Anonymous wrote:A 57 year old not finding a new equivalent job after a layoff is not a new thing.

Anonymous wrote:It's obscene that we are debating this while the US is burning a BILLION DOLLARS A DAY on a pointless war.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down. And it's also why no one is missing USAID. Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

While most of this is obviously wrong, it’s interesting that you touched upon a true point with regard to government contracting. And yet you limited it to just USAID, which is small compared to DOD, the IC, DHS, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down. And it's also why no one is missing USAID. Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down.

And it's also why no one is missing USAID.

Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed “public man-made death,” which, he observed, has been perhaps the most overlooked cause of mortality in the last century. Brooke Nichols, the Boston University epidemiologist and mathematical modeller, has maintained a respected tracker of current impact. The model is conservative, assuming, for example, that the State Department will fully sustain the programs that remain. As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.

The toll is appalling and will continue to grow. But these losses will be harder to see than those of war. For one, they unfold slowly. When H.I.V. or tuberculosis goes untested, unprevented, or inadequately treated, months or years can pass before a person dies. The same is true for deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses. Another difficulty is that the deaths are scattered. Suppose the sudden withdrawal of aid raises a country’s under-five death rate from three per cent to four per cent. That would be a one-third increase in deaths, but hard to appreciate simply by looking around.

Anonymous wrote:I know some people aren't going to like hearing this but USAID wasn't just feeding poor kids in Africa. That was only a tiny percentage of USAID work and actually still goes on under State.

Most of USAID was pet projects and donor causes f9r liberals and an entire NGO industry grew up around it, often started by former USAIDers. And when something like that happens, you find a lot of cronyism. It's sort of comparable to big city government machines finding plum jobs and sinecures for their supporters. And it went unchecked and unregulated, so admin salaries at the NGOs exploded. Some founders became quite rich acting as contractors. And while some good projects happened, a lot of it was dubious and just another way to slosh billions around consultants and contractors with people feeding from the trough both in DC and on the ground overseas and the % that actually ended up being used for genuinely good outcomes is much smaller than most people realize. And USAID was definitely used to indirectly send money undercover to entities overseas.

USAID did become a liberal sinecure entity, using taxpayer dollars to effectively reward liberal supporters and connections. It's why the Trump administration moved so fast to shut it down. And it's also why no one is missing USAID. Only maybe 1% genuinely ended up helping villagers in developing countries.

I'm sorry for the people in the article but the whole industry was rampant with cronyism and out of touch.

Anonymous wrote:Short answer — yes

There is going to be a severe repricing of dc area non-blue collar “labor” over the next decade

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A nonprofit? Wasn't USAID an agency? What am I missing?

The nonprofit was funded by USAID. Without that funding, it collapsed.

Anonymous wrote:She should have invested wisely and could be retired by now