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Your faith in the good intentions of our government is inspiring. I wish I hadn't become so cynical with age and experience to be convinced that they are only doing it to profit themselves and the special interests that put them in office.
those american jobs they are creating are for their special interests, my friend. your cynicism is correct. Isreal giving tons of money to our companies that design military equipment...you can be darn sure those companies have lobbyists pushing continued aid to Isreal. some of the things we eventually learn had heavy lobbyist support often surprise me.
Why didn't you complete the last step? 75% of the money Israel gets from the US comes back to the US to purchase these military items which in turn puts money into American pockets as American jobs.
Oh, that is hardly the last step. Could do far more MIC details on that, but let's hop past our internal corporate pay-offs, and back towards the "aid" and the consequences.
Not the last step, but the next step, is -- Israel then uses that US made and funded advanced fighter aircraft to bomb their neighbors and civilians in occupied areas with WP, DU, and other advanced weapons.
These "targets" are typically of course simple poor folks who are basically at an Ox-Cart level existence due to prior Israel attacks. The attacks go forth with such clever names as "Cast Lead," at a level comparable to the Nazi attack on the Warsaw Ghetto, all the while Israel is chanting, "Never Forget," and "Never Again."
The enraged neighbors and surrounding countries place some protest, ignored by US, and a few do either small real or are blamed for false-flag counter-attacks. Those occasionally go wide enough to directly involve US. In all that, the US MIC smiles deeply inside and says -- More War. War is Good Business.
Quote:
Egypt has 0% requirement as does Jordan. The US cannot take away the money from these three countries due to it being part of the Treaty the US brokered.
Some parts of US have some guilty conscious that we are funding genocide in the area, but that does not go too deep, and so some indulgences are continued.
At this point, even Carter who set up the Camp David Accords you are describing is calling Israel an Apartheid operation, but like most nominal US "Christians" is too co-dependent to stop this.
Soooo . . . . Did I miss much in that?
Here's the link for USAID
U.S. Agency for International Development (http://www.usaid.gov/index.html - broken link)[/quote]
i think there are probably very few instances of aid we give without expecting something in return. even supposed humanitarian aid could be a benefit to us. helping Haiti stabalize could help get their garment industry back in tact more quickly, providing a close location for US Companies to have garment factories. Things like that. I seriously doubt that there's a lot of aid given for purely charity reasons. Not the way our government and lobbyists operate.
im sure there are plenty of reasons especially when it comes to pockets being lined. but if there is no real benefit to american citizens, then we shouldnt give the money. everyone who gets money from the government has lobbyists protecting that money stream. but that isnt really justifiable.
my company is evaluating energy costs at the top 10% of our facilities. it will look into ways to reduce costs based on the activities at those top 10%, and then after it implements them there (biggest bang for the buck), it will develop a program to implement them company wide.
Trying to do everything at once is how nothing gets done. Prioritization and organization is what makes a good leader. Captain just likes to criticize the concept you proposed, because he thinks every dollar spent on everything should just be cut.
i like to criticize the concept because philip hates israel so he conveniently chooses to cut off israel's aid while there are other countries that could easily be grouped with israel and cut also. im not suggesting you do everything at once, but im suggesting you can do more than one thing at a time and you can definitely do things together when they are in similar groups. but philip hates israel and so he very quickly offers to cut israel's aid.
Does it make sense that the U.S sends 100's of millions of dollars in aid to foreign countries when our own economy is F'd up? Why isnt this money being spent to help out our own economy rather than others?
I read the US withheld $800mil in aid to Pakistan after the whole Bin Laden debacle. What did they do with this money instead and why isnt it being pumped back into our economy?
Today the US sent $100mil in aid to Africa to help with the drought and famine crisis.
Everytime there's a crisis somewhere in the world, the U.S sends millions upon millions in aid while there are clearly people here in this country who are still starving, homeless, and in need of aid, all the while our entire economy is collapsing.
Can someone give me any insight on this?
When are people going to get over the fact that foreign aid is an absolutely miniscule part of the federal budget????
What about 2009? In that fiscal year, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United States spent $44.9 billion, while overall government spending was $3.52 trillion. Foreign aid spending was 1.28 percent of the total budget.
And no, the wars are not included in the foreign aid budget.
As for the homeless....most of them were homeless long before the recession hit. I saw them at work when times were good, and I still see some of the same people now, many years later. Most homeless people have serious emotional problems that started in childhood as a result of abuse in the home (drugs, physical, & sexual). It's not a problem easily solved with money.
Would you differentiate between kinds of foreign aid--say, aid to starving countries as opposed to aid for purely political reasons?
yes, i believe i did already in this thread. aid simply for humanitarian reasons with no benefit to us is bad. aid for political reasons where the benefits may outweigh the costs can be a good idea.
yes, i believe i did already in this thread. aid simply for humanitarian reasons with no benefit to us is bad. aid for political reasons where the benefits may outweigh the costs can be a good idea.
That's a fascinating take on the concept of "aid", which is supposed to benefit the recipient, not the donor.
Maybe, instead of using a euphemism, we should call our altruism "Foreign Grab Program", or "Foreign Shake-down Program" or "Foreign Protection Racket Program" in order to remove all doubt about its magnanimous intent. After all, they have so much and we have so little, we do have a God-given entitlement to get everything we can from them. If a country refuses to accept out "aid" which benefits us and not them, should we continue our policy of invading them with military superiority to force them to accept our "aid"?
When somebody says "Can you help me with this?", do you roll up your sleeves and see now many ways you can turn this wonderful opportunity to your distinct advantage and profit somehow from it? And refuse to help if you can't think of a way to come out ahead n the deal?
Last edited by jtur88; 08-15-2011 at 08:49 AM..
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