Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What the hell is wrong with us? Why would we spend such vast amounts of money to bring power to impoverished parts of Africa?
I just don't get why this gets the green light with barely a murmur of dissent whilst taking care of our own citizens healthcare needs causes a total meltdown in our society.
I might be looking at this wrong, but vast swaths of Africa have been living for 1000's of years without power, but now we suddenly need to bring them electricity and pay for it out of our own pockets? I thought Africa was supposed to be be mineral rich?
I know Africa has their problems but seriously, why is this our problem, we have enough problems of our own? What about spending that money on our aging power and transportation infrastructure. Oh I see, we'll get it up the a$$ in the form of increased taxes and utility bills to pay for that, whilst our tax dollars gush out to foreign governments. I'm betting that the level of corruption in some of these places means very little of this money ends up helping the people it is intended to help.
Ironically, Barack berated African's by implying that they shouldn't have access to air conditioning because of the power drain and environmental consequences of a few billion more air conditioners unless we find another way to power them.
Quote:
“Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over -- unless we find new ways of producing energy.”
I doubt we are just handing over 7B to African Governments. It is more likely that we are paying politically-connected US companies 7B in federal bids to build infrastructure in Africa, even though ours is falling apart.
I doubt we are just handing over 7B to African Governments. It is more likely that we are paying politically-connected US companies 7B in federal bids to build infrastructure in Africa, even though ours is falling apart.
Very likely, I don't see a lot of information on how the money is being or is going to be spent. I can only assume there will be a fair amount of 'leakage', as is the norm in that part of the world. No one has ever heard of FCPA in Africa (or the Middle east or South America or the Soviet Union or large parts of Asia, or....)
7 billion is chump change. every hour, taxpayers are paying 61 million for the department of defense.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.