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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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prev…

> the good that Gates has done with his foundation has far exceeded any bad that was done through MS business practices

Do you realize that the money $billionaire using were taken away from $company customers? Those money were not created out of thin air by $company. They would have been used in many other ways by the customers - including making the world a better place.

The only value $company really creates is in the products and the company behavior - everything else is just transferring money.

Now, transferring money from large masses to socially beneficial organizations it's done by taxation through a democratic process or by voluntary contribution.

Individuals having the power to grab your money and decide how to spend it, like kings in a feudal society, can easily do more harm than good.

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

#182
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone really think Bill Gates is a superior moral person with no ulterior motive at all? And if you think so, can you provide proof, or just assumption? History almost universally shows that the rich and powerful manipulate both the people and their image for their own good, not for the well being of the peasants.

> Does anyone really think Bill Gates is a superior moral person with no ulterior motive at all? And if you think so, can you provide proof, or just assumption? > History almost universally shows that the rich and powerful manipulate both the people and their image for their own good, not for the well being of the peasants. I never have any heroes, because they can all fall from grace. In Bills case I'm sure he did s…

Well to be fair, half the money came from Melinda.

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

#184
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.

Hey there! I'm a citizen in a country where the current minister of finance was caught with a briefcase of 100.000 DM illegal "donations" from an arms manufacturer to the ruling party. The then-chancellor of 16 years took the fall to protect black party accounts, but nobody spent time in jail. That same party produces nepotism scandals in their home state but nobody cares because nepotism is an open secret through al…

Talk to your friends, vote differently. Or bust your balls and go into politics. Fix it yourself.

You can blame the system only for so long if you want change.

"Talk is cheap. Show me the code"

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

#185
post #145

The current richest person in Africa (with a net worth of just under 13 billion US dollars) comes from Nigeria. I hope he's taking notes.

He died recently and I'm helping his lawyer transfer his money out of the country. I'll email the lawyer and see if he might be willing to donate some of the royal estate to a humanitarian cause like this.

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

#186
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.

Hey there! I'm a citizen in a country where the current minister of finance was caught with a briefcase of 100.000 DM illegal "donations" from an arms manufacturer to the ruling party. The then-chancellor of 16 years took the fall to protect black party accounts, but nobody spent time in jail. That same party produces nepotism scandals in their home state but nobody cares because nepotism is an open secret through al…

100,000 DM is quite small change no? All countries will have corruption, the difference is the scale of it and in third world countries, the amounts are much much higher (look at Wen Jiabao's family in China or Mahatir in Malaysia)

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

#187

In return to handing Nigeria's agriculture industry to Monsanto; [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte... [2] https://www.ecowatch.com/5-million-nigerians-oppose-monsanto...

Has any consumer ever asked for GM crops?

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

#188

Can't they just help more directly to eradicate polio instead of paying a corrupt government to do it? Payments like these can be interpreted as buying a state's benevolence (aka corruption), something that Soros is regularly accused of. I'm sure there are quite a few NGOs that are more efficient in fighting polio than the Nigerian government. Likewise, should we pay Kim Jong Un to feed hungry North Koreans if it wer…

> Can't they just help more directly to eradicate polio instead of paying a corrupt government to do it?

That's not how any of this works. You don't just go to a foreign country with its established health care system (and national sovereignty) and start building seperate health care structures through your NGO without government approval and ownership.

What you do instead is build broad alliances between the government, international donors and implementing agencies (which may include foreign NGOs). Financial and programming oversight is performed jointly by all partners.

This particular Japanese loan was part of broader international funding for Nigeria's National Polio Eradication Programme. The money was channeled to UNICEF and WHO to procure Polio vaccine and to improve related health care services in the country. The involvement and leadership of the Nigerian government is crucial to make sure you have political legitimacy and to create sustainable policy change and improvements in the national health care system.

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

#189

A book by Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, argues in favor of this approach where, wealthy individuals or nations help write off debt of poorer countries. The cost of servicing this debt is often crushing enough that no meaningful uplifit is possible from their current poverty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Poverty

A more correct title would be "Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's Polio Related $76M Debt to Japan." So Bill Gates wants to eradicate polio and has been funding countries. In this Japan loaned it to Nigeria and Bill Gates paid it off. Paying debts for third world countries (is this still politically correct?) is not efficient, might as well give it directly to their leaders--you save on fees. A corrupt t…

third world countries originally ment states not aligned with USA, Nazi Germany or USSR, during and after ww2. this actually included ireland.

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

#190
post #187

In return to handing Nigeria's agriculture industry to Monsanto; [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte... [2] https://www.ecowatch.com/5-million-nigerians-oppose-monsanto...

Has any consumer ever asked for GM crops?

Yes... The market encourages it. How else do you get inexpensive, pretty, fresh, tasty food so easily in supermarkets?
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