YAH(aita)T - Where Did the Money Go?

[spacejamz]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100115/ap_on_go_ot/us_haiti_following_the_money

Anyone else have a problem with this, considering the state of our economy?

President Barack Obama promised at least $100 million in earthquake aid. That comes on top of substantial spending by the United States in Haiti in recent years for economic development such as the country's textile industry, humanitarian assistance, environmental programs, and law enforcement, including trying to stop the use of Haiti as a pass-through point for narcotics en route to the United States.

Apart from earthquake relief, senators working on the next annual foreign assistance budget have proposed at least $282 million for Haiti; the House proposal would provide at least $165 million.

The US cannot even account for any of the money it has provided to Haiti for previous disasters and yet we continue to want to throw good money after bad....

 

[palehorse]

chump change.

The real money is in carbon credits/offsets, my friend... that is where you shit the big bucks!

just wait...

 

[Colt45]

Israel and Egypt get a combined $4B+

This is a drop in the bucket.

 

[marincounty]

Quit whining about chump change, we've spent over a Trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[Craig234]

For a little background and perspective on Haiti:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6

 

[StageLeft]

That amount of money, no. It's trivial, almost insultingly small. It should be tracked of course, it all should be that the gov spends, but if you're pissed about them not really knowing where this is going I bet you could come across billions spent elsewhere that seems to kind of disappear.

Haiti is about 147th out of 180 countries for life expectancy, 80% of population lives on $2/day, people sell their kids, the place is ridiculously poor. There is no end to possible charity cases, though. Why the US would help Haiti and perhaps not help as much some other country who knows. Probably the same reason you'd help a neighbor you don't know but see from time to time before a total stranger in another neighborhood despite them both being people.

 

[StageLeft]

For a little background and perspective on Haiti:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/17-6

Sounds pretty bad. There must be another side to some of those though I'm not saying it's necessarily right. The US does have a history of such things. It still fvcks around with Cuba despite its Cuban policy being an epic failure now for literally decades.

 

[Robor]

Aid to a country devastated by a natural disaster is where you want to draw the line on spending?

 

[MotF Bane]

Aid to a country devastated by a natural disaster is where you want to draw the line on spending?

This. You can start cutting elsewhere first.

 

[sandorski]

That amount of money, no. It's trivial, almost insultingly small. It should be tracked of course, it all should be that the gov spends, but if you're pissed about them not really knowing where this is going I bet you could come across billions spent elsewhere that seems to kind of disappear.

Haiti is about 147th out of 180 countries for life expectancy, 80% of population lives on $2/day, people sell their kids, the place is ridiculously poor. There is no end to possible charity cases, though. Why the US would help Haiti and perhaps not help as much some other country who knows. Probably the same reason you'd help a neighbor you don't know but see from time to time before a total stranger in another neighborhood despite them both being people.

One reason to develop Haiti is to stop Haitians from getting on boats and heading to Florida.

 

[spacejamz]

Aid to a country devastated by a natural disaster is where you want to draw the line on spending?

Did you not read/undertand the article???

This is money being proposed by the Congress is not for disaster relief efforts. It is part of our annual 'donation' to Haiti which the US will forgive when it reachs a high enough amount.

My main issue is that we cannot account for any of the previous funds that have been given to them. Teams that have been created to determine where the money went have been recalled because it was 'too dangerous' there...

Even though these amounts are 'insignficant', it is sickening that we continue to give money that we know is ending up in the hands of their corruptgovernment. All this does is to keep these idiots in power while the citizens are still suffering.

Surely all of you who are constantly complaining about only the wealthy having all of the money/power while the poor have nothing have a problem with this...

Or is that only a problem when it happens in the US because Bush caused it, but it doesn't matter if it happens in Haiti??

 

[DanDaManJC]

Did you not read/undertand the article???

This is money being proposed by the Congress is not for disaster relief efforts. It is part of our annual 'donation' to Haiti which the US will forgive when it reachs a high enough amount.

My main issue is that we cannot account for any of the previous funds that have been given to them. Teams that have been created to determine where the money went have been recalled because it was 'too dangerous' there...

Even though these amounts are 'insignficant', it is sickening that we continue to give money that we know is ending up in the hands of their corruptgovernment. All this does is to keep these idiots in power while the citizens are still suffering.

Surely all of you who are constantly complaining about only the wealthy having all of the money/power while the poor have nothing have a problem with this...

Or is that only a problem when it happens in the US because Bush caused it, but it doesn't matter if it happens in Haiti??

Just read Craig's article... fact is that we're knowingly supporting the corrupt govt in return for a govt that will serve US interests. I don't exactly know about now, but that's what we've been doing for several years before this... and yes it is unjust.

 

[spacejamz]

Just read Craig's article... fact is that we're knowingly supporting the corrupt govt in return for a govt that will serve US interests. I don't exactly know about now, but that's what we've been doing for several years before this... and yes it is unjust.

Haiti will serve US interests??? with what? Mud pies???

Craig's article is full of FAIL...

Haiti has already received billions in aid (YES that is with a 'B'), and look where they still are now...

 

[StageLeft]

Mud pies really are not that bad with cinnamon sprinkled on them.

 

[Craig234]

Just read Craig's article... fact is that we're knowingly supporting the corrupt govt in return for a govt that will serve US interests. I don't exactly know about now, but that's what we've been doing for several years before this... and yes it is unjust.

Thanks.

Here's another:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/18-3

Some fun facts:

- Haiti agreed to pay for its own freedom under threat from France (and partly the US), paying France for the cost of their 'lost slaves' - an amount double what the US paid for the Louisana territory.

They were paying on it until 1947, over a century.

A century after their 'freedom', 80% of their entire national budget was being spent on these payments.

- I see the post whining about our excessive aid. A 2008 report says that in a recent year, Haiti received $39 million in aid - and paid $57 million on its foreign debt.

- There was a meeting last year for a program to forgive Haiti's foreign debt - the offer had huge conditions on it to further turn Haiti into a cheap labor source for foreign corporations. such as removing any subsidies or price protections for allowing foreign products to be sold, while the foreign companies could subsidize theirs (what does it say that not that long ago, Haiti produced all of its own rice; now, it imports nearly all of it, with 75% from the US).

Haiti wanted the debt relief but found the conditions unacceptable. (I heard two conflicting reports, one said that the debt was left in place, the other that they have received $1.2B forgiven and still owe nearly $1B).

 

[spacejamz]

For anyone interested:

http://www.napawash.org/haiti_final.pdf

Guess $4B from 1990-2003 is not enough???

Foreign Aid Investments
From 1990 to 2003, Haiti received more than $4 billion in aid—not including
remittances from Haitian expatriates who contribute $1 billion annually—from bilateral
and multilateral sources. In 2005 to 2006, this will rise another $1.3 billion. U.S.
contributions from 1990 to 2005 totaled about $1.5 billion (see Table 1).


WTF is all of this money??? I am not a math major, but shouldn't this should have covered all of their foreign debt at least??? What the hell am I missing?

They are definitely not spending it on the country's infrastructure...

 

[HomerJS]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100115/ap_on_go_ot/us_haiti_following_the_money

Anyone else have a problem with this, considering the state of our economy?

President Barack Obama promised at least $100 million in earthquake aid. That comes on top of substantial spending by the United States in Haiti in recent years for economic development such as the country's textile industry, humanitarian assistance, environmental programs, and law enforcement, including trying to stop the use of Haiti as a pass-through point for narcotics en route to the United States.

Apart from earthquake relief, senators working on the next annual foreign assistance budget have proposed at least $282 million for Haiti; the House proposal would provide at least $165 million.

The US cannot even account for any of the money it has provided to Haiti for previous disasters and yet we continue to want to throw good money after bad....

I'm sure Haiti is the only place where we provide foriegn aid where money goes unaccounted. What is it about Haiti that has your antenna up?

 

[nick1985]

I'm sure Haiti is the only place where we provide foriegn aid where money goes unaccounted. What is it about Haiti that has your antenna up?

His antenna is probably up from the billions that went to Haiti over the last 2 decades and is unaccounted for.

Just a hunch though, I could be wrong.

 

[spacejamz]

I'm sure Haiti is the only place where we provide foriegn aid where money goes unaccounted. What is it about Haiti that has your antenna up?

Honestly??? it is all these dipshits that claim it takes a natural disaster such as an earth quake for the world to start caring about them but yet don't realize that the large sums of money given to them are squandered away instead of fixing up the country as intended...

Then when the shit hits the fan, they are not prepared for a disaster, which increases the death counts during the disaster and the weeks following and the US and other countries gets blamed for not donating enough or reacting fast enough...

good enough for you???

 

[SamurAchzar]

Referring to Black Hatian people as "monkeys", whatever your intent, appears to be racist and that is not tolerated here. Take a day off (it would have been more but until now your record was clean)

Fern
Supermoderator

One reason to develop Haiti is to stop Haitians from getting on boats and heading to Florida.

I thought that's the reason US has a well armed Navy and Coast Guard.

Now, it's time humanity realizes that when you give monkeys money, they will still remain monkeys. There are probably a handful of very rich Haitians now. In fact, it usually helps the corrupt at the top maintain their grip on the poor fellas below.

See the case of Billionaire Arafat.

 

[StageLeft]

I thought that's the reason US has a well armed Navy and Coast Guard.

Now, it's time humanity realizes that when you give monkeys money, they will still remain monkeys. There are probably a handful of very rich Haitians now. In fact, it usually helps the corrupt at the top maintain their grip on the poor fellas below.

See the case of Billionaire Arafat.

The president of Haiti is a man of the people and in fact lives very similarly to how they do. How dare you imply he's squandering their wealth.

Here I have pics of a family's house and the presidential house to make my point.

 

[spacejamz]

I thought that's the reason US has a well armed Navy and Coast Guard.

Now, it's time humanity realizes that when you give monkeys money, they will still remain monkeys. There are probably a handful of very rich Haitians now. In fact, it usually helps the corrupt at the top maintain their grip on the poor fellas below.

See the case of Billionaire Arafat.

That is what is so funny here...Craig is always posting about how the Wealthy are ALWAYS benefitting at the expense of the poor and how wrong it is...

Here is a clear cut example of where this is happening and he has no problem with it...

Hypocrisy at it's finest...

 

[sandorski]

I thought that's the reason US has a well armed Navy and Coast Guard.

Now, it's time humanity realizes that when you give monkeys money, they will still remain monkeys. There are probably a handful of very rich Haitians now. In fact, it usually helps the corrupt at the top maintain their grip on the poor fellas below.

See the case of Billionaire Arafat.

There's always a handful of "Rich". It's almost Genetic.

 

[cubeless]

but he had it remodeled to fit in with the rest of the country...

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/132661/original.jpg

 

[spacejamz]

but he had it remodeled to fit in with the rest of the country...

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/132661/original.jpg

and he did all of the remodeling without using any stolen funds....maybe there is hope for him after all....or NOT...