Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt to Japan | Hacker News Reader

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

globalcitizen.org

377 pointsawb204 comments

A. Nigeria GDP is ~$500B US, sovereign debt is $67B, for debt/GDP ratio of 13%. Nigeria can afford to repay this loan.

B. If we fail to eradicate polio, it will be back again someday. The rich world should pay for this with all urgency. Kudos to the Gates.

https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nga/

https://dmo.gov.ng/

That doesn't actually tell anyone if they can afford it. What sorts of things does the money go to? Salaries? Food for folks? Other obligations and contracts? Infrastructure? Health care? How much do they have leftover afterwards - can they meet their obligations? How much of that GDP is the government able to capture as a tax? How efficient is tax collection and what is the rate?

The second, though. Fair point.

Yeah the missing number there is population (for GDP per capita) 1% of American GDP hurts a lot less per capita than Nigerian GDP

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

Given these regimes often are unstable politically and/or corrupt, what prevents new debt being made and filling the pockets of the leaders?

In the Jeffrey Sachs model.

I'm personally of the opinion that anyone knowingly loaning money to corrupt or oppressive regimes is guilty of everything that regime does with that money, and the people can not be expected to repay that loan once they overthrow that regime. (That's not an issue in this particular case; fighting polio is obviously a very worthy cause.)

Of course when the voters knowingly elect corrupt leaders, it's on them. But unfortunately many countries lack a good free press that informs people about the corruption of their leaders. Or they lack a sufficient education for the people to hold their leaders accountable.

This is populist vision of corruption, which is fair.

However, I am familiar with a "reasonably corrupt" country, where deep hatred of the political class is radical, and I can tell you that the population is as much corrupted as the political class, just, in smaller scale.

I am also familiar with a "reasonably uncorrupted" country, where there isn't a radical hatred towards the political class, and interestingly, the population is significantly more orderly and civil than the former.

In this perspective, I'm very skeptical about the long-term advantages of money transfers when compared to social/infrastructural investments.

Reality is indeed a lot more complex than the simple black and white picture of my previous comment. I still think that for example the banks who loaned untenable loans to Greece should have taken that loss, rather than have Germany bail them out. In that case, the loans helped keep government mismanagement alive because they allowed the governments to pretend everything was fine. But there are also cases where providing those loans is still the lesser evil.

Still, I do want banks and other moneylenders to take more responsibility for who they're loaning money to, and what's being done with that money. And I think it's unfair to punish people for having lived under a bad government they had no control over. It seems attractive to combine those two goals.

But money spent on improving the lives of the people, through infrastructure, education and medicine, is (almost?) always money well-spent.

Fighting polio is worthy, but embezzling $26M while lying about fighting polio is not. That's the problem/risk.

Ultimately it's a question of default. Is default worth it or not? Do creditors agree that the new state deserves new loans after defaulting on predecessor's loans.

There could be problem when those leaders will try to spend all that money in more developed countries.

Lining the pockets of leaders and their friends is a cost-of-doing business in democracies. Yes, an economy would do better without that, but it very much does happen in all well-developed economies.

Reminds me of the thing my mother sometimes said, when complaining that terms in democracies are too short, leading to each government not being able to finish anything before having it undone by the next one. She quoted some historical figure from old times (Ancient Rome, I think?) - that a politician will always want to line the pockets of his and his friends (in the past it involved oppressing local population with taxes), but the amount of wealth lost to it is limited, and after that the politician will not care for money that much - so it's better to keep the politician for longer than to replace him, because the new one will start the pocket-lining process anew.

I can't find the exact quote now, unfortunately.

Lining the pockets of leaders

If you consider the most hated politician in the UK, Tony Bliar, he netted a personal fortune of estimated £20m. That’s a tiny fraction of what a dictator could amass in a far poorer country.

Tony Blair?

> it very much does happen in all well-developed economies.

This type of statement is a logical fallacy (I'd like to know if it's formalized, and if so, what's the name), and I think it's one of the most common: "There is X in any country".

Of course there is X in any country, but can be a radically different quantity and quality of X between two countries.

Is-ought fallacy with a bit of whataboutism?

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 to the core, third world country would issue even more debt to buy votes with projects (after taking a 20% "fee" for the leaders,) hire more of their supporters in state jobs etc etc.

Sounds like an argument against blindly paying off third-world debt. If we focus on paying off just appropriate, "non-corrupt" debt, we're good.

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

Yeah, but that's not the meaning currently used since the end of the cold war.

I didn't say it was. But I do prefer a political meaning to the economic one.

Debt jubilees, old testament's version of bankruptcy, could save capitalism.

10 years ago, at university (management studies), our class could chose between reading this book, or a book written by a Coca-Cola CEO.

For me the choice was simple and I enjoyed learning about Jeffrey Sachs' ideas to end poverty. Somehow though, every other student read the Coca-Cola CEO's book. To this day, I am puzzled why people prefer reading about a guy that helps sell sugar water instead of an economist's solution to world poverty.

On the face of it $76m seems like a staggering amount of money. Then we learn that the foundation dedicates $3b a year, and this seems like a drop in the bucket.

Amazing what massively focused resources can accomplish.

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...

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 some unsavory things in the name of making that money at Microsoft, both in terms of industry and business.

However, "morals" is a construct. I don't mean that in a nihilist way, but merely in a "how do we even measure that?".

What we can do is judge him from his actions. Actions are proof of what he's doing. If that is our metric, then he is morally superior to a whole lot of especially rich people.

There are a lot of very rich people in the world. Some are sitting on their money. Some are using their money for lobbying and propaganda in order to accrue more money. Some are using their money for public good.

Bill Gates currently falls very much into the latter. If you want to criticize rich people, maybe don't start with the people actually doing something good, who've also pledged most of their money away.

>What we can do is judge him from his actions. Actions are proof of what he's doing.

It's very easy to give something you have an abundance of. I don't see how his good is better than other rich peoples, just because we know about it? Because it's front page news? That makes it "good"?

I am not willing to jump to the conclusion his motives are altruistic for these reasons alone.

Do you know if he is getting a kick back from this payment? Or preferential treatment of some kind? What if he is allowed to hide some heinous acts in Nigeria because of this payment? And it's actually a bribe? Considering how the world works, this seems a more likely explanation.

Again, how do you know this is a "good" thing that he paid someone's debt? I mean, in truly absolute terms? I don't see how it's possible to "know". I think you can guess and assume, that is all.

Look up the financial crises in many other countries, why did he help only Nigeria? This just seems suspicious to me. Perhaps I am unreasonably cynical. If he does this again and again, maybe that will be proof? But just one country? That is not convincing, that is suspicious.

> It's very easy to give something you have an abundance of. I don't see how his good is better than other rich peoples, just because we know about it? Because it's front page news? That makes it "good"?

Tell that to the Kochs/Mercers/etc of the world.

I doubt that Gates puts much effort into publicizing their current work. It's front page news because they're doing it.

> Do you know if he is getting a kick back from this payment? Or preferential treatment of some kind? What if he is allowed to hide some heinous acts in Nigeria because of this payment? And it's actually a bribe? Considering how the world works, this seems a more likely explanation.

I strongly disagree. Considering they've put up $3B to cure polio, paying off a loan that was put forth to aid in eliminating polio, I think (until further notice) it's very straightforward to call a spade a spade. Ockham's razor and all that.

> Again, how do you know this is a "good" thing that he paid someone's debt? I mean, in truly absolute terms? I don't see how it's possible to "know". I think you can guess and assume, that is all.

Why do you expect/want this? Why do you demand something like this? What are you withholding until someone delivers something undeliverable? Are you refusing to give a pat on the back until you get an undisputable report with support from multiple trusted third parties?

You are basically asking for someone to prove that a zebra is a zebra, because it might be a painted horse, even if there are no reasonable hints indicating it might be so.

> Look up the financial crises in many other countries, why did he help only Nigeria?

Because it's about polio, not finance.

>Tell that to the Kochs/Mercers/etc of the world.

I am not comparing anyone to anyone, I am asking a simple question, that I think can be extrapolated to all news of this sort.

Why do we assume certain news stories to be true/false?

If we line up all the news stories that show contradicting ideologies like flat/round earth, holocaust denial, climate change, etc... we'd likely get results of support based on belief in those topics.

But Bill Gates? Polio? Debt? What in this story should make one automatically be supportive? And so vehemently?

All it takes is a tiny bit of research to show that almost all diseases are cured (massively in society) by clean water, nutrition and clean living conditions. But Gates isn't doing that, he's supporting vaccines.

Now this changes the argument from "do we believe Gates is altruistic?" into a vaccine debate. See the problem?

> I am not comparing anyone to anyone, I am asking a simple question, that I think can be extrapolated to all news of this sort.

You were literally comparing in the line I replied to.

> Why do we assume certain news stories to be true/false?

Because that's how we build our world model.

I would venture a guess and say that what you claim to "know for a fact" in life is to 99% things that you yourself have not verified. That is not to say that you are incorrect, but merely that we build up a reasonability ranking based on trusted networks, authority, plausibility, etc. We decide - not what is true - but what is probable enough to work with, as a world model, as a basis for discussion, as frames of reference.

Bill Gates the last decade tries to cure polio, that's his thing. Now there's a story about him and his wife using their money to pay off a debt related to polio, of a sum a fraction of the amount their charity uses annually to fight polio.

You are free to not believe it, but there is no reason not to. There are no conflicting reports.

> All it takes is a tiny bit of research to show that almost all diseases are cured (massively in society) by clean water, nutrition and clean living conditions. But Gates isn't doing that, he's supporting vaccines.

> Now this changes the argument from "do we believe Gates is altruistic?" into a vaccine debate. See the problem?

No, I don't. Getting clean water, nutrition and living conditions set up for millions upon millions of people is both vastly more expensive, but also ridiculously more time consuming, while vaccines are cheap and fast. On top of that, the prior doesn't negate the need for vaccines, so then we're still back to square one.

In short: They're trying to do the most within the budget to reach a pre-defined goal.

You are employing the Copenhagen Intepretation of ethics to ask why they're not doing Y instead of X, when that wasn't the scoped target.

We can illustrate this differently, just give me a random link from news you read daily, and we'll replicate the questioning to see the effects.

I can see where this is going. And I want to reset. My motive for my first comment was (though ineloquently stated) that something seems off, and I wanted to ask why everyone else was supportive?

I got my answer, and it seems that it can only be based on gut reactions, some logic or belief in the reporting from other news stories and the Gates Foundation website. (did I miss something?)

But if we treated computer security with the same level of trust, every computer in the world would have a virus or a backdoor... but I guess we have found out the truth about that as well.

I really don't expect us to be able to successfully debate this, I think if I were to think through this more thoroughly, I wouldn't have posted my first comment.

> why did he help only Nigeria? This just seems suspicious to me. Perhaps I am unreasonably cynical. If he does this again and again, maybe that will be proof?

Bill Gates has been a philanthropist for a while. They have helped poor people in several countries in several ways like malaria/polio eradication, education and family planning.

For each project they always write about why they think it is a good use of their money. For example, they don't spend their money in charities that help charismatic cute puppies find owners, which is what I would do if I wanted to look generous. They don't spend in expensive hospital and university buildings which is what I would do if I wanted to take kickbacks.

You can read more about it in their website https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

I could and should do research on the gates foundation. But that wasn't my question. It's why do we assume they are altruistic in their endeavours?

(specifically in this case with Nigeria and debt toward Japan, a very, very odd mix of circumstances that don't seem to be allowed to be questioned here)

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

Has any consumer ever asked for GM crops?

Of course. They're cheaper. Consumers love cheaper goods. Personally, I'm very much in favor of GMOs and think it's a shame that so many countries overregulate them so much. There's no evidence of that the crops themselves have caused any harm whatsoever to human health or the environment. Now, may not be the case for the chemical pesticides and herbicides often used with them, but that just means we should regulate those chemicals.

Given a choice of organic vs GM I never heard anyone preferring GM so far. To me it seems all these benefits are somehow always for others to capture.

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

This is awesome and it's inspiring to see the Gates' making huge moves in philanthropy. It makes me wonder what the philanthropy would look like if other business leaders like Warren Buffet were also to run major charitable institutions.

Regarding Buffett, specifically, it would look an awful lot like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informati...

Believe Buffett donates to the Gates foundation. Here he donated ~$3 billion last year https://www.reuters.com/article/us-buffett-charities/buffett...

Buffett is a trustee of their foundation and pledged most of his money to it a decade ago.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Informati...

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 were possible to send them food directly?

> 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.

It seems like Japan (not a corrupt government) helped eradicate polio in the country Nigeria in exchange for some amount of debt from Nigeria.

I'd think the Gates' foundation would have paid Japan directly avoiding all of the problems you mentioned.

Judging from the statistics quoted in the article, the government has almost eradicated polio in Nigeria. Pretty effective, no?

(P.S. Cheque’s in the post, right, George?)

That's why I wrote 'efficient' while you answered 'effective' :)

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.

If you need some help getting inherited money out of Nigeria, I have lots of experience in e-mail-based initiation of intermediate.

I bet he is making more than notes when he is paying his taxes.

Dangote has been in business long enough to know exactly where his taxes go.

...has interests in commodities in Nigeria and other African countries, including Benin, Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Togo, Tanzania, and Zambia.

In some countries, suitcases or wire transfers to secret accounts beat lawyers when it comes to saving in taxes. But then, now you have your fortune, now you don't.

I think the richest person in Africa is probably the king of Morocco (~150bn)

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 all state institutions. Every citizen knows this dt a continuing functioning press.

What is a German like me to do?

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)

Isn't that worse? People in the highest echelon of power in Germany are corruptible by a mere 50.000€? I could understand millions, but our Democracy being threatened by chump change is ridiculous.

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"

Nigeria has a $2,000 GDP per capita. Embarrassment over assistance on polio eradication is not a luxury they have. Any help there is fortunately going to be largely welcomed by Nigeria.

In PPP terms it's over 5,000$. Still poor, but not as bad as you might think.

And? OK, that's very terrible indeed, but should it prevent working towards eradicating polio by whatever means necessary?

Meanwhile, America isn't a shining example, we just passed a tax cut for the rich at a huge cost to the health of the poor. And the government is seriously considering whether to take away health coverage for poor kids despite the cbo saying it would actually cost more money to do so.

If you were Nigerian you'd probably feel anger (or apathy) at the corruption that led you here.

> If I was Nigerian, I would find this sort of charity to be very embarrassing

Fortunately, there are those willing to trade feeling embarrassed for making progesss towards eradicating polio.

If I were Nigerian, I think I would be both profoundly embarrassed by the need for this charity and extremely enthusiastic about taking it.

I'm I the only one who thinks that Japan kinda looks bad here?

I mean, Bill's foundation is already dedicating $3B a year on development assistance, couldn't Japan just say to Nigeria: "You don't have to pay us back. Consider it a donation". How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M?

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics strikes again.

"when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster."

https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

I think I am missing the relevance here, or not getting your point, could you clarify please? Possible I'm missing the obvious reference.

As a side note, I find that articles arguments troubling for several reasons that appear to be glossed over, but in interest of not derailing onto a different comment, I'll wait for what aspect you are specifically referring to in this case.

I think he meant that when Japan gave that loan, they took a significant risk (loan could very well default) in order to help fight polio. Other countries did nothing. Yet now Japan looks like the bad guy.

Japan did something to stop polio when no one else would. And now because a billionaire did more as charity Japan looks like a monster for doing what no one else would at the time.

Would it have been better if Japan had done nothing and Bill gates committed the charity now? No, people would have died. So unless you are japanese my question to you would be what has your government done for polio irradication in Nigeria? Because I bet it's less than the Japanese government.

From that perspective, I can see what he meant. Fair enough.

The ethics of profiting off the act might need to be truncated off it though, that is a genuine moral discussion that has so many shades of grey I feel.

> How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M?

Well three weeks ago Nigeria agreed to buy a dozen Super Tucano aircraft through a US FMS arrangement for $593 million.[0]

So why would Japan expect that they couldn't pay $76 million? The Nigerian Presidents's Boeing 737 is worth nearly that much, plus his pair each of Gulfsreams and Falcons...

[0] whereas the USAF paid about $30 million per airframe including similar spares and support services, and bare flyaway cost from the manufacturer is about $12 million each.

Eh. What about the 200+ other countries who didn't give Nigeria a loan (or gift) towards the goal of eliminating polio? I don't think lending money to a willing debtor is a bad look.

I don’t think making a loan and expecting repayment under its negotiated terms is that bad a look.

Making the Japanese and Nigerian elite look bad, could be a large part of the intent here. That $76M might mainly be a political comment.

In perspective, oil and gas companies spend more than double that lobbying the US government every year and in Mayfair in London, a house went on sale last year for $120M.

> How could they reasonably expect Nigeria to pay them back $76M

Oil revenue?

If they make so much cash with oil, then why does Japan and Bill Gates have to spend billions to help them fight polio?

In 2013, the official in charge of the central bank claimed that $20 billion had disappeared from the state oil company. He provided over 300 pages of evidence to parliament to substantiate this claim, and yet he was blamed for the loss and fired.

Nigeria is a country with a long and persistent history of corruption. It pays its legislators the highest salaries in the world, yet over 60% of Nigerians live in poverty. About 9 months ago, anti-corruption investigators found $43 million in cash in an apartment, which is a drop in the many-hundreds-of-billions that have been lost to corruption in the course of Nigerian history.

The amount of money isn’t really the issue, it’s the infrastructure for getting this revenue back towards public funds. That is to say corruption and a lack of internal organizations probably prevent a good portion of revenue from coming back to the people... And/or that they’ve already obligated themselves to other humanitarian efforts. Oh yeah and don’t forget existing debt obligations which are likely to be many factors larger...

Also, more importantly, you should probably google before shit posting as they roughly make ~$48bn of their GDP from oil.

You should ask this question to the Nigerian Govt.

Everyone has debt, it's a tool, not a sign of poverty/inability to repay.

Or, this encourages japan more.

It's possible that Japan are providing other aid[1] (which they don't seek repayment for), but this was under different terms.

[1] I'm trying to find their foreign aid info, but not having much luck on finding figures...

It makes Nigeria look bad. Why lend money to a country that's just going to wait around for some megabillionaire from another country to make a goodwill effort to take care of its problems?

Awesome.

I used to think very badly of Bill Gates. (New corporate PCs often came bundled with Word. The newest PCs wouldn't be compatible with older ones, so everyone had to constantly upgrade. It was a huge scam.) But it's nice he's giving his money away. I look forward to hearing about more acts of charity in the years ahead.

I agree. I get the feeling maybe he's trying to make up for having brought Microsoft/Windows into the world. :)

I am so glad the Gates foundation is doing so much good in the world. Kudos to them.

The problem here is that the Nigerian Government don't see this as a priority. I was just in Nigeria a month ago, the government just allocated $1 billion to fight Boko Haram, the terrorist group that has already been defeated in Nigeria and chased out to other neighboring countries. The gist is that corrupt politicians in the Senate want to quietly siphon that $1 Billion into their foreign bank accounts.

The embarrassing thing is not that the government can't pay back the loan, its that they won't make something like this a priority. Politicians are too busy looting the government funds and enriching their family & friends.

> "No new cases of the wild poliovirus were reported in 2017 and there were only four cases reported in 2016, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative."

Other than verified infections, is any health organization able to sample this virus out in the wild as a discrete virus? Even in the US is polio just circulating impotently about us unable to hook-on from all the vaccinated individuals?

Moral hazard?

Normally moral hazard is a concern for charitable activity, but in this case it would be a good thing because it isn't really encouraging negative behavior. If countries intentionally go into debt to eradicate critical diseases with the intention of getting the debt forgiven or paid by someone else, that would be just fine.

Probably not. First this is a highly unusual event, not something other debtors could reasonably expect for themselves.

Second, the money was used to fight polio, a terrible disease. Moral hazard would be Nigerians driving Ferraris purchased by Melinda and Bill. This is not that.

If the Gates want to eliminate such diseases, they must be elated to see effective programs spending their money to do it.

> Moral hazard would be Nigerians driving Ferraris purchased by Melinda and Bill.

The Nigerian kleptocrats have effectively externalized their healthcare costs so that they can buy their Ferraris or more likely a fleet of pimped out G-wagens.

I doubt many people will rush out and make iffy loans on the assumption that Bill Gates will pay them off.

I think this is more related to Gates trying to eradicate polio and showing that he's even willing to incentivize countries that can handle the distribution to do so themselves.

Nevertheless, third parties paying off debt encourages the acquisition of more debt.

Also note that this is the debt of the government, not of the population. There is no guarantee that it will have any objective benefit to the population. Being a third-worlder and having worked for the government and knowing how it works fairly well, I'd rather throw the money from an helicopter than give it to the government. It won't do much good but giving money to the government is almost certain to make people worse off.

It is amazing to see how Bill Gates immersed himself in his nonprofit work. I hope he stays rich so he can do more of these.

Having read Slashdot 15 years ago, a part of me is shocked to hear anyone wish that Bill Gates stays rich. But don't worry, Bill will be just fine.

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 give credit to his ability to white-wash his image via numerous PR campaigns (Reddit AMAs, lots of other blatant social manipulation in the media). He and his marketing team have played the long game, and have been brilliant.

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 prevention. Gates is worshipped because he's currently making a very serious, very earnest, very large positive impact on the developing world, and I have no shame in supporting him.

> 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.

> it seems pretty clear-cut to me

Yes it would. That's the whole point of Public Relations, you, as part of the public, now relate differently to something than you ordinarily would.

> It's hard for me to take seriously the idea that things like aggressively stifling competing software

Well, that is because you are a terrorist, and your ideas are a cancer on society.

The above is basically a post-2000 translation of Microsoft's 90's "stifling competing software" tactics for software development they could not squash outright.

> helping [..] people in the developing world with basic things like nutrition, sanitation, and disease prevention.

By taking away education, self-determination, local opportunities? Yes, not quite as dramatic as people dying, but equally important for long term stable development.

> and I have no shame

No, you have a different frame of reference. I'd say one that lacks a complete historical record.

> far exceeded any bad that was done

Mnh. How many billions of hours were lost to crappy software?

Which might have been supplied by better sources, if not for sharp operator practices.

(Spilled milk, anyways. But let's not say it was without cost.)

Microsoft did some shitty things. But really, the main thing people worry about was bundling a browser with the OS for free 20 years ago. Take a look at some of the shit companies are getting away with these days without a quarter of the hate.

You think spending billions of his own money every single year is about cleaning up his image over the anti-trust case? Give me a break.

> Microsoft did some shitty things. But really, the main thing people worry about was bundling a browser with the OS for free 20 years ago.

That's not the thing people worry about, it's the thing Microsoft got convicted for. Stifling competing operating systems is still far worse in my opinion. Although it's true that the legacy of Internet Explorer still haunts the web development industry.

Still, credit where it's due: I really appreciate how he's been using his wealth to fight disease ever since he left Microsoft.

Yeah, it's funny in retrospect. What the "FANGS" get away with on a daily basis today would have resulted in Microsoft being declared satan's step child back in the day, how things change.

One could reasonably argue that some of "his" wealth was obtained illegally.

So what he's really doing os disposing of money that rightfully belongs to others.

That's only generous in a very perverse sensenof the word.

That's for courts to argue. He's not a criminal avoiding justice; anyone can sue it at any time for perceived wrongdoings. So far, the courts have been involved a few times in the past, and Microsoft paid the price determined by them.

(Personally, I don't care about that either. In my eyes, all the good Gates has done to this day already far outweighs any shady business practices Microsoft has been engaged in the past.)

While homeless, I wrote a tongue in cheek piece about me fantasizing about becoming a provider of affordable housing. I concluded no one would sing my praises for that. Instead, I would be labeled a slumlord.

You can't accomplish anything in this life without being hated for it.

> You can't accomplish anything in this life without being hated for it.

Yup. In case of accomplishing good for other people, that's sometimes called "the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics", per the article already linked elsewhere in this thread.

https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

Thank you for that.

I may need to pin that somewhere and just start writing a lot more ranty posts about women's issues and just accept that the entire goddamned world will accuse me of blaming the victim for trying to inject a half ounce of female empowerment into some lame, ignored personal blog with nearly zero traffic. Because, clearly, I am the single most evil person ever for thinking women can do something about women's issues other than whining about how men have all the power, so they need to just fix their shit, wah.

As a person from a 3rd world country. I'm grateful for Gates and Microsoft, as without them we wouldn't have cheap computing and I and many others wouldn't have the chance to work in this technology business. Look when the hardware companies take control over software, like IBM or Apple, the price of the hardware become really that it becomes a barrier to entry for poor people.

Indeed. Apparently his wealth increased 13% last year. He would have to give at much higher rates to actually reduce his total wealth. Perhaps the perception is that if he was giving his money away then his net wealth would go down?

Gates is playing the long game, investing and spending, not just flooding his chosen causes with cash to spend this year.

Bill Gates is certainly appreciated a lot more now that he's saving lives (and saving future lives by eradicating a disease entirely) rather than forcing Windows down everybody's throats.

No worries.

Thomas Piketty [1] presents a convincing case that Bill will continue to have resources to fund activities he thinks are helpful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty#Capital_in_the_...

As someone who has read that book, that's an amusingly broad reference you've just cited!

The problem is a charity paying off your debt does not make your credit better. While its slightly better than a writeoff/forgiveness because the creditor isn't as angry, it still shows they can't pay back loans. Is a future creditor going to count on a charity showing up to pay them off?

Ability to repay is one of the top credit factors. Having the existing debt paid off improves ability to repay any future debt. If anything, the prospect of Bill Gates going around randomly paying debts makes issuing debt more appealing.

The article isn't clear, but I'd guess from the small outbreak in 2016 after being Polio-free in 2014/15 that the concern is that polio still isn't completely eliminated in Nigeria. Presumably it will need ongoing monitoring for several more years to ensure it is completely gone. Having to pay back the debt could jeopardise that ongong effort. In which case, this seems a good investment.

A 3y interval without cases in any member countries is what's required for the WHO to call a region "polio-free". [1]

[1] - http://www.searo.who.int/immunization/topics/polio/eradicati...

Interesting perspective, haven't thought of it this way before. It does still provide some benefit to the country though, they can use that money for something else instead of having to pay it back to Japan.

Hopefully this will be a small nudge aiding the general development of the country, which could eventually let it earn an upgrade to its credit rating.

Well, nothing is free.

To all the commenters too busy being aghast at giving money to a government to read the article:

>Nigeria’s debt to Japan is the result of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) provided by the Japanese government in 2014 for increased polio eradication. efforts.

>The country has made great strides in its efforts to eliminate the disease thanks to this funding.

>Nigeria did not record a wild case of polio from July 2014 to August 2016, when two cases were reported.

Presumably, the Gates Foundation wants to encourage state partnerships from nations like Japan in the service of eradicating solved diseases, regardless of a recipient nation's ability or willingness to settle incurred debts.

Money well spent.

This is the correct perspective. It seems that, Reddit style, many people here comment just the titles, don't read the articles.

Polio is on the way to complete eradication all over the world. AFAIK the only place where it remains endemic is Baluchistan in Pakistan where the warlords are suspicious of vaccination agents.

Victory on polio is a fantastic story that doesn't get the attention it deserves.

> AFAIK the only place where it remains endemic is Baluchistan in Pakistan

In 2017 there have been 13 wild cases in Afghanistan, 8 in Pakistan and it's still considered endemic in Nigeria (last known case in August 2016)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis_eradication#2017

well last time they claimed to be giving vaccines in pakistan it was to collect genetic information against a us target.

It wasn't the last time. Pakistan is an extremely large nation with 40+ years of substantial vaccination efforts by the US and West in general. It'd be fair to say that at least 99.9% of that effort was entirely innocent.

The CIA doing what it did should have never happened obviously. That simultaneously doesn't excuse non-vaccination, which is extraordinarily inexpensive and could be performed by Pakistani government persons as a compromise.

> and could be performed by Pakistani government persons as a compromise.

Political opponents still can frame anyone associated with "being an US puppet"... and for the chemtrail-lovers with an addition of "they're not vaccinating you, they're putting tiny microchips into you". Do note I didn't make up that last one, it literally flew somewhere over my Facebook feed today.

Do you really wanna try to frame the DNA analysis thing as an insane conspiracy theory?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vacci...

The leaders being suspicious of vaccination efforts is a direct link to this activity, please stop making a cheap "THOSE CRAZY KOOKS BELEIVE ANYTHING" style dismissal.

> Do you really wanna try to frame the DNA analysis thing as an insane conspiracy theory?

No. Of course this is real. What I meant was that even using Pakistani staff would not help to restore trust. The CIA really did the world a service...

You're getting downvoted... but this did happen, and is likely to blame for polio's continued presence in western pakistan.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vacc...

And, let's not diminish this: it's probably to blame for polio existing at all now.

Exactly. It is my belief that the people who ordered this should have their asses dragged in front of the UN and should be tried for crimes against humanity.

You don't mess with vaccinations. Ever.

>Reddit style

Just as much HN style, where top comments frequently bring up old discussions completely unrelated to the article's content (e.g. js article -> js is a mess, blockchain article -> blockchain is a bubble, megacorp article -> this is why i never use megacorp's products)

I've noticed what you pointed out is fairly common especially recently, but it wasn't always the case. Moreover, it's incumbent on us to be better than that so to reverse the trend.

It's not a new problem. The term TFA is at least 18 years old; predates reddit, digg, and maybe even slashdot itself.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=TFA

This is a side discussion, but what a fascinating piece of internet history, I had no idea.

Just came off an 11 month involuntary HN-hiatus and noticed that the level of discourse is markedly lower. Wondering whether it could be quantified over time. Maybe a NLP expert could chime in?

mmm source please

The thing that's weird to me is that an economy the size of Japan would even keep track of such a thing. The Japanese government could find that kind of money in the couch cushions in the name of humanitarian aid.

You could say the same for Gates or the US. Or hell, Nigeria... 75m is < 0.3% of their annual government budget and < 0.02% of their annual GDP.

The answer lies in that it's always a political struggle to appropriate tens of millions of dollars, even if it's a tiny fraction of the whole. Hell, if I ask most people in my apartment building about their attitudes towards us spending 100 million or 100 billion on helping a different country, virtually nobody will really answer much differently. That surprised me a lot, but people just register something in millions or billions as a 'big number', and are either for or against on the basis of their attitude towards things like international development, or their stereotypes of or cultural affinity with the recipient country.

There's actually a lot of studies on people's perceptions on the amount that we give, and virtually all countries vastly overestimate (like, by an order of magnitude) the amount we give. It's not really a matter of numbers, it's just a matter of perceptions, they're political, knowing that it doesn't seem weird at all to me that Japanese officials can't simply get away with doing the right thing. It's really sad.

[0] for example point 1: People are often under the impression that a lot more is spent on foreign aid than it actually is. The average guess of US citizens estimates is that around 31% of the Federal Budget is spent on aid. In fact the US spends less than 1% of the Federal Budget on foreign aid.

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/myths-about-aid...

And this has been found in studies in tons of western countries. It's pretty pathetic how wrong people get this if you think about it.

This was a loan, possibly from the taxpayers, it wasn't charity. Governments don't just "lose track" of $76 million owed to them. Or at least, they shouldn't.

Presumably, Nigeria agreed to the terms, so I don't see the issue.

I'm sure Nigeria did agree to the terms, but if I were a citizen of Japan I would be embarrassed that the money was not just gifted as part of a foreign aid program.

I would probably feel the same way. But it was a loan, and if I were a citizen of Japan, I also might not be happy about the government loaning out that much money to a foreign country and then forgetting about it.

I didn't mean they should forget about it in the literal sense. I meant that when Nigeria started putting out the feelers for their loan to put the final nail in the coffin of polio someone in the international community, perhaps Japan, perhaps the US, should have just gifted them the money. The fact that it was a loan in the first place is the problem.

Then Japan is the last of the wealthy countries deserving criticism, since they at least made a loan which had a good chance of default.

To play devils advocate, maybe a Nigerian citizen would consider it a point of national pride to repay their debt?

Taking and repaying a loan not only helps in solving the problem that the loan was earmarked for, but it also demonstrates the responsibility of the recipient government.

Making it a loan will also allow for larger sums to be spent.

Japan's ODA has been mainly done in Asia, and to me it looks like its philosophy is producing results.

Nigeria's got a population 50% larger than Japan and they're the largest economy in Africa. I don't see why little countries should be expected to give up their cash to bigger countries just because it's "polite" or something.

>if I were a citizen of Japan I would be embarrassed

You clearly don't understand the Japanese. If anyone is to be embarrassed, it is the Nigerians promising to pay and then failing to. Accepting money from the Bill Gates foundation is more shameful. Japanese do not beg.

The Japanese did not beg. There's nothing shameful about accepting money from the Bill Gates foundation as it has nothing to do with the nation's inability to do something. You're just spinning this to be about Japan.

>The Japanese did not beg.

Consultant32452 said:

"if I were a citizen of Japan I would be embarrassed that the money was not just gifted as part of a foreign aid program."

And my reply is, no, Japanese citizens would not be at all embarrassed about this. Japanese, culturally, do not give hand outs. Giving out money to beggars is not only something they don't do, but something they don't approve of others doing. It's the moral equivalent to feeding the stray cats in the neighborhood. You aren't helping the cats. You are making the cats dependent on handouts and attracting more of them.

Likewise, the Japanese do not expect handouts either. Japanese do not beg. They are too proud to do it, and they know they will be shamed if they were to try anyway.

I am pointing out to Consultant32452 that if he expects the Japanese to be embarrassed about their lack of giving to Nigeria in this case, he is mistaken. Quite the opposite. What Nigeria has done would be considered shameful shirking in Japan.

Obviously there was something in the way, maybe bad blood between Japan and Nigeria. Who knows? Who cares?

If the Gates Found. is engaging in a bit of 'dollar diplomacy' here, that's even extra value, IMO.

This is high-test, globally impactful philanthropy, and deserves none of the cynical, socio-economic scrutiny it's receiving here.

>Money well spent.

There have been human costs too,

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/world/africa/in-nigeria-po...

Of the nine vaccination workers killed, "Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head"

That doesn’t seem immediately relevant, could you explain why you mentioned it here?

Danjoc's linked article is about Nigerian Polio vaccine workers being killed in the line of duty back in 2013, which seems relevant to me, as a person dying is a very real, human cost of polio, all the money in the world cannot fix.

Might be irrelevant per HN guidelines.

I took it as a reminder that doing something good may require not only exceptional courage, but one's life. I'm ok with the off-topic aspect of the post.

I continue to be amazed and grateful we have such people.

>I continue to be amazed and grateful we have such people

That's a good thing to mention.

Sometimes when I look at Washington, Wall St., or corporate actions, it makes me fear everyone is a hyper-rational sociopath willing to seek out and screw over the other for any profit. But sometimss I'm reminded of the ones who do good for the future of humanity, not just for their bank accounts.

Why does the 6th largest oil exporter in the world need a $76M loan paid?

Edit: Downvotes? Legitimate question guys. Can someone explain how that works?

> Edit: Downvotes?

This breaks the site guidelines. You've done that a lot and we've had to warn you a lot. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow them if you want to keep commenting here.

>This breaks the site guidelines.

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

I found the replies to and discussion of my question informative. It seems others did too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16155099

That discussion wouldn't have taken place if I didn't ask about the downvotes. The post was at -2 in minutes when I asked "Downvotes?" and it is now at 3. I don't doubt that I would have been flag killed by people questioning my sincerity had I not made the edit.

I have to wonder if you are enforcing the spirit of the guidelines or selectively enforcing it because you don't like positions I've stated in the past?

FWIW, I've pointed out the guidelines to new users who dominate a topic with top voted generic naval grazing and taken the downvotes in stride.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16079626

We don't remember or care what positions you've stated in the past. The only thing we care about is whether accounts have a history of breaking the site guidelines. It's great that you know what they are and want to abide by them. That should make any problems easy to fix.

"Downvotes?" is simply unnecessary, and that's the spirit of the guideline.

I see nothing wrong with you adding: "Legitimate question guys. Can someone explain how that works?"

I legitimately don't see which guideline this violates and I thought it was a good question, even if it turns out that the case for paying off the debt is strong.

Probably this one:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

The offending element is quoted: commenting on downvotes violates the guidelines.

It's also the 7th largest country in the world, and proportionally one of the poorest in the world, with almost 200 million people living there. Being the 6th largest oil exporter along-side the global political impotence, corruption, and poverty of the government and its people doesn't mean a huge amount.

Wikipedia gives 2.231 million barrels exported per day for Nigeria in 2013. At $50 per barrel this amounts 40 billion Dollar per year. I have no idea what the profit margins are but at 10 % this yields only 4 billion Dollar in profits per year which seems rather little to me, especially given that it is the 6th largest oil exporter. So 76 million Dollar would be 1.9 % of the annual profits from oil exports, not much but also not negligible. But I think I must have committed an error somewhere, those 4 billion Dollar just look too tiny to me.

>I have no idea what the profit margins are but at 10 %...

Profit margins do not give the correct picture, which is rather complex, and involves royalties, multiple layers of taxation, "production sharing agreements, etc.

A good way to look at this is to take production costs (around US$ 20-25 per barrel in Nigeria) from the oil price, giving a margin of say $30/bbl. This should be applied to the entire production, not just the exports, since the country would need to import the oil for domestic needs if it did not produce it. Furthermore, a part of the production costs is internal spending, but there are also profits repatriated, so to keep things simple let's make the rough assumption that these two are roughly equal... this gives the benefits from oil production (at 2.7 mmbbl/d) at about US$80 million per day, or about $30 billion per year.

According to this,

http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/06/18/wsj-nigerias...

Nigeria charges $4.11 per barrel in taxes. So I guess they get that $4B in tax revenue. 1.9% of oil tax revenue is not negligible, but I would think Nigeria would have more national pride than accept. Like Bolivia with Bill Gate's chickens.

Anyway, by GDP, Nigeria is 27,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

$40B / year actually seems to be a high estimate for revenue: http://www.worldstopexports.com/worlds-top-oil-exports-count...

This has $27B in 2016, which is a 73% drop from 2012. You're probably right that it's a significant chunk of money for them, especially when they've recently lost 3/4s of their market share.

Because most of the oil and international aid money end up in the pockets of Nigeria's politicians.

Your question prompted me to read further on this. You got my upvote.

Nigeria was in a recession and exited a few months back per [12]. This bbc video tries to answer the question of why the recession happened [13]

The 2017 budget has N7.3 Trillion expenses with N4.94 Trillion revenue (of which oil revenue is N1.99 Trill)and a deficit of N2.3 Trillion. The oil revenue is not near enough. A good portion of their expenses looks to be capital expenditures (infrastructure and security) and debt servicing. "In 2017, debt servicing is projected to increase by 22 percent, which is above the current inflation level, indicating a real increase in the country’s debt burden as the FG plans to increase borrowings. " [0]

The deeper reasons might be the history - civil war, dictatorships, communal violence over decades including an insurgency and concomitant vicious cycle and corruption. Things look to be getting better.

Poverty is huge. [1] mentions 33% as below the poverty line ($1.90/day per [8]). India where I'm from as a comparison has 12.4% per [10]. Huge inflation - 9% in 2015 per [1] but now at 16% per [11]

[2] mentions three causes for poverty in Nigeria - income equality, ethnic conflict and political instability.

Civil war right after independence led to a dictatorship [9]. The oil boom in the 70s increased the govt's (dictatorship's) money but "did little to enhance its political and administrative capacity, but did increase incomes and the number of jobs that the governing elites could distribute to their clients". [6]

Looks like the return to democracy in 1999 (Fourth Nigerian Republic [3]) is when things started to turn for the better with civilian rule. Still with lots of violence [4] and a religious insurgency by Boko Haram at least until Dec 2015 ("technically defeated") [5]. Existing poverty is itself mentioned as as a cause for the rise of Boko Haram and they also made things much, much worse - "roughly 10,000 deaths since 2011 and roughly 2.6 million displaced Nigerians" (and more economic impact) [6]. Corruption seems to be widespread with scams listed till 2015[7].

The 2018 proposed budget tries to reduce the deficit and forecasts a 40% growth of the non-oil revenue (though many of the expenditure items have a similar growth). [14]

[0] https://home.kpmg.com/ng/en/home/insights/2017/06/2017-budge...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nigeria

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Nigeria

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Nigerian_Republic

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Nigeria

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Nigeria#Bo...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Nigeria

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nigeria#First_perio...

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India

[11] https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/inflation-cpi