wholesaling stores it wouldn't distribute, like when the previous administration wholesaled wall parts for pennies on the dollar. I wouldn't over worry about the fact that food that was originally in a warehouse yesterday is still in a warehouse now and not being eaten at the moment. Show nested quote +On February 18 2025 13:00 KwarK wrote:
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you. https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1769065852878323764
Does your copium supply ever run out?
The world is already producing more than enough food to feed the entire human race, problem is the distrubution.
When Elon bullshitted that he will pay for a way to solve world hunger, and UN came up with the bill of less than 1% of his net worth/year, he just ghosted them because he had no idea that somebody would come and collect.
Food is thrown out because It's too expensive to get food from A to B. USAID distributed food, now 9700 of 10.000 workers are recalled, and the people who stay are supposed to close shop.
There won't be new food, and the food that is there, won't get distributed.
Usually the food is stored in locations either guarded against poverty..or guarded by wealth, with people around simply not desperate enough to steal food.
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On February 18 2025 16:35 Uldridge wrote:
If Trump tells people to do a thing that's because he should be informed enough about the situation not be immediately reverted because the uninformed decision that was made actually didn't make all that much sense. You pointed to an event in the past about what Clinton did to compare, however this is daily routine for Trump.
It's kind of like in the same ballpark of him being an incredibly bad and sleezy businessman. Weird. What a weird guy you've chosen to become president.
Also, nobody has to spend that money to save people from malaria and aids and cholera, that's a conscious decision to help elevate the rest of the world, to flex and to, as KwarK said, influence your soft power. Nations like you if you help them and in turn help you facilitate business or help you when it's needed. But if the bus is unstoppable, why put a bus driver on thete to push the brakes, right? Too much money and too much corruption to get him in the bus in the first place, need to have that sorted out first..
Just like for you when you get seriously ill, nobody has to save you, but we collectively understood a long while ago that helping your fellow human in need is actually a good thing because hands and brains can achieve quite a bit if there's as much of those as possible.
There’s a good reason a lot of countries like India still deal with Russia favourably despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviets spent a lot of time and money to build relations around the world and people remember that. They have also largely kept their end of the bargain by supplying weapons and resources so much of the good will is maintained.
So as Elon Musk and Donald Trump are busy meatriding the likes of Lavrov in Saudi Arabia while discussing the partitioning of Ukraine, everyone just recognises that the United States engages in zero sum mercantile diplomacy in the current era. Something no other country engages in anymore for obvious reasons.
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On February 18 2025 18:42 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2025 13:06 oBlade wrote:You asked me what would happen. I speculated. Another possibility would be the government wholesaling stores it wouldn't distribute, like when the previous administration wholesaled wall parts for pennies on the dollar. I wouldn't over worry about the fact that food that was originally in a warehouse yesterday is still in a warehouse now and not being eaten at the moment. On February 18 2025 13:00 KwarK wrote:
Also Gazan mukbang is a particularly trashy thing to say, even for you. https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1769065852878323764 Does your copium supply ever run out? The world is already producing more than enough food to feed the entire human race, problem is the distrubution. When Elon bullshitted that he will pay for a way to solve world hunger, and UN came up with the bill of less than 1% of his net worth/year, he just ghosted them because he had no idea that somebody would come and collect. Food is thrown out because It's too expensive to get food from A to B. USAID distributed food, now 9700 of 10.000 workers are recalled, and the people who stay are supposed to close shop. There won't be new food, and the food that is there, won't get distributed. Usually the food is stored in locations either guarded against poverty..or guarded by wealth, with people around simply not desperate enough to steal food.
There are important economic factors too. Free food is in terrible for the economies where the food is distributed. It should be a short term solution only.
Imagine if eating at McDonalds was free, paid for by an African billionaire, and all the meat was from Africa. What would US farmers think about that?
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Probably "thank your African Billionaire" for buying our produce to give to the people for 'free'?
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I thought I'd highlight this article here, although it's news about Spain, it's making a point about immigration:
As immigration has increased, GDP has surged and unemployment has fallen to lowest level since 2008
After years of watching the far right’s hardline views on migration become mainstream, analysts were swift to highlight how Spain was different. “One remarkable facet of Spain’s recent performance has been the role of immigration,” economists at JPMorgan noted in a recent research report. “2022 saw the highest net migration in 10 years, at close to three-quarters of a million individuals.”
The result was a working-age population that nearly doubled compared with other countries in western Europe. Of the 468,000 jobs created across Spain last year, roughly 409,000 were filled by migrants or people with dual nationality, many of them from Latin America, but also from across Europe and Africa. “Overall, Bank of Spain analysis suggests immigration contributed over 20% to the near 3% GDP per capita income growth during 2022-2024,” noted JPMorgan.
So it turns out that when you're nice to immigrants, we all benefit economically. Who knew.
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You also need to kick out xenophobic bureaucrats, our you end up in a situation like germany, were highly skilled immigrants are held up by ENDLESS bureaucracy before allowed to work.
Even non-skilled workers are rather put into a free apartment while receiving basic social payments over being handed a work permit.
Germany is also last in employment of ukrainian refugees despite they have a general permit by the EU... because "no hablo englisch hier in Deutschland"
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EPT
