Trillionaire Elon Musk's Destruction of USAID Takes Food Aid From Millions Facing Deadly Hunger
2d 13h ago by lemmy.today/u/sanitation in politics from www.commondreams.org
Occasionally I do still hope there's a hell
I don't believe in heaven but I hope there's a hell.
I assure you both can be found here on earth
Depending on who you are, they could even be on the same yacht!
witnessing poop cruise go down makes me glad only rich people get to experience that wonder.
Elon Musk is a war criminal. And he's an ugly spoiled brat. And I could beat him up.
His actions were some kind of crimes against humanity
But we need a better term for being a war criminal without a war
Good points. I would argue that the capitalists have been in an undisclosed war on the poor since it's inception. His actions on USAID alone constitute a war crime (if the war was recognized and since we get to say and do whatever we want now, its a war, I said so).
I mean, if the war is against the poor, then the victims in this case would be the enemy, so I'm not sure it'd be considered a war crime
That being said, he is definitely guilty of some pretty grievous crimes against humanity, and the dismantling of USAID is a big one
String ‘m up!
Honestly I think I could fuck him up one on one and that's an old dude who doesn't work it
Those starving babies need to learn about capitalism and fast. Being from Africa is no excuse. Look at Elon Musk! He started in Africa and became the richest Nazi in the world. I think learning about Elon would do those babies more good than food.
“Many of you may die for me to become the world’s first trillionaire. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make” - Musk
Did cutting USAID even help him to become a trillionaire? Or did he just do it for the love of the game?
When people say Billionaires should not exist, this is a very God example of why they shouldn't
The typo makes your point stronger
“Saving humanity” per usual.
We can't even afford food for our own people, why are pay paying for food for decades for another country?
The US can afford food for its own people, it chooses not to because it’s a horrible place with far too many horrible people in it. Exercising soft power and foreign aid is also surprisingly beneficial and helps everyone. Not to mention that the US regularly does shit to fuck over other countries and people don’t seem to have a major issue with that spending. Their failure to actually help rebuild in the middle east is, as I understand it, a huge reason why they ended up getting attacked on 9/11.
The US owes everyone else quite a lot for being a massive fucking pest. If they can ship their garbage to developing nations they can also ship some food to them, too.
The US owes more than its gdp. How can your see we can afford it when we can't afford what we do now?
Feeding both all our poor and the world’s starving would barely show up in that graph. Absolutely dwarfed into oblivion by massive tax cuts for the wealthy
Because we also know that feeding the poor and providing healthcare and transit and all these things are actually cheaper than stealing from the working class, attacking homeless people, and giving everyone severe medical debt.
Keep up, this is all really old news.
Tax the rich!
That wouldn't solve the problem. We spend more than our entire gdp.
That's just Trump. He has spent slightly more than half of the national debt in 6 years. Helping people worldwide didn't cost shit for what we were getting out of it. Helping our own people returns an average of $2.50 to the economy for every single dollar spent.
That’s just Trump
No, that's why we have Trump.
There's a reason a half dozen billionaires were on stage with him after his victory.
Trump isn't the cause, he's the result.
It’s important to distinguish debt from deficit
As of 2026, the U.S. federal deficit is projected to be approximately 6.4% of GDP.
This year we spend 6.4% of GDP more than the federal government takes in. That’s excessive and out of control but we’re not spending more than GDP.
Our accumulated debt on the other hand is that and rising. Countries get a lot of leeway on debt and us being reserve currency means we get even more leeway. But already interest on the debt is becoming our largest expense, making us be able to afford less and less.
And at some point we’ll hit a wall. Not knowing where the wall is doesn’t mean it’s not there, it just means we can’t predict it until we smash our heads against it. And some idiot thinks it’s ok to monkey with the US dollar being the world’s reserve currency? If that idiot succeeds, that invisible wall of insolvency suddenly jumps closer
We have already pass the wall. We can only maintain our lifestyle if we maintain works energy control. If we lose the petroldollar it's game over.
The whole war was because it's this.
The tighter we try to hold that petrodollar, the faster it’s squeezing out of our grasp. I have no doubt that’s what Trump was attempting but he’s just speeding up the end. Maybe that’s also good from his perspective because he only cares about himself and the next administration is likely to feel the pain
Last ditch effort of a failing country. Next is either ww3 or civil war if history has anything to say about it.
Why not both? /s
We CAN afford food for our own people. People like MAGAts just don’t WANT to.
And for the record we can afford to do BOTH.
Tax the rich!!!
The debt to gdp ratio days otherwise
Our military is unbelievably massive, I think we can afford a cut or two, don't you?
Just cutting military bases alone would save quite a bit...
Also, our Navy doesn't need to police the planet, seven carrier groups? One carrier alone is ridiculously expensive.
We can increase taxes on the super wealthy AND make military cuts AND other measures besides, none of which are important for the USAs defense, none of which benefit citizens.
Worst case scenario? There's a financial collapse for a few years, maybe a decade; and it will happen sooner rather than later. If things are as you suggest (debt so high that increased taxes can't help) the collapse is inevitable anyway, yeah?
The collapse is coming. And it will take 30 yrs to recover, not 10. I agree we need cuts, but if we want to keep living the lifestyle we have we need a big military to maintain the money printing. We essentially live middle class lives because we tax the world using USD as a reserve and print devaluing other countries USD spending power. Once we lose that is game over, and we are so far in debt we can't get it of it.
This has happened to every world reverse currency and the US is no different. The US is taking the same trends has every one before it.
My only advice to you if keep storing assets like gold so when the crash happens you can buy into another currency and protect yourself.
Well now we’re doing less of both. Less feeding our own and less helping starving people elsewhere…… and going into more debt doing so since it can’t offset the massive tax cuts for the wealthy
A straight-up zeroing of the aid is a horrible idea, but also keeping an entire country completely dependent on food aid for several decades is also a bad idea.
In Sudan, the famine is created by humans locally, by the brutal civil war between SAF and RSF. Both are attacking the other side's food security.
Also, the article contains a typical idiocy:
Oxfam has estimated that a 10% tax on Musk’s $1 trillion fortune would generate enough revenue to end extreme poverty worldwide for a year.
Wealth simply doesn't work like that. Do better, Oxfam.
I'm pretty aware of all the caveats about assets and the market dynamics and net worth and yada yada but uh, yeah, wealth kinda does work like that, actually...
Depends on what you mean by "wealth like that". A 10% tax on everything he owns would be like 50% of his personal wealth.
But yeah, we can definitely do better than 0%...
Read that comment about three times and can't figure out if that's meant to be a bad thing? 50% of his personal wealth would leave still leave a absurdly huge sum of money.
I mean that's just 1 year.
10% tax on everything he owns would be like 50% of his personal wealth.
That doesn't make any sense? 10% tax on all he owns is 10% of his personal wealth.
Obviously all he owns = His personal wealth.
But yeah, we can definitely do better than 0%
Definitely, 1% should be a no-brainer, 2% would be better. 😀
That doesn't make any sense? 10% tax on all he owns is 10% of his personal wealth.
Personal wealth does not include investments and assets. That's net worth.
It should include them. That seems to be part of the problem.
25 upvotes, no downvotes.
Do better, lemmyverse.
I would try avoiding saying fascistic/bigoted/elitist/authoritarian things then. Just some friendly advice.
Except for elitism, I am and post none of those things. Elitism is great when applied properly and with humility. Surely the actually most capable people should be leading things.
I'm all for seeing opinions that differ from mine, but outright ignorance that everybody is cheering is disgusting and indeed very anti-elitist in the worst way.
I can and will fix this myself though. Some lemmy clients allow hiding the scores, just unfortunately not the default client of my instance.
Elon, you're an idiot.
But go on, protect your own comfort by hiding scores rather than facing criticism head on. That's real confidence in your ideology.
Elitism has never, and will never, be applied fairly. Hierarchies create fascism. "Capability" is never assesed neutrally, it's assessed by existing power structures and by those in power who look and think similarly. Hence, bigotry, hence fascism, hence authoritarianism. If you believe we live in a meritocracy right now you're either a billionaire, politician, or just a useful idiot.
Your ideology literally disgusts me.