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Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

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Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#131

Post by glitch003 »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #127
dang wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Downvotes? This breaks the site guidelines. You've done that a lot and we've had to warn you a lot. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them if you want to keep commenting here.

I legitimately don't see which guideline this violates and I thought it was a good question, even if it turns out that the case for paying off the debt is strong.

Probably this one:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#132

Post by rgossiaux »

hiram112 wrote: post #87
labster wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read Slashdot 15 years ago, a part of me is shocked to hear anyone wish that Bill Gates stays rich. But don't worry, Bill will be just fine.

Gates is worshipped by most millennials, including the techies. For those of us who've been around for a while - as your reference to Slashdot points out - this can be surprising considering just how hated he was a decade or two ago when Microsoft was in a much different position than they are now. I still have a negative opinion of him, and feel his business practices were extremely negative to the world. But I will…

The thing is, it seems pretty clear-cut to me that the good that Gates has done with his foundation has far exceeded any bad that was done through MS business practices. It's hard for me to take seriously the idea that things like aggressively stifling competing software is the same or larger magnitude as helping millions of people in the developing world with basic things like nutrition, sanitation, and disease prevention. Gates is worshipped because he's currently making a very serious, very earnest, very large positive impact on the developing world, and I have no shame in supporting him.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#133

Post by ikeyany »

ftoo wrote: post #28

Nigeria loses tens of billions of dollars a year to corruption, especially in their oil industry, especially among politicians. If I was Nigerian, I would find this sort of charity to be very embarrassing.

If you were Nigerian you'd probably feel anger (or apathy) at the corruption that led you here.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#135

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

whack wrote: post #106
remir wrote: post #21

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?

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics strikes again. "when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you ar…

I think I am missing the relevance here, or not getting your point, could you clarify please? Possible I'm missing the obvious reference.

As a side note, I find that articles arguments troubling for several reasons that appear to be glossed over, but in interest of not derailing onto a different comment, I'll wait for what aspect you are specifically referring to in this case.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#136

Post by cornyNetHandle »

thisacctforreal wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This user has a track record on this front [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16127928

I find these style of comments very distasteful.

Why?

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#137

Post by semi-extrinsic »

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #135
whack wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics strikes again. "when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you ar…

I think I am missing the relevance here, or not getting your point, could you clarify please? Possible I'm missing the obvious reference. As a side note, I find that articles arguments troubling for several reasons that appear to be glossed over, but in interest of not derailing onto a different comment, I'll wait for what aspect you are specifically referring to in this case.

I think he meant that when Japan gave that loan, they took a significant risk (loan could very well default) in order to help fight polio. Other countries did nothing. Yet now Japan looks like the bad guy.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#138

Post by dingaling »

remir wrote: post #21

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?

> How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M?

Well three weeks ago Nigeria agreed to buy a dozen Super Tucano aircraft through a US FMS arrangement for $593 million.[0]

So why would Japan expect that they couldn't pay $76 million? The Nigerian Presidents's Boeing 737 is worth nearly that much, plus his pair each of Gulfsreams and Falcons...

[0] whereas the USAF paid about $30 million per airframe including similar spares and support services, and bare flyaway cost from the manufacturer is about $12 million each.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#139

Post by totalZero »

remir wrote: post #65
sumedh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M Oil revenue?

If they make so much cash with oil, then why does Japan and Bill Gates have to spend billions to help them fight polio?

In 2013, the official in charge of the central bank claimed that $20 billion had disappeared from the state oil company. He provided over 300 pages of evidence to parliament to substantiate this claim, and yet he was blamed for the loss and fired.

Nigeria is a country with a long and persistent history of corruption. It pays its legislators the highest salaries in the world, yet over 60% of Nigerians live in poverty. About 9 months ago, anti-corruption investigators found $43 million in cash in an apartment, which is a drop in the many-hundreds-of-billions that have been lost to corruption in the course of Nigerian history.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan

#140

Post by banku_brougham »

A. Nigeria GDP is ~$500B US, sovereign debt is $67B, for debt/GDP ratio of 13%. Nigeria can afford to repay this loan.

B. If we fail to eradicate polio, it will be back again someday. The rich world should pay for this with all urgency. Kudos to the Gates.

https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nga/

https://dmo.gov.ng/

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