61–70 of 127 posts
That USAID was Trump and Musk's first target after taking office is peculiar. They made no mention of it during the campaign and most people were unaware of it's existence until a couple weeks ago. The only group with any strong negative opinion of USAID is foreign adversaries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Swiss trust their neighbors in most things. They have extensive trading relationships with their neighbors, many treaties and relatively open borders. There military is structured under the assumption their neighbors won't invade.
Sure, but that was only a personal opinion tangent and not the core of my argument which still stands. That's like the safari guide telling you to stay in the vehicle because the Bengali tigers outside will maul you and you go "Ackshually, those are Siberian Tigers, not Bengali." While you're technically correct, it doesn't change the point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the US is the de-facto leader of the Free World, the wealthiest country in the Western hemisphere and the winner of the Cold War. Heavy Lies the Crown. Especially when it's about fighting the deadliest infectious disease known to man.
> the deadliest infectious disease known to man where did you get that? it seems like Ebola Zaire, Marburg, and sundry other diseases are saying "hold my beer".
https://www.pih.org/article/tb-deadliest-infectious-disease-...
https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2024-tuberculosis-resurg...
I don’t understand what bubble Elon Musk is living in where the ruthless slashing of USAID spending won’t have huge negative repercussions for the US. I think the rest of the world will withdraw from trusting the US after this and other actions. A lot of trust in the world leadership positions the US takes are being torched by these vandals right now and while I hope for an amazing US comeback in 4 years it looks a l…
> I think the rest of the world will withdraw from trusting the US after this and other actions The USA currently has a problem where a large portion of the US population no longer trusts the USA. That population shifts depending on whichever group is in charge of the federal government Maybe this is not the way to repair that trust, I don't know. But I think for a lot of people, "Stop sending tons of our tax money t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The brief (?) interruption to PEPFAR (Bush's HIV/AIDS aid program) has major impacts too. One of the plainest ones is that infants with HIV can, if anti-retrovirals are paused, die more or less right away. - "In children who acquired H.I.V. at birth, the infection can progress very quickly to illness, with death occurring as early as eight to 12 weeks after birth — shorter than the 90-day pause on foreign aid." https…
This article by Scott Alexander (Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative) talks a fair bit about how effective this program is: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/money-saved-by-canceling-pr... It also makes the point that, under some reasonable assumptions, you could assume that any domestic program you could theoretically redirect the funding to would likely be ~10…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.#HIV/AIDS... ("Robert F. Kennedy Jr.#HIV/AIDS denialism")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Anthony_Fauci
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/rfk-aids-hiv-hh...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/opinion/kennedys-views-on...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the US is the de-facto leader of the Free World, the wealthiest country in the Western hemisphere and the winner of the Cold War. Heavy Lies the Crown. Especially when it's about fighting the deadliest infectious disease known to man.
True point, but I question how many people remember the Cold War. It’s arguably no longer relevant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been interesting seeing Western European NGO's struggle to find funding without USAID as well. I don't like Trump, I don't like much of what he's doing, but this at least has been a bit of a wake-up call for me. While the US is rich and should provide what it can, the degree to which the rest of the world (and the rest of the West) has clearly just shrugged and let us carry them is... interesting.
Wait until you hear about NATO (and I say this as a Brit).
The US also spends less than the amount designated by the UN on foreign aid.
America also spent less than Germany in % of GDP in the World Health Organization funding.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think the rest of the world will withdraw from trusting the US after this and other actions The USA currently has a problem where a large portion of the US population no longer trusts the USA. That population shifts depending on whichever group is in charge of the federal government Maybe this is not the way to repair that trust, I don't know. But I think for a lot of people, "Stop sending tons of our tax money t…
> But I think for a lot of people, "Stop sending tons of our tax money to other countries" is a step to repair some of that trust with the population Yes, bingo. On both sides, people have become extremely sick of seeing "billions of dollars sent to X" in the news knowing that we, American citizens, will never receive anything like that amount of aid
21% of the federal budget goes to Social Security (aid)
16% goes to medicare (aid)
10% goes to other health spending (probably at least partially aid -- edit: further research shows that of this, around 90% is some kind of aid)
7% goes to income security (aid)
4% goes to veteran services (aid)
3% goes to education, training, employment, and social services (aid)
1.5% goes to natural resources and environment (aid)
1% goes to community and regional development (aid)
1% goes to foreign aid
We are already spending a huge portion of our budget on various kinds of domestic aid, the majority of it in fact.
Edit to add, data from 2024, source here: https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
I had watched a loved one suffer from this disease. The pills were huge. Waiting too long to start treatment causes a lot of complications. These aren't well understood, given the massive TB funding deficits. Even when the disease is cleared from your lungs, it leaves plenty of things behind.
If you or somebody you know is coughing persistently for weeks, losing weight, has evening fevers, just get the quantiferon gold test. Be persistent with your doctor, just mention past TB exposure. Your insurance should cover it. Don't wait around months trying to look at every other avenue. It'll look very similar to aspergillosis on x-rays.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article by Scott Alexander (Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative) talks a fair bit about how effective this program is: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/money-saved-by-canceling-pr... It also makes the point that, under some reasonable assumptions, you could assume that any domestic program you could theoretically redirect the funding to would likely be ~10…
Reasonable assumptions would not assume you to assuming the US' top medical bureaucrat being a conspiracy theorist who denies the existence of HIV (and asserts AIDS is environmental and that anti-retroviral drugs are dangerous toxins). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.#HIV/AIDS... ( "Robert F. Kennedy Jr.#HIV/AIDS denialism" ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Anthony_Fauci https://www.motherjo…