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[Reelya]

That's ridiculous, really. USA was directly responsible for about 1/3rd of their gdp as free gifts. They have a GDP of about $3 billion, and receive around $1 billion/year in aid.

USA influenced virtually everything they did and had tremendous power to sanction Egypt. Yet chose to ignore toture centres and the like. You don't just boost a countries GDP by 50% on an ongoing basis without them becoming 100% dependent on the continuing money flow, and thus shaping the whole political and economic landscape. Since Bush used Egyptian torture services, we can assume the hawks in Washington were fully aware of what they were propping up. Propping up is the right word, as they'd suffer a sudden (permanent) drop of 33% of GDP if the money flow stops, and are virtually the only country with a similar arrangement.

[mainiac]

They have a GDP of about $3 billion

They do?  Man, we better start giving them a buttload of money because at that level of GDP, their country will have tens of millions of people in severe mal nutrition.  How come we never hear about the Egyptian famine?

[Reelya]

No point arguing with people who can't look up basic figures. I'm done feeding the troll.

Actually, I spoke a lie. The GDP is 3.3 billion. And just military aid is 1.5 billion. Add non-miltary aid to that, and USA gives free presents to Egypt of about 50% of the GDP, not the 33% I first estimated.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2015/04/07/us-military-aid-for-al-sisi-in-egypt-state-dept-fails-to-review/

[Sheb]

I don't know what world you live in Reelya, but it mus tbe so cute with its Egypt 1/100 the size of the real one and everything. :p

[Frumple]

... ree, egypt's current gdp is 300 billion and a bit. Its gdp in 1970 was 8 and change. You might want to make sure you weren't forgetting zeros instead of... well, doing what you just did.

[mainiac]

I just want to take a step back here and say that we all make mistakes sometimes and some opinions would be perfectly reasonable if a research mistake had let to them.

[Reelya]

Ah sorry brain fart. I just woke up.

[mainiac]

It happens.

[Reelya]

I googled egypt gdp, and didn't notice it gave me "per capita" not total. If you google "USA gdp" it does give the total, and since I'm used to looking up the figures like that I didn't check.

[Sheb]

3 billions per capita is a lot. I probably should emigrate to Egypt.

[mainiac]

I googled egypt gdp, and didn't notice it gave me "per capita" not total. If you google "USA gdp" it does give the total, and since I'm used to looking up the figures like that I didn't check.

It's a very annoying "feature" with google.  One of the reasons I heavily recommend the St. Louis Federal Reserve database: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/RGDPNAEGA666NRUG is that it is very explicit about exactly what information it is using.

[misko27]

Like any good intervention, I will focus on the issue that I personally am concerned about, and ignore the frothing madness around me. *Parachutes factcheckers in*

Should be noted that the latest national poll on the Dem race has Clinton just 7 percent ahead of Sanders, in a poll with a margin of error of +/- 6.1%.

And in the same national poll, Sanders beats Trump head-to-head by 16, Clinton by just 10. (Biden spanks The Donald by 21.)
Sadly, they didn't poll-test Sanders against any of the other GOPpers, would be fascinated to see how he stacks up against someone like Bush or Rubio.

A margin of error of 6.1% is pretty large. And far from the implication "maybe Sanders is even closer then 7 percent", it actually implies "Maybe the poll isn't particularly useful". Just before that (a day or two), Fox News came out with a poll showing Clinton 14% ahead of Sanders. Then just before that, Bloomberg with 8%. But then just-before-while-covering-roughly-the-same-time as that, Quinnipiac has Clinton ahead with 18%. CNN also has 18% at the same time.

Either Sanders and Clinton veer wildly depending on the day to day, or individual poll results aren't very meaningful. The RCP average (which includes the NBC/WSJ numbers) puts Clinton ahead by 13.2%. While individual poll results may excite, it's not worthwhile to consider any number in a vacuum.

Thank you for your time.

[WealthyRadish]

The 90s called, they want their geopolitics back.  Cuz this stuff is 20 years out of date, if that.  Here's a little event that happened not terribly recently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon attacked a US ally.  Ain't it weird how regimes we were "propping up" could act directly against American aims?  Ain't it weird how they had so much Soviet equipment?

Acting like the US was ever in control of all those middle eastern dictatorship is the same one sided crap that makes people say the China controls the US because it owns a bunch of debt.  It's turning a complicated political environment into a ridiculous caricature.

https://explorer.usaid.gov/aid-trends.html

Spoiler: USAID military obligations 1966: (one year before the Six-Day War) (click to show/hide)

Iran: $864,045,723
Israel: $503,412,322
Saudi Arabia: $410,370,538
Jordan: $125,125,929
Morocco: $61,226,125
Libya: $13,799,091
Pakistan: $8,647,505
Tunisia: $4,474,776
Iraq: $1,068,353
Afghanistan: $654,436
Syria: $106,276

Spoiler: USAID military obligations 2010 (Arab Spring begins Dec 2010 in Tunis) (click to show/hide)

Afghanistan: $7,157,371,729
Israel: $2,949,875,247
Egypt: $1,370,950,907
Iraq: $1,115,683,492
Jordan: $320,984,616
Tunisia: $21,390,372
Morocco: $16,908,505
Yemen: $14,377,136
Algeria: $1,068,834
Libya: $493,875

That's what I meant by "propping up". From the time most of these states were created onward, the United States has funneled military assistance into the region in support of the governments that Islamist extremists are now rebelling against. We've had defense agreements with both Israel and members of the Arab League that attacked Israel for most of the ongoing conflict, and you can see in the 2010 list that we were providing substantial military assistance to most of the dictatorships that were challenged in the Arab Spring.

[SalmonGod]

Can we at least agree that spending even 1/10 of the money on helping people that we currently do on hurting people would be an incredibly massive improvement, and probably do a fuck of a lot more to address terrorism and instability than what we're currently doing?

[mainiac]

Spoiler: USAID military obligations 1966: (one year before the Six-Day War) (click to show/hide)

Iran: $864,045,723
Israel: $503,412,322
Saudi Arabia: $410,370,538
Jordan: $125,125,929
Morocco: $61,226,125
Libya: $13,799,091
Pakistan: $8,647,505
Tunisia: $4,474,776
Iraq: $1,068,353
Afghanistan: $654,436
Syria: $106,276

So... we give money to Israel and we give bribe oil rich Iran and Saudi Arabia to give us oil.  Jordan does well for itself.  Everyone else gets chump change.  That number is $4 per Moroccan for instance.  Those $4 a head really propped up the government of Morocco?

I mean if you want to say that we propped up the government of Israel, you'll get no argument from me on that point.

Spoiler: USAID military obligations 2010 (Arab Spring begins Dec 2010 in Tunis) (click to show/hide)

Afghanistan: $7,157,371,729
Israel: $2,949,875,247
Egypt: $1,370,950,907
Iraq: $1,115,683,492
Jordan: $320,984,616
Tunisia: $21,390,372
Morocco: $16,908,505
Yemen: $14,377,136
Algeria: $1,068,834
Libya: $493,875

I think it's obvious to everyone why Afghanistan and Iraq were getting the molah in 2010.  That was the follow up from when America tried a much more aggressive foreign policy to put it mildly.  Criticize those governments if you want but that's not typical.  Israel again is the country that is genuinely propped up by the US, although Israel's economy was large enough in 2010 that 3 billion wasn't such a big deal to them.  Egypt we were bribing to play nice with Israel and that money represented $16 per capita or just under half a percentage point of the Egyptian economy.  Lucky Jordan (who understands how to act if you want bribe money) gets 1% of GDP in money.  Everyone else gets chump change, enough to bribe a few government officials.

Afganistan and Iraq are the only countries you could say are being propped up, but you dont need freaking military aid numbers to show that.  You could use the US State Department website which explicitly states those goals though not in so many words.

Can we at least agree that spending even 1/10 of the money on helping people that we currently do on hurting people would be an incredibly massive improvement, and probably do a fuck of a lot more to address terrorism and instability than what we're currently doing?

Probably would.  Probably why Obama said that was exactly what the focus should be in Syria when he addressed the UN this week.