How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes

a reply to: ugmold

I always thought what better way to launder money than through a charity overseas during epic catastrophes when everyones heart is overwhelmed with desperation.

Sad but very likely in the world we live in.

Veterans have been complaining about the Red Cross since before ww2.They charge full bore fore everything,a cup of coffee,a donut or what have you.
From my experience only the U.S.O and the Salvation Army are the 0rganizations that gave free stuff to the troops.

The comments in the article are probably better than the article itself. Heck of a discussion.

The picture which forms from that back and forth is a little more complex than pure corruption even though there may be some of that.

IMO, part of the issue is the "Do Goodery" attitude of those donating. Bless their hearts as they want to see folks in a bad way get help. Unfortunately just throwing money at something does not work. Never has. It is a lousy metric.

Getting water and medical care to those afflicted immediately after the earthquake was done well by the Red Cross. It's their forte'. Rebuilding a foreign country? Nope. The track record for all agencies on planet Earth rebuilding a country are historically around 0%.

...and don't slobber on about Germany or Japan after WWII. They RETURNED to previous state after a short duration. Haiti does not have an internal template ingrained in their cultural memory on par with Germany or Japan. While I believe it probably can be done, no one has cracked the code yet.

Why isn't there just a fund raising charity that literally HANDS out the cash to the people in need so they can fix their lives how they see fit? This way there's no BS managerial losses, no temporary infrastructure and no need to send tons of workers who then have to be housed and what not. I don't get it....well at least other than the fact it's a huge cash cow industry full of scammers on a shameless scale.

a reply to: ugmold

When hyperinflation arrives in the states it'll cost the same to buy 6 houses.


The Red Cross corporation....says it all really.

Going to add to this ^ shortly.

Send the people fish, and they will ask for more. Send the people grain seeds, nets, and knowledge and they will want no further.

I've worked 2 years in volunteer work in other countries that need help and here is my breakdown of what usually happens:

1. Send cash (untraceable...where it goes no one knows?), your getting a quarter (and count yourself blessed).
2. Send rubbish (I once got a crate filled with 5 year old expired medical equipment, sure in a apocalypse land, but seriously?? for diabetics?? and who needs animal crackers that are 6 years old???)
3. Make sure and get/send am official letter with a camera person...you know...so the investors and small business people can get something to put on the walls.

That's about how the general scope of a typical 1st world helps 3rd world scenario.

a reply to: ugmold

Disgusting. I just googled "red cross haiti six houses" because I wanted to see what those houses looked like. Sickening.

Btw, it is hitting the MSM as well. Time.com has the story on their site. I'm impressed.

Time

originally posted by: lovebeck
a reply to: ugmold

Disgusting. I just googled "red cross haiti six houses" because I wanted to see what those houses looked like. Sickening.

Btw, it is hitting the MSM as well. Time.com has the story on their site. I'm impressed.

Time

That's two NGO's this week. A pattern perhaps.

I have a friend who worked for the Red Cross as an accountant for about 6 weeks.

She told me that if the public knew how much money was spent on running the charity, they'd be horrified. Less than 5% of donations actually gets to the supported causes.

Your numbers are waaaay too low.

There is over $6 billion dollars of unaccounted for money not just from Haiti contributions, spread out over a couple charities,

The general excuse being " long term projects".

Check out this thread from 5 years ago: What Happened To All The Haiti Money-ATS

Most large NPO's (non-profit organizations) and NGO's (non-governmental organizations) are complete scams, and have been for a very long time.

Everything average people believe is a lie.

a reply to: ugmold
Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation does the same thing. Just recently got caught raking in 147 million dollars, and her charity only got 8 million of it. This happens every year with her.

a reply to: ugmold

Stop........STOP giving money to these liars and thieves. The united way is another org that is so messed up you should just flush your money down the toilet instead.

originally posted by: IntastellaBurst



the head of the red cross makes $500,000 ?

to do what ???? spend money ??

these #### suckers can beg america for money, free money, that they do nothing for, ....... yet they cannot explain to these same americans what they did with it ????

this organization has gotten too fat and blind on free money.

they need to be boycotted and shut down.

Of course they will never be, bitching about them only covers the far more massive thefts happening on a daily basis.

Everyone protects the scams they like.

originally posted by: ABNARTY
...and don't slobber on about Germany or Japan after WWII. They RETURNED to previous state after a short duration. Haiti does not have an internal template ingrained in their cultural memory on par with Germany or Japan. While I believe it probably can be done, no one has cracked the code yet.

South Korea is probably the only real template. They weren't modernized, suffered under the Japanese, then had a Civil War, and after all of that they got enough peace to start building up. It took them decades to do it. Nation building is at a minimum a 2 generation affair. A generation to learn to teach and build, then a generation to use those resources to become truly educated and make enough money to have a modern economy.

I remember having a chuckle when the Red Cross arrived in Haiti to great pomp and ceremony in 15+ brand spanking new £30,000 Land Rover LWB Defenders. All white and shiney. lovely stuff.

6 houses huh , what countries are they in .

a reply to: ugmold

I have read on previous occasions that many NGOs these days are not as altruistic as they would have us believe. Given from what I have read about how desparate the US govt is becoming these days for money and how desperate the TPTB are for money for back budgets, I would not be supprised to learn some day that these NGOs have become mere fronts for money either for the govt or the black budget industry.

I have never donated to charities and I never will, for the good reason that there is no way to check what the money is being used for, even if they can break down then costs and give real numbers, in the end it's just writing and I have no way of telling if this is true or not.

The telethon is the same, you never really know what happens to all that dough, it's just a platform to give movie/music stars a commercial boost...

And I have had first hand experience with charities in my line of work (I export trucks/trailers etc mostly to African countries), some of it is funded by charities to buy material, but lets say the gov of the country gets 2 million dollars, only 30% of that is used to actually finance the project, all the middle men who have a decision on the process want their cut.

Example : I'm selling a truck for 100k dollars, I present my offer, the middle man says yes I will present your offer but what's in it for me ? I'll add 25% on the price that I have to give back to the middle man when the offer is accepted. so you're at 125k dollars now. And then he says, yeah but the guy who decides wants something out of it too, so you have to add another 15% on those 125k, and so on and in the end the truck that is worth 100k dollars ends up costing them 200k... You refuse you don't sell anything, that simple and they find someone who will accept those conditions, but in the end they will always get what they want. Quite sickening, but you can't do anything about it, because the people that hold the money don't have the technical knowledge or the will to assess the cost...