91–100 of 224 posts
I hope they'll bail us out when it comes back to the US due to the lack of vaccinations. -In no way meant to belittle what they did. I think what they do is awesome. Just being sarcastic about vaccinations in the US.
The problem is a charity paying off your debt does not make your credit better. While its slightly better than a writeoff/forgiveness because the creditor isn't as angry, it still shows they can't pay back loans. Is a future creditor going to count on a charity showing up to pay them off?
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as a minority immigrant from a shithole country, i find this opinion condescending and racist. please use whatever adjective you would use for any other race - i don't need my sensitive minority ears protected by an up-to-the-minute adjective whitelist, thanks.
your appeal to authority is naked
To all the commenters too busy being aghast at giving money to a government to read the article: > Nigeria’s debt to Japan is the result of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the Japanese government in 2014 for increased polio eradication. efforts. > The country has made great strides in its efforts to eliminate the disease thanks to this funding. > Nigeria did not record a wild case of polio from July…
>Money well spent. There have been human costs too, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/world/africa/in-nigeria-po... Of the nine vaccination workers killed, "Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head"
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This was a loan, possibly from the taxpayers, it wasn't charity. Governments don't just "lose track" of $76 million owed to them. Or at least, they shouldn't. Presumably, Nigeria agreed to the terms, so I don't see the issue.
I'm sure Nigeria did agree to the terms, but if I were a citizen of Japan I would be embarrassed that the money was not just gifted as part of a foreign aid program.
To all the commenters too busy being aghast at giving money to a government to read the article: > Nigeria’s debt to Japan is the result of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the Japanese government in 2014 for increased polio eradication. efforts. > The country has made great strides in its efforts to eliminate the disease thanks to this funding. > Nigeria did not record a wild case of polio from July…
The thing that's weird to me is that an economy the size of Japan would even keep track of such a thing. The Japanese government could find that kind of money in the couch cushions in the name of humanitarian aid.
There's actually a lot of studies on people's perceptions on the amount that we give, and virtually all countries vastly overestimate (like, by an order of magnitude) the amount we give. It's not really a matter of numbers, it's just a matter of perceptions, they're political, knowing that it doesn't seem weird at all to me that Japanese officials can't simply get away with doing the right thing. It's really sad.
[0] for example point 1: People are often under the impression that a lot more is spent on foreign aid than it actually is. The average guess of US citizens estimates is that around 31% of the Federal Budget is spent on aid. In fact the US spends less than 1% of the Federal Budget on foreign aid.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/myths-about-aid...
And this has been found in studies in tons of western countries. It's pretty pathetic how wrong people get this if you think about it.
I'm I the only one who thinks that Japan kinda looks bad here? I mean, Bill's foundation is already dedicating $3B a year on development assistance, couldn't Japan just say to Nigeria: "You don't have to pay us back. Consider it a donation". How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M?
[1] I'm trying to find their foreign aid info, but not having much luck on finding figures...
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>Money well spent. There have been human costs too, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/world/africa/in-nigeria-po... Of the nine vaccination workers killed, "Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head"
That doesn’t seem immediately relevant, could you explain why you mentioned it here?
I took it as a reminder that doing something good may require not only exceptional courage, but one's life. I'm ok with the off-topic aspect of the post.
I continue to be amazed and grateful we have such people.
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It wasn't the last time. Pakistan is an extremely large nation with 40+ years of substantial vaccination efforts by the US and West in general. It'd be fair to say that at least 99.9% of that effort was entirely innocent. The CIA doing what it did should have never happened obviously. That simultaneously doesn't excuse non-vaccination, which is extraordinarily inexpensive and could be performed by Pakistani governmen…
> and could be performed by Pakistani government persons as a compromise. Political opponents still can frame anyone associated with "being an US puppet"... and for the chemtrail-lovers with an addition of "they're not vaccinating you, they're putting tiny microchips into you". Do note I didn't make up that last one, it literally flew somewhere over my Facebook feed today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci...
The leaders being suspicious of vaccination efforts is a direct link to this activity, please stop making a cheap "THOSE CRAZY KOOKS BELEIVE ANYTHING" style dismissal.
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> You may think that "shithole" is too strong of a statement. But that description seems about right to me It's a term that was recently applied, with almost comical precision, to countries that are predominantly black. It was applied in respect of the people from those countries, specifically immigrants, more specifically regarding their individual merit as potential Americans. TL; DR When discussing race, particula…
(Quickly hits Google.) I'm not going to bother keeping up with every tweet from our cheeto-in-chief to keep track of things that might offend politically correct people this week. There is no limit to what can potentially offend others. There is a limit to how much of my attention that I wish to devote to the topic. If that bothers you, perhaps you should reconsider what offends you. Because like it or not, "shithole…
I am neither telling you to stop using that word nor expressing offense. Language is complicated. Two words with similar definitions can mean vastly different things. Understanding that is part of communication.
You now know this term carries additional implied meaning. Ignoring that fact could be used to communicate a message. Similar to how some people selectively use the words "retarded" and "fag" loosely to communicate something meaningful. (Others are simply linguistically clumsy, or mean to communicate something hateful.) Depending on the circumstances, that may be what you want to communicate, completely unnecessary (thereby lowering your signal:noise ratio) or even debilitating to your argument. Knowing that implied information simply allows you to control that nuance.