I had an acquaintance in Caracas, an American, who organized charity events. He only took a 35% cut for himself.
The Captain
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Fraud is what took over on Jan 20, 2025. Not âApparentâ.
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Where did you get that 10% figure? I hope you are not confusing ârecipientsâ with âLocal Partners.â
You see, USAID does not have the manpower to distribute the aid all on their own. They use partners that can range from big NGOs like the Red Cross to small âLocal Partnersâ like local churches and community groups.
In an effort to prevent corruption, Congress has established criteria that USAID must demonstrate before establishing a partnership with an aid group. That criteria makes it difficult for USAID to give money to âLocal Partnersâ because these typically have no formal track record for doing this kind of thing. Big NGOs keep good records, local churches often do not.
Thatâs why USAID tends to partner with big, established, international aid agencies rather than âLocal Partnersâ even though the latter are often more efficient. USAID is obeying US regulations, many of which were written by republicans distrustful of government.
Do the research before advocating that decent people should lose their jobs.
From Google AI
While USAID is increasingly aiming to utilize more local partners, several factors historically hindered their widespread use, including concerns about capacity building within local organizations, complex reporting requirements, a preference for established international partners, and the internal structure of USAID which may not be optimally designed to manage a large number of small local partnerships; this is changing with a growing push towards âlocalizationâ in development aid, where USAID is actively working to increase funding directed towards local actors.
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Just to add an example.
USAID was sending aid to the people of Gaza through international partners:
âŚthe nonprofit International Medical Corps (IMC) said it had received $68 million from USAID to set up and run two large field hospitals in Gaza so it could treat more than 33,000 civilians per month⌠Why shutting down USAID could have major impacts on Gaza aid - ABC News.
This is the reaction from OXfam
From Doctors Without Borders:
All those of you advocating the shutdown of USAID should know that this is what you are really supporting.
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The USian education system has always been about indoctrination. In elementary school, we started each day by reciting the âPledge of Alleganceâ, including the âGodâ phrase, and singing âMy Country Tis Of Theeâ, aka âAmericaâ , which is different lyrics to âGod Save The Kingâ. I have commented here, before, about the stories we were told about the âhorrors of life under Communismâ. When I was in high school, there was a class called âhome and family livingâ. Fortunately, it was an elective, so I wasnât forced to endure more indoctrination about the officially blessed âacceptableâ lifestyle.
Steve
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All of life is about indoctrination. Itâs just that some people want their indoctrination and not somebody elseâs. Just watch, they are already trying to stuff indoctrination into public schools. Just how you make religion neutral is beyond me.
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Exactly so. This âtraditional American family valuesâ nonsense was a big issue in either 88 or 92, with one candidate making a big show of reciting the pledge, with the âGodâ thing. So, do we go with indoctrinating everyone that there was never racism in Shiny-land, all good things are done by white people, slaves benefited from being slaves, and the US was always intended to be a Christian theocracy. or do we indoctrinate everyone that Shiny-land was born in genocide and built on slavery, and religion is something that everyone should make their own decision about?
Steve
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From the PBS video: âless than 10% of our foreign assistance dollars flowing through USAID is actually reaching those communitiesâ.
DB2
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Again, do due diligence rather than just parroting Musk on X. Learn to think for yourself.
Only 10% of USAID funding goes to âlocal partnersâ (i.e., âthose communitiesâ). The remaining 90% went to governmental and nonprofit agencies doing stuff like fighting AIDs, feeding the hungry, etc.
This cursory review of the data, conducted over just a few hours, shows just how off-base the recent social media caricature of US foreign assistance has been. The 90 percent of the aid budget that Musk and others claim is wasted is, in fact, helping to feed, house, and provide basic health care to some of the most vulnerable people on earth. There is no valid pretext to burn USAID to the ground over clear misinformation. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/no-90-percent-aid-not-skimmed-reaching-target-communities
USAID has been directly involved in and a major contributor to:
- The Green Revolution that has substantially increased global crop yields.
- The U.S. PEPFAR program that has saved 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS and enabled 5.5 million babies to be born HIV-free.
- Small pox, polio, and malaria eradication programs
- U.S. goods and services exports to the 11 European and Eurasian countries that have graduated from assistance have increased from more than $2 billion in 1995 to over $10 billion in 2015.
- USAID is currently playing a major role in advancing US policy in the Ukraine by providing humanitarian aid. Ukraine reels from âworst-case scenarioâ suspension of US foreign aid | Ukraine | The Guardian
Not bad for an agency that represents 0.3% of U.S. GDP. Pretty good investment in my opinion.
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Here is another example relevant to one of your other posts:
As part of its mission to feed the world:
China has its Belt and Road Initiative. Americans have USAID. Well we did. Game, set, and international match to China.
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It is important for our macro analyses to not get snookered by Elon and all the other pumped up with BIG money GOP noise machines. When pushing self interested moves, NOISE, as Trumpâs mentor Roy Cohn taught him and Karl Rove, is extremely useful in drowning out cautionary signal.
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How did you get from PBS to âparroting Musk on Xâ?
DB2
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My only personal contact with the American education system was with MIT. On a flight to or from my high school in Canada I sat next to an Englishman. We struck up a conversation and he asked me to which university I planned to go. I had no idea. Since I wanted to become a mechanical engineer he suggested MIT praising it as the best. I figured that if an Englishman praised it so highly it must be fantastic so I applied. Back in 1957 it was as far from WOKE and DEI as the Earth is from the most distant galaxy. It taught self reliance in addition to academic stuff. Recently I read something about MIT and I got the impression that it no longer had the same spirit.
The Captain
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I am still trying to get my head around you listening to PBS. 
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Hey, I even voted for Jimmy Carter back in the day (not to mention George McGovern). More recently, Obama got my vote when running for the Senate.
DB2
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It could be, and in many cases it is indeed good. But the problem is that we are borrowing all the money to cover it, and weâve borrowed too much already and need to cut back drastically. So weâre going to let Europe and Asia take over those worthwhile âinvestmentsâ for a few decades while we get our financial house in order. Most of Europe and Asia have a lower debt to GDP ratio than we do at this point, so they have more wherewithal to take over for a while.
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You really want to double down on this? The PBS link never uses the term âintended recipientsâ as you have:
But it is made on your Feb 2 (post 29) link and the quote is attributed to Musk.
After Elonâs recent post about only 10% of USAID going to its intended recipients,
What is stated on PBS is âItâs actually less than 10 percent of our foreign assistance dollars flowing through USAID is actually reaching those communitiesâ and it is made by Walter Kerr of unlock.com. As Iâve explained and as Kerr himself made clear in congressional testimonies, he is talking about money going directly to Local Partners. The other 90% of USAID is going through large governmental or NGO agencies and then getting to recipients. But it is still getting to the intended recipients.
What Musk said and what you are insinuating is simply untrue.
Kerr is lobbying congress and USAID to give out smaller developmental grants to small groups and individuals in the impacted community rather than have the money funneled through large agencies. He states there has been significant improvement:
Weâve seen the USAID increase the percentage of the kinds of awards that theyâre sending out the door that way, about 50% this year over last year. When you talk to social entrepreneurs that are receiving these kinds of grants, they will tell you itâs day and night difference in terms of how nice it is to work with the US government to be able to scale their impact. Interview with Walter Kerr and Amanda Arch (Unlock Aid) - What's Working Solutions
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Americans are not saving enough for retirement. But should they do so by not paying for home insurance or by not letting Junior go to college? We can make choices about how to pay down the debt. Eliminating USAID is a bad one IMO because it will almost certainly reduce future economic benefits and probably increase future military expenditures. Eliminate the oil depletion allowance, ethanol subsidies, a few military bases, and raise corporate and higher-income tax rates to what they were in the Clinton era.
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What is âthe planâ to accomplish the above? The universe wants to knowâŚ
God recognizes a bad joke when it is made knownâŚ