UKIP pledge to cut foreign aid by 90% to save £45 billion & will pay down deficit
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Original post by Damask-
They could probably cut defence spending to 99% and save the same amount. 
I don't think you're allowed to do that though. NATO requires a 2% of GDP on defence expenditure. Plus the EU practically relies on France/UK for military operations (and yes, I am aware that the other nations have their own small forces as well), and well... if UKIP have their way then we won't have anyone else to help us defend out island if we shun Europe.
to the OP: I still think UKIP are pandering to the rich and wealthy. It's all about cuts. Tax rises on the wealthy earners to how they were back in the 50s and 60s is needed.
Original post by Ornlu
And it's not because Western colonialism made them poor and underdeveloped in the first place
Original post by Jean-Luc Picard
2) there are an infinite number of better ways to spend £45bn then the deficit as well, could use it to fund things that help people here.
Saying there are better things to spend money on that repaying debts lacks some logical coherence. Debt repayments are money that you don't in fact have. You can't choose to spend it on something else because it is not yours.
Similarly it would not be reasonable to borrow £1,000 from a friend and then, when he asks for it back, refuse on the grounds that you gave it to charity.
Whether development aid is a good idea is unrelated to the question of whether we should end the deficit.
Original post by RoyalBlue7
But they, the Muslims, were there to stay and they didn't have some sort of "motherland" to funnel the wealth into. All the lands they conquered were theirs and they worked to improve them all. It was not some sort of "colonies"; it was the "caliphate".
The European colonizers, on the other hand, clearly had a "motherland", their real home...what they really cared about. They might have developed their colonies a bit but that was all to make it easy to funnel the wealth (and slaves). Independence was essential and only granted because the colonizers got fed up of it.
The European colonizers, on the other hand, clearly had a "motherland", their real home...what they really cared about. They might have developed their colonies a bit but that was all to make it easy to funnel the wealth (and slaves). Independence was essential and only granted because the colonizers got fed up of it.
You're making a somewhat awkward distinction. It's true that the muslim imperialists settled the land they conquered, eliminating the existing culture and trying to integrate everyone into the new one. But I don't see a clear distinction between only wanting to improve the lot of the metropole, and only wanting to improve the lot of members of a certain religion, or particular military leaders among them. In both cases the conquers win and the conquered lose, even if they're not neatly geographically separated.
Now what makes the story more interesting is that the European empires, at least the British Empire, did not try to loot the colonies to improve the metropole, but nor did they introduce their own laws and institutions into areas that did not primarily contain settlers from their metropoles. Instead, they tried to improve their colonies via top-down infrastructure and education investments, just like the Department for International Development. In fact, if you read books about the end of empire, like Anthony Burgess' Malayan Trilogy, what is striking is how seamlessly the Colonial Office blends into the development aid NGOs that replaced them. Same culture, same goals, often the same people. What does that say for the effectiveness of the approach?
I'm undecided on this. Here's my dilemma:
I've always been anti-charity. I feel the myth of throwing money at micro problems whilst the overhead macro problems persist is one of the most ignorant approaches to solving the problem. To use a famous quote in Germany; Charity sees the need, not the cause.
The way our aid donations work is actually fairly heavily accountable. They're obliged to be spent on certain allocated areas, most prominently medicine. So in a way, it's forcing the aided to spend money on areas their governments might neglect.
But on the flip side of that, we're also taking a massive amount of their GDP through loan repayments.
Using Brazil as an example:
External Debts
Aid Received
What we're seeing happen is, looking at Brazils annual budget, a much larger chunk of their spending is allocated on debt service than the allocated amounts we control from aid.
What this means is that we're not actually giving them aid. In some ways, it could be described as a consultancy job. They pay out $339,222,280,000 and receive $1,288,200,000 that is spent on the correct areas. That's a whopping £337,9340,80,000 that they pay out to the rest of the world. There is more money going out than in.
So part of the problem with Aid is that it actually keeps countries like ours on top. The loans inevitably spiral out of control, and an impossible divide is formed. But this money being paid out by Brazil isn't going into government pockets; it's going to private collectors.
So what we have again is pretty much the usual; It's bad for private investors to cancel Aid, it's bad for private investors to change debt service, and it's bad for everyone else to maintain the status quo. Which is why this will struggle to change.
All the technical details aside; UKIP are playing a dangerous game now. Think how easy it's going to be for the main parties to rebuttal this;
And so on..
Methinks they have over played their hand.
I've always been anti-charity. I feel the myth of throwing money at micro problems whilst the overhead macro problems persist is one of the most ignorant approaches to solving the problem. To use a famous quote in Germany; Charity sees the need, not the cause.
The way our aid donations work is actually fairly heavily accountable. They're obliged to be spent on certain allocated areas, most prominently medicine. So in a way, it's forcing the aided to spend money on areas their governments might neglect.
But on the flip side of that, we're also taking a massive amount of their GDP through loan repayments.
Using Brazil as an example:
External Debts
Aid Received
What we're seeing happen is, looking at Brazils annual budget, a much larger chunk of their spending is allocated on debt service than the allocated amounts we control from aid.
What this means is that we're not actually giving them aid. In some ways, it could be described as a consultancy job. They pay out $339,222,280,000 and receive $1,288,200,000 that is spent on the correct areas. That's a whopping £337,9340,80,000 that they pay out to the rest of the world. There is more money going out than in.
So part of the problem with Aid is that it actually keeps countries like ours on top. The loans inevitably spiral out of control, and an impossible divide is formed. But this money being paid out by Brazil isn't going into government pockets; it's going to private collectors.
So what we have again is pretty much the usual; It's bad for private investors to cancel Aid, it's bad for private investors to change debt service, and it's bad for everyone else to maintain the status quo. Which is why this will struggle to change.
All the technical details aside; UKIP are playing a dangerous game now. Think how easy it's going to be for the main parties to rebuttal this;
David Cameron
"It is our duty as British Citizens to share our wealth and knowledge"
"It is our duty as British Citizens to share our wealth and knowledge"
Ed Milliband
"The Labour party think it is monstrous to contemplate leaving starving babies to die
"The Labour party think it is monstrous to contemplate leaving starving babies to die
And so on..
Methinks they have over played their hand.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Quady
Charity starts at home, it doesn't end there.
Otherwise, we'd all just look after people within their household. For me, that just means I look after me... why the hell am I paying for pensioners I don't even know?!? And you suggest I should be giving them more :O
Otherwise, we'd all just look after people within their household. For me, that just means I look after me... why the hell am I paying for pensioners I don't even know?!? And you suggest I should be giving them more :O
Charity dies start tart at home and most certainly doesn't end there, however when people in the uk are going without the basics yet were funding other countries to provide them with the basics what logic is that? Until we take care of our own before we start helping the others. Your paying for the same pensioners who paid for you to have what you have today, oh and mind you they didn't know you yet still paid taxes to help build the school and mend a way for the jobs you'll be doing. For me looking after my own means every individual that lIves in the uk or is British by nationality or birth regardless of colour or race.
UKIP are the only party with integrity and common sense. If giving all that foreign aid boosts Britain's trade and negotiating power on the world stage, well there are less expensive ways of doing it - like Diplomacy!
It's about time to let Saudi Arabia, with all their oil money, start contributing in a major way to third world aid. Why don't they?
It's about time to let Saudi Arabia, with all their oil money, start contributing in a major way to third world aid. Why don't they?
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by RoyalBlue7
But they, the Muslims, were there to stay and they didn't have some sort of "motherland" to funnel the wealth into. All the lands they conquered were theirs and they worked to improve them all. It was not some sort of "colonies"; it was the "caliphate".
The European colonizers, on the other hand, clearly had a "motherland", their real home...what they really cared about. They might have developed their colonies a bit but that was all to make it easy to funnel the wealth (and slaves). Independence was essential and only granted because the colonizers got fed up of it.
The European colonizers, on the other hand, clearly had a "motherland", their real home...what they really cared about. They might have developed their colonies a bit but that was all to make it easy to funnel the wealth (and slaves). Independence was essential and only granted because the colonizers got fed up of it.
I don't really see this distinction. The lands that the Muslims conquered no more belonged to them initially than the colonies belonged to the British empire. The truth is that the British empire was nationalistic in nature while the Islamic empires were religious. This meant that, while the conquerors of the British empire would always nationally be distinct from the conquered, the conquered subjects of the Islamic empire could eventually be Muslims due to conversion and then subsequent reproduction. In the latter this yields the illusion that "Muslim lands" always were Islamic when they weren't: if you see white people in Australia you instinctively know that they are the product of British imperialism, but if you see Muslims in Iran today people forget that for this to happen the pre-existing religion/culture had to be almost completely destroyed (c.f. Zoroastrianism).
This displacement of the indigenous cultures occurred not by whole-sale destruction but by the gradual demoralisation of the non-Muslim populace via the dhimmi laws, which economically and socially incentivised them to convert to Islam. The social and political systems operated not for the benefit and improvement of the land but exclusively for the Muslims living there. So replace the word "motherland" with "ummah" and the distinction begins to fall apart further. Let's not also forget the Arab slave trade that operated throughout the caliphate.
So I think the "good empire" vs. "bad empire" distinction that you have tried to construct here is artificial. The Islamic "caliphates" at their height have been some the most effective empires ever known to man, firstly in terms of their sheer expansionism (Ummayad caliphate -- 10% of world land area), and second in their ability to conquer people without the conquered knowing that they have been conquered. Most Muslims today think they are Muslims because they have a special understanding of God, when the reality is that it is because their ancestors at some point lost a war, in a similiar way that most Christians are only Christians because Constantine the Great chose to convert to Christianity.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Hal.E.Lujah
What we're seeing happen is, looking at Brazils annual budget, a much larger chunk of their spending is allocated on debt service than the allocated amounts we control from aid.
What this means is that we're not actually giving them aid.
What this means is that we're not actually giving them aid.
I think this is not right. Debt payments are not anti-aid. They are payment for money that was given to Brazil by us in the past. Anti-aid would be something like war reparations: payments in exchange for nothing.
Your argument is like saying that, if I work for Tesco 4 hours per week earning £1,000/year, and then spend £1,100/year buying my groceries at Tesco, I am paying them £100/year to work for them. The ingoing and outgoing are in fact entirely unrelated.
Original post by Observatory
I think this is not right. Debt payments are not anti-aid. They are payment for money that was given to Brazil by us in the past. Anti-aid would be something like war reparations: payments in exchange for nothing.
Your argument is like saying that, if I work for Tesco 4 hours per week earning £1,000/year, and then spend £1,100/year buying my groceries at Tesco, I am paying them £100/year to work for them. The ingoing and outgoing are in fact entirely unrelated.
Your argument is like saying that, if I work for Tesco 4 hours per week earning £1,000/year, and then spend £1,100/year buying my groceries at Tesco, I am paying them £100/year to work for them. The ingoing and outgoing are in fact entirely unrelated.
It actually is. It's funny that it's actually just that bad that you find it unbelievable.
Read up on the amounts.
Excellent! Great news, really hope UKIP get in. Britain comes first.
Original post by Hal.E.Lujah
It actually is. It's funny that it's actually just that bad that you find it unbelievable.
Read up on the amounts.
Read up on the amounts.
My argument had nothing to do with the magnitude, but rather the nature of the payments. I'm sorry I was so unclear, or else made the post so short it could be skimmed over entirely, but the point is that debt repayment is payment for a service that has already been provided. It is not money that is being taken in exchange for nothing. For its $330bn of repayment obligations Brazil has received hundreds of billions of dollars of cash which it has spent.
edit: While it's not important to the argument I am making, please note that you are comparing the amount of aid Brazil receives in one year to the total debt obligation it will repay over several decades.
(edited 9 years ago)
Guys you need to realise how dangerous UKIP is to England. We're all royally effed if they land a seat. Vote responsibly please.
Farrage is a joke. The fact he'd go on Sean Hannity's ridiculous show just shows what kind of person we're dealing with.
He'd single handely push britain back 100 years, I don't have the energy to describe why. Just do your research, I don't think UKIP will ever win - personally I think Labour will win but I still fear the stupidity of some masses at times.
Farrage is a joke. The fact he'd go on Sean Hannity's ridiculous show just shows what kind of person we're dealing with.
He'd single handely push britain back 100 years, I don't have the energy to describe why. Just do your research, I don't think UKIP will ever win - personally I think Labour will win but I still fear the stupidity of some masses at times.
Original post by Observatory
Saying there are better things to spend money on that repaying debts lacks some logical coherence. Debt repayments are money that you don't in fact have. You can't choose to spend it on something else because it is not yours.
Similarly it would not be reasonable to borrow £1,000 from a friend and then, when he asks for it back, refuse on the grounds that you gave it to charity.
Whether development aid is a good idea is unrelated to the question of whether we should end the deficit.
Similarly it would not be reasonable to borrow £1,000 from a friend and then, when he asks for it back, refuse on the grounds that you gave it to charity.
Whether development aid is a good idea is unrelated to the question of whether we should end the deficit.
most places run deficits, it's only an issue when it's politically suitable for the IMF/World Bank/USA or even the UK government for it to be so. also, debt to who? ourselves? banks that exist for human benefit? hardly debt really then at all is it, just money that someone says we can't spend cause of some made up rules that make zero sense to anyone who has a shred of morality.
not comparable, household debt is far more simplistic than national debt, you know who you are borrowing from & how much, there's much more obvious rules & regulations governing things like that.
not really, most nations who need aid, they need it cause they have "debt" to the developed world/nations or again IMF/World Bank (who made them in charge btw? they are both depraved scum)
Original post by Jean-Luc Picard
most places run deficits, it's only an issue when it's politically suitable for the IMF/World Bank/USA or even the UK government for it to be so. also, debt to who? ourselves? banks that exist for human benefit? hardly debt really then at all is it, just money that someone says we can't spend cause of some made up rules that make zero sense to anyone who has a shred of morality.
not comparable, household debt is far more simplistic than national debt, you know who you are borrowing from & how much, there's much more obvious rules & regulations governing things like that.
not comparable, household debt is far more simplistic than national debt, you know who you are borrowing from & how much, there's much more obvious rules & regulations governing things like that.
People like you want to continue deficit spending, that is, spending money we don't have. I don't particularly, but I don't decide elections. Therefore, we need someone who has money to lend it to us. If we start saying we won't pay any of the money back that people have lent to us, they won't lend us any more.
There is no option to continue deficit spending and refuse repayments. You must choose one or the other.
not really, most nations who need aid, they need it cause they have "debt" to the developed world/nations or again IMF/World Bank (who made them in charge btw? they are both depraved scum)
In the first place this isn't true. Third world countries typically produce, per person, goods and services worth between 1/5 and 1/20 as much as the UK. No amount of wealth transfer makes them poor; they were poor anyway.
Second, it's unclear to me why the left in the first world opposes debt in the third world, but not at home. As I said to a previous poster, repayments are not payments made in exchange for nothing. They are payments made in exchange for money that has been advanced, and then spent, on something. Third world governments ostensibly borrow money because they believe that the investments they can make with it will repay more than the cost of servicing the debt. Given that the left believes exactly that in the first world, why is it so obvious to them that the third world governments are wrong?
Now one can consistently believe that government debt is usually bad for everyone and everywhere, as I do. But who then is responsible? The organisations like the IMF which offer debt - usually at a substantial discount - or the third world government that take on debt obligations?
(edited 9 years ago)
UKIP are a joke we know who they attract mostly working class people who love a rant and love to blame communities or individuals of societies. Thank God they have no chance of winning in 2015 but they will probably come 3rd which is shocking and just goes to show the reduced support for the Lib Dems
Original post by Ace123
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/23/UKIP-Propose-45bn-Overseas-Aid-Cut
UKIP have pledged to cut foreign aid by 90% down to £1.3 billion a year. This will save £45 billion over the Parliamentary term and the saved money will go to paying the deficit down.
What do you think?
UKIP have pledged to cut foreign aid by 90% down to £1.3 billion a year. This will save £45 billion over the Parliamentary term and the saved money will go to paying the deficit down.
What do you think?
100% disagree. People who agree with this are selfish snobs. Not going to lie if you don't come from a disadvantaged background then you will never understand the importance of aid. These people abroad need our help! How can you ignore children, parents dying!?
And a family without a parent/child is horrible poor, lonely, depressing I can't imagine how it must be for people living in disgusting conditions.
From a religious or biological point of view we are all related think about that! Imagine if you were in their position you would want help. We live privileged lives we have good sanitation, health etc they have barley enough to live on! We don't need that money. Simple.
I'd rather not be able to afford to go on holiday (I haven't anyway in 2 years) and know that my taxes have gone towards someone who needs it more than more rather than some rich scumbag politician.
Btw UKIP will never come into power they don't even have an MP more the Green party have a higher chance then them. Waste of space Ukips opinions just like the BNP.
Original post by Marco1
UKIP are the only party with integrity and common sense. If giving all that foreign aid boosts Britain's trade and negotiating power on the world stage, well there are less expensive ways of doing it - like Diplomacy!
It's about time to let Saudi Arabia, with all their oil money, start contributing in a major way to third world aid. Why don't they?
It's about time to let Saudi Arabia, with all their oil money, start contributing in a major way to third world aid. Why don't they?
.Thanks, I'm ill and needed a laugh.
Original post by ILovePancakes.
Thanks, I'm ill and needed a laugh.
.Thanks, I'm ill and needed a laugh.
Bless you sweetheart. I love to make people happy.
Of course UKIP is right do what it wants. Why should the UK give free money away? Are you really that under the thumb. Stupid Brits. Mugs.
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