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Gotta hit on a few things there in no particular order: - USAID's final budget was $34 billion. That's already very real money, but it came from the discretion

Gotta hit on a few things there in no particular order: - USAID's final budget was $34 billion. That's already very real money, but it came from the discretionary budget - that giant bill of spending where the government decides what to spend money on: schools, roads, housing, and so on. The entire discretionary budget for 2025 was $1.9 trillion, so USAID made up almost 2% of all the US' federal discretionary spending! - Nothing USAID was doing was irreplaceable. The vacuum their exit has created is being rapidly filled by a wide mix of other interests. So saying they are saving a life when they are just another replaceable entity, even if a rather large one, is misleading. It's kind of like saying Google is why we have web browsers. - USAID and the CIA worked hand-in-hand. For instance one project was USAID/CIA starting a fake social media site [1] in Cuba specifically with the goal of trying to create an insurrection, which would undoubtedly be very bloody had they succeeded. So in your calculus you need to account for deaths caused by USAID as well. - Many of their programs seemed geared towards the creation of dependencies rather than working to ensure the self sustainability of various places. I think this likely ties into the above issue. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life, give a man a fish a day and you now control that man because he's dependent upon you. Sociopathic intelligence agencies blending with philanthropy is a rather horrific combination. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZunZuneo

ceejayoz 3mo ago
> so USAID made up almost 2% of all the US' federal discretionary spending! So, tiny; a fraction of what we spend on much less useful things like the Iran war or huge gifts to ICE. 30 years of that level of USAID funding would only get us to a single one of those trillions in debt. > The vacuum their exit has created is being rapidly filled by a wide mix of other interests. Yeah, we don't really want China vacuuming up all of Africa. It was already looking like a growing problem before the USAID cuts (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11304 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11304). > So in your calculus you need to account for deaths caused by USAID as well. I mean, your one example cited didn't work and resulted in zero deaths. If we get to count that sort of thing, we'd have to start accounting for the soft power benefits of USAID (and those the CIA gets from the trade), too. Goodwill, intel, not having a bunch of polio infections come into the country via air, etc. > Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life, give a man a fish a day and you now control that man because he's dependent upon you. How does "deplete their fishing grounds (and other resources) for hundreds of years" figure into the analogy?
- somenameforme 3mo ago
  Yes the Iran war is also a waste of money. Money being wasted in one place is hardly an argument to do it in another place. And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. And because of regularly bloated spending I think we often lose track of what it really means. $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. That's a lot of money, wasted every single year. And yeah after all is said and done Iran will cost hundreds more. Add Ukraine and we're up to the thousands. Add Iraq and we're getting into the tens of thousands soon enough. Imagine if all of this money was spent domestically. The reason China is succeeding in Africa largely gets back to my critiques of USAID. China's pharma companies are establishing production factories within Africa for the local production of trade-level quantities of pharmaceuticals meaning they'll be able to provide not only for their own needs, but have enough production to turn drugs into exports. In the future Africa could even viably start to become a destination for medical tourism. The US could have done this and much more with the vast sums of money we blew on USAID, but we didn't. We preferred exploitable dependency creation paired alongside some corporate welfare for US big pharma. It's yet another example of the focus on short-term benefits while ignoring long-term costs. It's not like African nations don't realize what we're doing, while we then go and try to lecture them about the Chinese debt trap. What a shock that they're not listening.
  - ceejayoz 3mo ago
    > And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. You think that's where most of USAID money is going? > $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. Substantially less than unrest and unchecked disease in entire continents would cost us. > Imagine if all of this money was spent domestically. We'd probably blow it on some full-body MRIs. > China's pharma companies are establishing production factories within Africa for the local production of trade-level quantities of pharmaceuticals meaning they'll be able to provide not only for their own needs, but have enough production to turn drugs into exports. Yeah, they got that one from us. https://www.usp.org/news/usaid-launches-five-million-dollar-project-to-spur-regional-production-of-apis https://www.usp.org/news/usaid-launches-five-million-dollar-... It's how China got big in the first place, even; we shipped our manufacturing there! > It's not like African nations don't realize what we're doing, while we then go and try to lecture them about the Chinese debt trap. What a shock that they're not listening. Certainly. But that's just trading one hegemon for another.

ceejayoz 3mo ago

> so USAID made up almost 2% of all the US' federal discretionary spending! So, tiny; a fraction of what we spend on much less useful things like the Iran war or huge gifts to ICE. 30 years of that level of USAID funding would only get us to a single one of those trillions in debt. > The vacuum their exit has created is being rapidly filled by a wide mix of other interests. Yeah, we don't really want China vacuuming up all of Africa. It was already looking like a growing problem before the USAID cuts (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11304 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11304). > So in your calculus you need to account for deaths caused by USAID as well. I mean, your one example cited didn't work and resulted in zero deaths. If we get to count that sort of thing, we'd have to start accounting for the soft power benefits of USAID (and those the CIA gets from the trade), too. Goodwill, intel, not having a bunch of polio infections come into the country via air, etc. > Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life, give a man a fish a day and you now control that man because he's dependent upon you. How does "deplete their fishing grounds (and other resources) for hundreds of years" figure into the analogy?

somenameforme 3mo ago
Yes the Iran war is also a waste of money. Money being wasted in one place is hardly an argument to do it in another place. And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. And because of regularly bloated spending I think we often lose track of what it really means. $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. That's a lot of money, wasted every single year. And yeah after all is said and done Iran will cost hundreds more. Add Ukraine and we're up to the thousands. Add Iraq and we're getting into the tens of thousands soon enough. Imagine if all of this money was spent domestically. The reason China is succeeding in Africa largely gets back to my critiques of USAID. China's pharma companies are establishing production factories within Africa for the local production of trade-level quantities of pharmaceuticals meaning they'll be able to provide not only for their own needs, but have enough production to turn drugs into exports. In the future Africa could even viably start to become a destination for medical tourism. The US could have done this and much more with the vast sums of money we blew on USAID, but we didn't. We preferred exploitable dependency creation paired alongside some corporate welfare for US big pharma. It's yet another example of the focus on short-term benefits while ignoring long-term costs. It's not like African nations don't realize what we're doing, while we then go and try to lecture them about the Chinese debt trap. What a shock that they're not listening.
- ceejayoz 3mo ago
  > And the whole point of discretionary spending is that it's money that could have been spent on society instead of e.g. setting up fake social media sites to try to cause chaos in another country. You think that's where most of USAID money is going? > $34 billion is $100 from every man, woman, and child in the US. Substantially less than unrest and unchecked disease in entire continents would cost us. > Imagine if all of this money was spent domestically. We'd probably blow it on some full-body MRIs. > China's pharma companies are establishing production factories within Africa for the local production of trade-level quantities of pharmaceuticals meaning they'll be able to provide not only for their own needs, but have enough production to turn drugs into exports. Yeah, they got that one from us. https://www.usp.org/news/usaid-launches-five-million-dollar-project-to-spur-regional-production-of-apis https://www.usp.org/news/usaid-launches-five-million-dollar-... It's how China got big in the first place, even; we shipped our manufacturing there! > It's not like African nations don't realize what we're doing, while we then go and try to lecture them about the Chinese debt trap. What a shock that they're not listening. Certainly. But that's just trading one hegemon for another.