Merged USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists? / Trump Was Absolutely Right to Shut Down USAID

[a_unique_person]

The Mars project lifting a megaton to LEO annually is going to massively polluting and won't achieve anything in terms of the survival of the human species.

 

[arthwollipot]

$227 million in 2023 alone in direct donations.

By my back-of-the-envelope calculation (feel free to check my maths) that is a total of 0.001% of his total net worth.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited for rule 9

 

[dirtywick]

But of course none of this matters to you. Anything less than giving away most of his wealth wouldn't be enough for you. To do that he would have to sell most of his shares - which is where his wealth comes from (Musk draws practically no income from his businesses) - losing control over his companies which would then be free to follow a less altruistic agenda. And that would hurt everyone.

We need to dramatically cut back on fossil fuels and be far more sustainable to prevent the World from going to hell. Musk is doing a lot more to achieve that than almost anyone else on the planet. But you want to cancel him because you don't like some of his political views (which are shared by half the population) and hate that he has the power to get stuff done. The real villians are people like you.

hahaha i used to enjoy your long musk essays, this is too personal though

edit

and it's not me by the way. he lies, cheats, and steals, again and again and again. and all i do is try and warn you, and look what he's done since then. bankrolls and hops in bed with trump, and tries to take over the government. and you're more mad at me for warning you and being right than you are at musk for doing it. and you're going to start insulting me now.

 

[dirtywick]

By my back-of-the-envelope calculation (feel free to check my maths) that is a total of 0.001% of his total net worth.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited for rule 9

it's all less than he donated to donald trump

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I'd trust Musk a lot more if he didn't have the Inspector General that was investigating his company dragged out of her office.

But the IGs have been involved in more corruption cases than anyone else!
(On the side of the investigators, but that is just semantics).

 

[Chris_Halkides]

NPR quoted Representative Jaime Raskin: "This is a killer in terms of their cutoff of HIV and AIDS preemption," Raskin said. "It's a killer in terms of the anti-malarial education." This report also stated, "Rubio said there are things that USAID does "that we should continue to do and we will continue to do. But everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interest and the foreign policy of the United States.""

A subsequent NPR report stated, ""Truly they have made America weaker tonight," said another USAID official, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency. "We may not see it tomorrow but we will see it eventually, people in Beijing and Moscow are smiling tonight."" NPR went on, "The abrupt recall of overseas staff will leave employees with just weeks to figure out where to go, how to arrange pet care, take children out of school, allow their spouses to make arrangements, and plan for their belongings to be sent behind them, for example. Meanwhile, withdrawing over a thousand foreign service officers and their families will likely be extremely costly, multiple diplomatic sources tell NPR..."It's just so stupid and dangerous," one USAID employee told NPR. "We have [never] destroyed more goodwill and trust in such a short period of time.""

The USAID site keeps directing me to the "thank you for your service announcement," making it more difficult to learn about this organization. However on another site I found this: "Addis Ababa, June 12, 2024 – The United States government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), launched the USAID Urban TB Local Organizations Network II Activity, a five year, $8 million (450 million Birr) flagship project to control and prevent Tuberculosis (TB) and Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (DR-TB) in selected urban regions of Ethiopia, including Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa, Shaggar City in the Oromia region, and Harari National Regional State. Karen Koprince, Acting USAID/Ethiopia Health Office Director, together with His Excellency Dr. Dereje Duguma, State Minister of Health, and Artist Alemayehu Tadesse, Goodwill Ambassador for the project, launched the project in the Mekedonia Shelter for the Elderly, who are beneficiaries of this project."

Does Mr. Rubio believe that combatting tuberculosis is in the national interest? If so, it will be expensive to restart this effort.

 

[Olmstead]

Are you making a funny? Two of the most corrupt and self centered human beings on the planet are to be trusted? Clearly, you haven't followed their careers.

Of course I am joking. I leave it to you to decide what's more depressing: the fact that I consider such tepid endorsement to be actual sarcasm, or the fact that some people believe this unironically.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The Economist newsmagazine posted an article six days ago with the sub headline, "Donald Trump sought disruption. He hurt America first." The article stated in part, "There could scarcely be a worse time for the Trump administration to order, as it did on January 24th, an immediate halt to almost all aid work—at al-Hol and around the world—pending a 90-day review to ensure foreign assistance aligns with America First principles...The affected work included the distribution of antiretroviral drugs for people infected with hivunder a scheme known as pepfar, credited with saving some 26m lives since 2003; medical services for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; mine-clearing in South-East Asia; reconstruction of bombed-out energy infrastructure in Ukraine; pro-democracy work in Russia’s near-abroad; and much more." Closing USAID down so abruptly is looking more dubious the more I look into it.

 

[zooterkin]

You don't say? Seems so obvious it doesn't really need saying, but even if some of the money is being spent on the wrong things (however you determine that), just stopping everything without warning is a completely irresponsible and thoughtless way to do it. Lives will be lost, and the USA's reputation and credibility will be damaged.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886704518814982328

Thanks for that, so they really don't like a show celebrating both old and new aspects of Ireland and its culture.

My original guess was that it was going to be something tied to the six counties and the peace process.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1886566848512110834

Just to clarify the twit Zooterkin is quoting isn't national treasure Keith "woody" Wood, but a far right non-entity who ran off to America when he finally copped that coming the béal bocht* doesn't go down well in this country.

*An irish phrase meaning the poor mouth, used to descrie people who think the world is against them, nobody helps them and that every one of thir failures is somebody else's problem. Generally speaking they're rich idiots who think a stubbed toe is a national crisis.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Trump? No, he's a narcissistic grifter who never gave anything to anyone if he could get away with it.

But here are the 10 largest donations Musk gave in 2023:

The Foundation
Amount: $137.1 million (combining two separate donations)
Cause: Funding a new K-12 school and university in Austin, TX.

X Prize Foundation
Amount: $54 million
Cause: Supporting a prize for new technologies for carbon removal.

Fidelity Charitable
Amount: $25 million
Cause: Funding for undisclosed nonprofits. This entity is a sponsor of donor-advised funds, a charitable giving vehicle.

Hack Foundation
Amount: $4 million
Cause: Funding to improve coding education in U.S. high schools.

Los Fresnos Independent School District
Amount: $2.2 million

Cause: Supporting school education and programs at this south Texas school district.
GiveDirectly
Amount: $2.2 million
Cause: Providing financial support for families living in poverty. GiveDirectly grants cash to families in need.
Code.org

Amount: $2 million
Cause: Supporting computer science programs in schools.
Brownsville Independent School District
Amount: $1.75 million
Cause: Supporting school education and programs at this south Texas school district.

Medicins Sans Frontieres (aka Doctors Without Borders)
Amount: $1 million
Cause: Funding for humanitarian aid responses.

Harlingen Independent School District
Amount: $997,000
Cause: Supporting school education and programs at this south Texas school district.

$227 million in 2023 alone in direct donations.

He also provided free Starlink to Ukraine for a while,
Elon Musk says SpaceX will keep funding Starlink internet in Ukraine

and supplied Cybertrucks to help with California wildfires.
Tesla sends Cybertrucks to L.A. to provide Starlink internet to impacted communities


However I saw what you did there with "...that didn’t involve them getting more for themselves" - nice little weasel words you can use to argue that anything Musk does is only intended to enrich himself. If so then he went a strange way about it. After getting $180 million from PayPal, he invested almost the entire amount into two incredibly risky ventures - Tesla and SpaceX. It doesn't look like profit was his motive in either case.

SpaceX has saved the taxpayer a bundle in services to NASA, and launched constellations of satellites to provide better internet in rural areas.

Tesla's stated mission is to "accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy". Gas cars are a big producer of CO₂ emissions which are causing global warming. Tesla is the only major car maker in the world that produces only pure EVs. The lifetime emissions of a Tesla are 60% less than the average gas car. Telsa is also making grid-scale storage to make better use of wind and solar, hastening the transion to low carbon energy. How much is all that worth? I can't be bothered doing the math right now (just take the amount of GHG avoided and calculate the cost of carbon capture that would otherwise be needed), but I bet it's billions.

Now consider that Musk only owns 13% of Tesla, which is currently valued at $1.3 trillion. That means all the other shareholders have a combined $1.15 trillion worth, 7.7 times more than Musk - and every one of them is benefiting when Tesla does better. "Who cares about those fat-cat investors!" you retort. Well that includes many of Tesla's own employees - over 120,000 world-wide - who are encouraged to buy shares in the company. Tesla also pays them above industry average wages.

But of course none of this matters to you. Anything less than giving away most of his wealth wouldn't be enough for you. To do that he would have to sell most of his shares - which is where his wealth comes from (Musk draws practically no income from his businesses) - losing control over his companies which would then be free to follow a less altruistic agenda. And that would hurt everyone.

We need to dramatically cut back on fossil fuels and be far more sustainable to prevent the World from going to hell. Musk is doing a lot more to achieve that than almost anyone else on the planet. But you want to cancel him because you don't like some of his political views (which are shared by half the population) and hate that he has the power to get stuff done. The real villians are people like you.

The top two "charitable" organisations in that list are organisations set up to enrich Musk and grant him more political power. The third is set up to massage the egos of rich people through loads of "charity" balls and other red carpet events.

I'm guessing that if I went through each org on that list, I'd see very little money going to any cause and an awful lot of waste and graft.

 

[Donal]

Whose time, effort, and resources?

The public employees wh oare doing this?

The Trump administration feels that its time, effort, and resources would be better spent on directly administering their own department than on getting Congress to hold hearings in order to look over the shoulder of the Trump administration's handling of their own department. If Congress feels otherwise, Congress has the power to do something. If voters feel otherwise, they do too.

So, they shouldn't follow the Constitution because it would take too long? Can you maintain that attitude if the Democrats ever comer back in power?

I honestly have no idea what you're referring to.

When has a lack of relevant information prevented you from having an opinion?

 

[Donal]

That depends entirely on how you categorize things. USAID has not categorized their spending this way, that is true.

Because they generall yotusource the groudn work to local groups or more specialized groups.

No, I cannot tell you how much they spend, and I don't think you can either. Which is sort of my point. Their spending is pretty opaque, despite resources like the website you pointed to. But it's not hard to define.

How is it opaque? Every group they do business with and every dollar they provide is documented. You can look up the individual transactions. Just because its not put in a colorful pie chart for your casual consumption does not mean it isn't documented.

A pretty simple definition would be money spent to provide food to people at risk of hunger. That includes costs of buying, transporting, and distributing food. You might have your own alternative definition, but the definition isn't the problem here.

Does that include improving irrigation systems and roads?

And don't forget, I asked the question in the context of someone else using hunger relief as a justification for USAID. But if they aren't doing much hunger relief, that's not much of a justification for their existence.

Here's a report as of 2018 that it took me all of 5 seconds to find. I'd provide more up to date information, but apparently, everything since 2021 is no longer available online. I wonder why.

 

[dirtywick]

Well, there are 2 arguments against that...

First of all, as you stated before, Musk is a minority shareholder in Tesla. Yes, Tesla has been a significant factor in the adoption of Electric cars in the past, but he's not the only one involved in the company. It is possible that they still would be putting out similar numbers of electric vehicles even if Musk were not involved.

Secondly, even if you assume that Musk himself was personally responsible for a significant portion of electric vehicle adoption, that was in the past. The election of Stubby McBonespurs (who's response to climate change is "drill baby drill"), who was supported by Musk, threatens to undo a lot of the work that has gone into alternative energy and climate change action.

bottom line is he’s an unelected foreigner and an admitted drug abuser with admitted ties to russia poking around in your social security. even if you believed that bull ◊◊◊◊ from roger about how charitable he is and the bull ◊◊◊◊ about how he’s the only one who can fix it because he’s so smart, he had no business poking around in the department of the treasury.

he could take his hundreds of billions any time and fix it on his own. but he doesn’t, he keeps the money and pulls crypto scams and internet trolls. it’s a ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ joke and it’s pathetic. what a loser.

 

[Ziggurat]

How is it opaque? Every group they do business with and every dollar they provide is documented.

Every group they give money to is documented. What those groups do with that money? No, that isn't well documented at all. That isn't easily available to the public.

You can look up the individual transactions.

I can look up the individual payments to various groups. I cannot look up what each of those groups then spends all that money on.

 

[Ziggurat]

The public employees wh oare doing this?

I think you've lost track of the conversation. There is no reason for executive branch employees to lobby Congress to get Congress to increase oversight of those executive branch employees to make sure they're doing their jobs properly. That would absolutely be a waste of time, when they could instead just do their jobs properly.

So, they shouldn't follow the Constitution because it would take too long?

What the hell are you talking about? I never said anything about not following the Constitution. In what way is the Constitution not being followed?

Can you maintain that attitude if the Democrats ever comer back in power?

The attitude that the President should be in charge of the executive branch, and should manage it effectively to make sure it's spending its time and money properly? And if they aren't, to stop spending that money ineffectively?

Yes, I think I could maintain that attitude.

When has a lack of relevant information prevented you from having an opinion?

All the time. How about you?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

You don't say? Seems so obvious it doesn't really need saying, but even if some of the money is being spent on the wrong things (however you determine that), just stopping everything without warning is a completely irresponsible and thoughtless way to do it. Lives will be lost, and the USA's reputation and credibility will be damaged.

This. It's so obvious it really doesn't need saying; this is just wrecking.

It's like asking a doctor to provide a second opinion and they order all treatment be stopped for 90 days while they review the patient's notes.

 

[Ziggurat]

You don't say? Seems so obvious it doesn't really need saying, but even if some of the money is being spent on the wrong things (however you determine that), just stopping everything without warning is a completely irresponsible and thoughtless way to do it. Lives will be lost, and the USA's reputation and credibility will be damaged.

People keep saying this, but they never point to specific spending which will cost lives. I'm putting this argument in the "to be shown" category.

And I'm not so sure about reputational damage either. Do you really think Guatemala is going to resent us because we stopped funding LGBTQ+ activism in their country? Or might it be possible that they might consider that a positive step that we aren't pushing our crap on them?

And lastly, as far as there being a more responsible way to do this, maybe. And yet, nobody actually did it before. Nobody actually held USAID accountable for their spending. If the choice is between doing it "irresponsibly" and not doing it at all, then I'll choose doing it "irresponsibly." Because nobody else (both Democrat and Republican) actually offered to do it "responsibly".

Complaining that the bandaid is coming off too fast isn't an argument to keep it on.

 

[ZiprHead]

By my back-of-the-envelope calculation (feel free to check my maths) that is a total of 0.001% of his total net worth. He can make that back in the time it takes him to have a wank.

I heard yesterday he rakes in 1.6 million every hour. I don't know if that's based on an 8 hour day of work or every hour of every day.