8 ms·

Doge cuts to USAid blamed for 300k deaths – most of them children

128 points by mnewme 1y ago

oldpersonintx2 1y ago
[flagged]
- awjlogan 1y ago
  The same could, of course, be said about the individual who gleefully implemented this cut.
- rsqnow 1y ago
  As a percentage of GNI, many nations give more development aid than the US. Norway gives 5x more, Germany 3x, France 2x, UK 2x. The US is on par with Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, and Spain. You can see for yourself here: https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/official-development-assistance-oda.html https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/official-development-assistan...
  - ourmandave 1y ago
    Stated in total $ of % US 0.22% of GNI = $63.3B Norway 1% of GNI = $5.2B I not only hate that they cut aid, but that they did it abruptly, like everything else. No fore thought or care of how it will impact anyone or if it's even legal. Just one giant fuck you after another, all in the name of the isolationist America First.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
  Even if we ignore the fact that the rest of the world could have easily rustled up the money, surely you have the basic intelligence to understand why that would be extremely difficult within a couple of months? It would be one thing if DOGE had said that a year from now US funding would dry up and for recipients to find alternatives. Instead DOGE, almost certainly illegally, cut funding that had already been allocated by Congress overnight.
perihelions 1y ago
https://archive.is/5FFxq https://archive.is/5FFxq
holyra 1y ago
[flagged]
- rimbo789 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jmye 1y ago
  [flagged]
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
First to get this out of the way, I do not support the destruction of USAID and I definitely do not support the death of 300,000 people. This study brings to light a hidden problem of countries and individuals dependent on foreign aid. There should’ve been plans in place to reduce foreign aid dependency over time. Yes provide aid as needed & appropriate, but work out what it’ll take for the country to not need it and try to get there.. Otherwise a sudden halt of aid can lead to, well, exactly this. It seems from the outside there was just “money from the sky” from USAID. Without strings attached you’d expect systems to organize to grab free money and countries become dependent.. Is there something I don’t know?
- qznc 1y ago
  I assume that providing countries generally enjoy the influence they get in return.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Out_of_Characte 1y ago
  As conspiratorial as this sounds, alot of successfull non-profit organisations have a vested interest in becoming a critical part of their infrastructure so that funding cuts would be a humanitarian disaster in of itself which neccecitates the continuation of the organisation. Foreign aid has always been a double edged sword when it comes to self-reliance and lasting change
  - hoseyor 1y ago
    It does not sound conspiratorial at all. I know this to be a fact from first person knowledge and experience that it is exactly what goes on in NGO board rooms. It’s not really all that different than the MIC though. Abstracting a bit more, it’s also not really any different than aristocratic, monarchical, and even feudal patronage systems where your fortune and standing was directly linked to how close you could get to the monarch/center of power. In fact, I see the west devolving towards such patronage systems as power and wealth keeps concentrating. All across the board you see every more sycophancy as people grovel for benefits.
encom 1y ago
>The numbers are not recorded deaths, but rather predictions. “They’re modelled numbers and I recognise the limitations that that comes with,” she said. “We don’t have routine data sets that we can measure someone as ‘killed by the US lack of funding’.” Why are journos so dishonest?
- container 1y ago
  Where exactly do you see the dishonesty here? Is it just the title?
  - hoseyor 1y ago
    [flagged]
- hoseyor 1y ago
  Because their friends and family are part of the NGO complex. Usually the directors and board members. I know this from personal experience and knowledge. If they did not know each other from college or growing up, the NGO associated people seek out journalists for that kind of reason and journalists are often flattered by the attention, aka lobbying, and drawn in. It’s a really corrupted system that only further encourages that kind of behavior because it is the very nature of that system today that any new entrants come into. Basically none of the transparency efforts of the mid aughts seem to have really made any kind of real impact on the corruption of the system either. I’m not sure if it’s just correlation, but it almost feels like the transparency efforts only gave false senses of confidence, not to mention that many of the transparency initiatives are also corrupted, receiving their funding also from the NGO complex and also being drawn into the complex itself. It’s an inherently incestuous system like the MIC or the judicial system.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- constantcrying 1y ago
  >Why are journos so dishonest? No. The whole complex is to blame here, the scientists didn't do some rigorous open ended work. All of the scientists of course already believed that foreign aid is effective and beneficial (it is generally neither, especially not in the way it is actually practiced, where you dump random things into some poor place of the world and then leave) and are now gathering evidence to support that position so that articles like this can be written. It is of course somewhat hilarious to claim 300k deaths without being able to point to a single actual death. All of this pseudo debate exists to mask the actual question under contention. Given the enormous amounts of resources the west has poured into the poorest places on earth, when do we see the positive results? The only measurable result is that over time only more and more is needed, which of course simultaneously undermines the premise of foreign aid and paradoxically makes it more important.
rimbo789 1y ago
Doge was a bad idea done poorly. It served no purpose other than to hurt people and win some headlines. We will be feeling the consequences for years to come.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Wasn't the purpose to allow foreign influence to get access to governmental systems and data?
  - richid 1y ago
    Don't forget about gutting departments that had open investigations into SpaceX and Tesla.
  - mcphage 1y ago
    That’s part of it, but that’s a pretty bad idea, no?
    - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
      Depends on your perspective - bad for the U.S. people, but good for their enemies.
  - larrled 1y ago
    OMB got hacked years ago by the Chinese. Access to our systems and data by Xi/Putin is very pre-DOGE. Maybe they made it less secure, say from not very secure to super not very secure. I’d be willing to believe that, but the claimant has to first admit the systems are already open to foreigner influence/domestic spies.
  - cyberdick 1y ago
    [flagged]
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
msgodel 1y ago
[flagged]
derelicta 1y ago
Honestly, considering the instabilities that came with USaid coups and other "regime change initiatives", I wouldn't be surprised if the real number would much much higher. Ultimately, that the US is closing down one of its CIA assets is a major positive for world peace and stability. I'm afraid what Oligarchs are gonna replace it with tho.
sunshine-o 1y ago
Something I have been wondering for a few years now before the whole DOGE, USAID thing. When the war in Ukraine started I heard Africa was relying on imports for food up to 85%. There are no word to describe how horrifying this is. To this day I still cannot believe it. 50% would sound intolerable to me. My question is: do we have reliable data on this ? flow of food to and within Africa? Also, if this is true, how can we deny the absolute failure of the West but also Russian and Chinese development efforts in Africa over the last 50+ years. I do understand that wars can disrupt those efforts but the whole continent is not constantly at war.
- thrance 1y ago
  It all starts to make sense if you internalize the idea that developing the African continent was never a goal of the imperialist forces of the West (and certainly not of Russia or China either). Mostly, the West kept putting corrupt dictators in place to ensure cheap access to natural resources. The instability of the continent is a feature, not a bug.
  - larrled 1y ago
    So all in on the DOGE cuts then?
- tim333 1y ago
  They also export a lot of food. It partly a free trade thing - it's cheaper to grow grain in Ukraine. see https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unpacking-the-misconceptions-about-africas-food-imports/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unpacking-the-misconcepti...
- const_cast 1y ago
  Africa is effectively still colonized by the west, particularly the US. I don't think people conceptualize just how many resources Africa as a continent has and how willing they are to provide those resources to the West at an extreme discount. The soft imperialism employed in Africa is a major piece of why the West is wealthy. It's not like we're giving food to destabilized and resource-rich countries out of the goodness of our heart.
siilats 1y ago
You have to understand that Boston University is not a real school. Even the article says “ She readily recognises the shortcomings of her modelling. The numbers are not recorded deaths, but rather predictions. “They’re modelled numbers and I recognise the limitations that that comes with,” she said. “We don’t have routine data sets that we can measure someone as ‘killed by the US lack of funding’.”. Doge Cuts are necessary so the USA doesnt default on it’s debt
- maxerickson 1y ago
  Doge Cuts are necessary so the USA doesnt default on it’s debt This is more or less delusional. The US won't default on any debt (worst case, money printer go brrrr). The cuts so far amount to fuckall, even across many years. And then the proposed budgets increases deficits far beyond any savings Doge actually managed to find (if their cuts were even actually more effective than the inspectors general that were terminated).
  - Jensson 1y ago
    > worst case, money printer go brrrr USA already are doing that, and have been for a long time, so "worst case" is already here. What do you think happens when things gets even worse than now?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
bufferoverflow 1y ago
[flagged]
- ZeroTalent 1y ago
  Also, don't use a phone or a computer. /s
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
cyberdick 1y ago
[flagged]
JohnTHaller 1y ago
Link in case the pro-Musk flag brigade gets this removed: https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/usaid-doge-deaths-children-cuts-7nb83dfkp https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/usaid-...

128 points by mnewme 1y ago

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

[flagged]

awjlogan 1y ago
The same could, of course, be said about the individual who gleefully implemented this cut.
rsqnow 1y ago
As a percentage of GNI, many nations give more development aid than the US. Norway gives 5x more, Germany 3x, France 2x, UK 2x. The US is on par with Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, and Spain. You can see for yourself here: https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/official-development-assistance-oda.html https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/official-development-assistan...
- ourmandave 1y ago
  Stated in total $ of % US 0.22% of GNI = $63.3B Norway 1% of GNI = $5.2B I not only hate that they cut aid, but that they did it abruptly, like everything else. No fore thought or care of how it will impact anyone or if it's even legal. Just one giant fuck you after another, all in the name of the isolationist America First.
hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
Even if we ignore the fact that the rest of the world could have easily rustled up the money, surely you have the basic intelligence to understand why that would be extremely difficult within a couple of months? It would be one thing if DOGE had said that a year from now US funding would dry up and for recipients to find alternatives. Instead DOGE, almost certainly illegally, cut funding that had already been allocated by Congress overnight.

perihelions 1y ago

https://archive.is/5FFxq https://archive.is/5FFxq

holyra 1y ago

[flagged]

rimbo789 1y ago
[flagged]
jmye 1y ago
[flagged]

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

First to get this out of the way, I do not support the destruction of USAID and I definitely do not support the death of 300,000 people. This study brings to light a hidden problem of countries and individuals dependent on foreign aid. There should’ve been plans in place to reduce foreign aid dependency over time. Yes provide aid as needed & appropriate, but work out what it’ll take for the country to not need it and try to get there.. Otherwise a sudden halt of aid can lead to, well, exactly this. It seems from the outside there was just “money from the sky” from USAID. Without strings attached you’d expect systems to organize to grab free money and countries become dependent.. Is there something I don’t know?

qznc 1y ago
I assume that providing countries generally enjoy the influence they get in return.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Out_of_Characte 1y ago
As conspiratorial as this sounds, alot of successfull non-profit organisations have a vested interest in becoming a critical part of their infrastructure so that funding cuts would be a humanitarian disaster in of itself which neccecitates the continuation of the organisation. Foreign aid has always been a double edged sword when it comes to self-reliance and lasting change
- hoseyor 1y ago
  It does not sound conspiratorial at all. I know this to be a fact from first person knowledge and experience that it is exactly what goes on in NGO board rooms. It’s not really all that different than the MIC though. Abstracting a bit more, it’s also not really any different than aristocratic, monarchical, and even feudal patronage systems where your fortune and standing was directly linked to how close you could get to the monarch/center of power. In fact, I see the west devolving towards such patronage systems as power and wealth keeps concentrating. All across the board you see every more sycophancy as people grovel for benefits.

encom 1y ago

>The numbers are not recorded deaths, but rather predictions. “They’re modelled numbers and I recognise the limitations that that comes with,” she said. “We don’t have routine data sets that we can measure someone as ‘killed by the US lack of funding’.” Why are journos so dishonest?

container 1y ago
Where exactly do you see the dishonesty here? Is it just the title?
- hoseyor 1y ago
  [flagged]
hoseyor 1y ago
Because their friends and family are part of the NGO complex. Usually the directors and board members. I know this from personal experience and knowledge. If they did not know each other from college or growing up, the NGO associated people seek out journalists for that kind of reason and journalists are often flattered by the attention, aka lobbying, and drawn in. It’s a really corrupted system that only further encourages that kind of behavior because it is the very nature of that system today that any new entrants come into. Basically none of the transparency efforts of the mid aughts seem to have really made any kind of real impact on the corruption of the system either. I’m not sure if it’s just correlation, but it almost feels like the transparency efforts only gave false senses of confidence, not to mention that many of the transparency initiatives are also corrupted, receiving their funding also from the NGO complex and also being drawn into the complex itself. It’s an inherently incestuous system like the MIC or the judicial system.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
constantcrying 1y ago
>Why are journos so dishonest? No. The whole complex is to blame here, the scientists didn't do some rigorous open ended work. All of the scientists of course already believed that foreign aid is effective and beneficial (it is generally neither, especially not in the way it is actually practiced, where you dump random things into some poor place of the world and then leave) and are now gathering evidence to support that position so that articles like this can be written. It is of course somewhat hilarious to claim 300k deaths without being able to point to a single actual death. All of this pseudo debate exists to mask the actual question under contention. Given the enormous amounts of resources the west has poured into the poorest places on earth, when do we see the positive results? The only measurable result is that over time only more and more is needed, which of course simultaneously undermines the premise of foreign aid and paradoxically makes it more important.

rimbo789 1y ago

Doge was a bad idea done poorly. It served no purpose other than to hurt people and win some headlines. We will be feeling the consequences for years to come.

ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
Wasn't the purpose to allow foreign influence to get access to governmental systems and data?
- richid 1y ago
  Don't forget about gutting departments that had open investigations into SpaceX and Tesla.
- mcphage 1y ago
  That’s part of it, but that’s a pretty bad idea, no?
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    Depends on your perspective - bad for the U.S. people, but good for their enemies.
- larrled 1y ago
  OMB got hacked years ago by the Chinese. Access to our systems and data by Xi/Putin is very pre-DOGE. Maybe they made it less secure, say from not very secure to super not very secure. I’d be willing to believe that, but the claimant has to first admit the systems are already open to foreigner influence/domestic spies.
- cyberdick 1y ago
  [flagged]

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

msgodel 1y ago

[flagged]

derelicta 1y ago

Honestly, considering the instabilities that came with USaid coups and other "regime change initiatives", I wouldn't be surprised if the real number would much much higher. Ultimately, that the US is closing down one of its CIA assets is a major positive for world peace and stability. I'm afraid what Oligarchs are gonna replace it with tho.

sunshine-o 1y ago

Something I have been wondering for a few years now before the whole DOGE, USAID thing. When the war in Ukraine started I heard Africa was relying on imports for food up to 85%. There are no word to describe how horrifying this is. To this day I still cannot believe it. 50% would sound intolerable to me. My question is: do we have reliable data on this ? flow of food to and within Africa? Also, if this is true, how can we deny the absolute failure of the West but also Russian and Chinese development efforts in Africa over the last 50+ years. I do understand that wars can disrupt those efforts but the whole continent is not constantly at war.

thrance 1y ago
It all starts to make sense if you internalize the idea that developing the African continent was never a goal of the imperialist forces of the West (and certainly not of Russia or China either). Mostly, the West kept putting corrupt dictators in place to ensure cheap access to natural resources. The instability of the continent is a feature, not a bug.
- larrled 1y ago
  So all in on the DOGE cuts then?
tim333 1y ago
They also export a lot of food. It partly a free trade thing - it's cheaper to grow grain in Ukraine. see https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unpacking-the-misconceptions-about-africas-food-imports/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unpacking-the-misconcepti...
const_cast 1y ago
Africa is effectively still colonized by the west, particularly the US. I don't think people conceptualize just how many resources Africa as a continent has and how willing they are to provide those resources to the West at an extreme discount. The soft imperialism employed in Africa is a major piece of why the West is wealthy. It's not like we're giving food to destabilized and resource-rich countries out of the goodness of our heart.

siilats 1y ago

You have to understand that Boston University is not a real school. Even the article says “ She readily recognises the shortcomings of her modelling. The numbers are not recorded deaths, but rather predictions. “They’re modelled numbers and I recognise the limitations that that comes with,” she said. “We don’t have routine data sets that we can measure someone as ‘killed by the US lack of funding’.”. Doge Cuts are necessary so the USA doesnt default on it’s debt

maxerickson 1y ago
Doge Cuts are necessary so the USA doesnt default on it’s debt This is more or less delusional. The US won't default on any debt (worst case, money printer go brrrr). The cuts so far amount to fuckall, even across many years. And then the proposed budgets increases deficits far beyond any savings Doge actually managed to find (if their cuts were even actually more effective than the inspectors general that were terminated).
- Jensson 1y ago
  > worst case, money printer go brrrr USA already are doing that, and have been for a long time, so "worst case" is already here. What do you think happens when things gets even worse than now?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

bufferoverflow 1y ago

[flagged]

ZeroTalent 1y ago
Also, don't use a phone or a computer. /s

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

cyberdick 1y ago

[flagged]

JohnTHaller 1y ago

Link in case the pro-Musk flag brigade gets this removed: https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/usaid-doge-deaths-children-cuts-7nb83dfkp https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/usaid-...