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In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

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Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#111

Post by Alupis »

scarmig wrote: post #84
onion2k wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only way they can exist is by doing things so morally reprehensible that they have to keep everyone ignorant of their actions then they shouldn't exist.

"Morally reprehensible," in this situation, could be something like "bribe a corrupt official." If it takes bribing a corrupt official to save lives, I don't think most donors would have a real issue with that. However, admitting that publically would embarrass the official (if named), remove the efficacy of all future bribes (which are by nature secret), and could even open the organization up to legal action. I don…

> If it takes bribing a corrupt official to save lives, I don't think most donors would have a real issue with that.

Except in this case it seems they bribed so many corrupt officials that there was nothing left for actual aide...

I think it's far more plausible they just waste the money away on "Administrative" fees and project mismanagement at enormous scale.

This is a "charitable" organization which has run rampant and unchecked for a long, long time. Nobody has dared to question the organization before because of the stone wall of "charitable projects and relief" they've constructed.

The fact that they are a "not-for-profit" foundation that survives on donations (2.9 Billion USD in 2014) yet wont disclose financials really turns me off. I can't help but feel there is corruption within the organization leading to purposeful waste of income as well as possible embezzlement by high ranking executives.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#112

Post by madaxe_again »

sopooneo wrote: post #57
avar wrote: post #16

The biggest revelation to me in that article, which I feel should be highlighted more, is that the Red Cross provides almost zero information about how it spends its money. It refuses to provide more than very vague information about how the money was spent in Haiti (information like "35% of $488 million on shelters"), with no specific details about what projects they spent the money on, how those projects went etc.…

Could it be that actually getting things done in horrible environments requires interacting with, and paying off, some shady people? This is of course a charitable guess, but could it be that the Red Cross has made a decision to make morally questionable choices in the short term in support of the greater good, and they know they can't publish such truths and continue to exist?

Unlikely. Far, far more likely, according to a friend who is very senior in the British Red Cross, when I asked her about how they use their money, is one of two scenarios:

1) They misreported how much they collected. Apparently they regularly say they've collected more than they have in order to encourage people to give yet more, and to appear to be "the big magnet charity".

2) They've lost it. This apparently happens with alarming frequency - money just kinda vanishes, and they find themselves deployed to some godforsaken corner of the planet with inadequate materials and funding, end up coming back, spend a month waiting back in blighty, go out there, still nothing ready, fly back... oh, we spent all the money on flights and meetings and figuring out how to spend the money.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#114

Post by noonespecial »

scarmig wrote: post #84
onion2k wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only way they can exist is by doing things so morally reprehensible that they have to keep everyone ignorant of their actions then they shouldn't exist.

"Morally reprehensible," in this situation, could be something like "bribe a corrupt official." If it takes bribing a corrupt official to save lives, I don't think most donors would have a real issue with that. However, admitting that publically would embarrass the official (if named), remove the efficacy of all future bribes (which are by nature secret), and could even open the organization up to legal action. I don…

If I were a "big bad charity" I'd much rather spend my millions hiring Blackwater to go bust a few corrupt heads than pay them off. If we're going down the conspiracy theory path, at least make it exciting!

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#115

Post by xacaxulu »

I've spent years working in sub-Saharan Africa with defense, security, oil firms etc. and have spent a fair amount of time interacting with non-profit, NGO, microfinance orgs. Not only do they operate with the weakest of reporting requirements, taxation burdens and investigatory/compliance statutes, but the people they employ are usually doing so out of a desire to help people, often taking seriously sub-standard salaries for similar work. So the top brass at these orgs are killing it and raking in money, while most of the grunt work is done by hapless bleeding hearts who are seriously underpaid for the work they do. It's a win at both ends for management.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#117

Post by djthorpe »

madaxe_again wrote: post #112
sopooneo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that actually getting things done in horrible environments requires interacting with, and paying off, some shady people? This is of course a charitable guess, but could it be that the Red Cross has made a decision to make morally questionable choices in the short term in support of the greater good, and they know they can't publish such truths and continue to exist?

Unlikely. Far, far more likely, according to a friend who is very senior in the British Red Cross, when I asked her about how they use their money, is one of two scenarios: 1) They misreported how much they collected. Apparently they regularly say they've collected more than they have in order to encourage people to give yet more, and to appear to be "the big magnet charity". 2) They've lost it. This apparently happe…

Hi, can you confirm that the British Red Cross is a different organization and more transparent? Ideally they should confirm this on their webpage, but they don't.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#118

Post by Crito »

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #101
mason240 wrote: post #46

There is a good analysis of this on skeptics stackexchange. http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27927/has-the-re... >TLDR: The article has accidentally or deliberately confused the earthquake relief project with the much smaller neighborhood renewal project, and attacked them both for not doing things they weren't intended to do. The Red Cross did much more in Haiti than build six houses.

Already in the TLDR there is a figure of speech used to attack a point: "accidentally or deliberately". In neutral speech, there is no need to bring that up, as everything is either accidental or deliberate. Yet people use this to hint at the "deliberate" part of the phrase while having the other part in there for deniability.

I disagree, I think people use it to emphasize the possibility that it was accidental. Without that phrase, such assertions tend to be interpreted with implicit "deliberately".

> neutral speech

Is not ideal or practical in the real world. It's a nice idea, but to best facilitate understanding we should recognize the realities (unfortunate or misguided as they may be) of how we actually use language.

(If you really want to imply "deliberate", but want plausible deniability, then you just leave out the phrase entirely. If you don't say "accidentally or deliberately", people will infer "deliberately", but you never actually said that word and therefore you have deniability.)

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#119

Post by jnbiche »

Just think the impact that would have had if it had been divided up and given directly to each Haitian adult. The adult population of Haiti is roughly 6 million, so we're talking about almost $100 per adult Haitian. Roughly, it's about 1/8 of the per capita GDP of Haiti.

Imagine what you could if you were a poor American and received 1/8 of the American per capita GDP after a disaster (~6000 USD). That's a new roof, or a replacement vehicle, etc.

It's not life changing, but it would have been very significant, and massive in scale.

Re: In Search of the Red Cross' $500M in Haiti Relief

#120

Post by JoeAltmaier »

jnbiche wrote: post #119

Just think the impact that would have had if it had been divided up and given directly to each Haitian adult. The adult population of Haiti is roughly 6 million, so we're talking about almost $100 per adult Haitian. Roughly, it's about 1/8 of the per capita GDP of Haiti. Imagine what you could if you were a poor American and received 1/8 of the American per capita GDP after a disaster (~6000 USD). That's a new roof,…

Maybe not as much as you'd think. Haiti doesn't have goods for ready cash. Most of the relief issue was shipping goods into the country where needed.
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