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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

The problem you run into is that this is done intentionally. For instance Hanlon's Razor, Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity., is simply completely invalid when it comes to large organizations, because they always consciously ensure some degree of plausible deniability to actions that are intentionally and maliciously done.

USAID has funded a lot of awful things that the government has no business being involved in, but they do it through various sub organizations in order to effectively 'launder' the funding. Jay Byrne is the guy who founded v-Fluence. He's not only a former Monsanto director but also worked at "various high-level legislative and public affairs positions at USAID". [1] And then USAID goes on to fund his little doxing site against Monsanto critics.

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-f...

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My complaint is with the article. They haven't done the reporting needed to tell me how much US taxpayers actually spent on this. They are happy to leave readers with the impression that we funded all of it. This is how we get distortions like "USAID funds Politico!" spread by bad-faith actors.

The other questions they could have answered: How much did USAID spend on IFPRI? Was the grant from USAID to IFPRI expressly designated for v-Fluence, or was it for other programs as well?

Let's say it turns out that USAID spent a lot of money on IFPRI and only a small percent of it went to fund this little site, which is indeed quite likely. Does that then imply that the other [large percent] was therefore well spent? Or even probably well spent?

No, but it does prove the existence of such corruption and waste which is suggestive of more. And the problem is that a lot of this stuff is near impossible to sort out at scale. For instance the Red Cross spent $1.5 billion in donations 'rebuilding' after the Haiti earthquakes, to ultimately build a total of 6 permanent dwellings. [1]

Obviously everything was not even remotely on the up and up there (and appropriately enough, USAID was also involved), yet nothing was ever proven and no consequences were ever suffered even in an extremely high profile incident like this.

So the only solution here is to ensure any spending is competently scrutinized and overseen from the get go. But these numerous incidents of waste and corruption show that simply wasn't happening.

[1] - https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-...

You're having a different conversation instead of answering them.

I just want to point out the difference between the Red Cross and the American Red Cross, who are known grifters

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