Give Charitable Donation Money? -- Bah, Hum-Bug!

The devastating, widespread 2010 Haitian earthquake had recorded a massive catastrophic 7.0 M_w magnitude seismic shock.

The earthquake epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, and is ranked 149th of 182 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index.

It was almost 25 years after the fall of "Baby Doc" Duvalier (1971-1986) who like his father "Papa Doc" Duvalier (1957-1961) ruled with an iron fist where thousands of Haitians were tortured or murdered. After "Baby Doc" had been deposed himself by a military coup in 1986 that finally collapsed in on itself in 1989. Just more corruption continuing on under Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1990-1996 & 2001-2003). The Haitian government then further squandered considerable domestic and foreign goodwill with one of "Baby Doc" Duvalier's former Haitian Army generals. General Hérard Abraham as the Affairs Minister under the de facto regime of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue (2003-2010) continued on with more government corruption which enabled the country to debilitate even further.

After January 12, 2010, from the U.S. alone the earthquake donors started paying forward, to date over $12 Billion of donations, to help the relief efforts for the Haitian peoples as it certainly has put a lot of blood out into the waters attracting the shark-like human predators.

On January 16, 2011, "Baby Doc" Duvalier unexpectedly returned from exile to Haiti after two decades in self-imposed exile in France. The following day, he was arrested by Haitian police, facing possible charges for embezzlement. He was also charged with human rights crimes as former Haitian President within days of his return, but he successfully argued in court that the statute of limitations had expired on charges that included torture, rape and extrajudicial killings. In February 2014, upon reversal by the courts that the statute of limitations was still in effect, another legal trial was to begin. But in October 2014, "Baby Doc" Duvalier, 63, then died of an unpredicted apparent heart attack. 

By January 24, 2010 at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake. Death toll estimates range from 100,000 to about 160,000 to Haitian government figures from 220,000 to 316,000 that have been widely characterized as deliberately inflated by the Haitian government. Of course, the Haitian government wants higher figures to boost its cut from the $Billions coming in for their relief efforts.

On March 18, 2011, Jean-Bertrand Aristide then returned from exile. The White House, however, was less than thrilled by Aristide's return, warning then that it would prove destabilizing. In turn, a confusion of charities began proliferating as they beckoned many donors to send millions into their bank accounts for more assistance funds.

In May, 2011, Haitian President Michel Martelly took office. Youri Latortue is one of Haiti’s most powerful politicians and as an outspoken Senator, he is an ally of the Haitian President. Youri Latortue is also a drug-trafficker, gang godfather, and death-squad leader, according to the testimony and reports of many colleagues, crime witnesses and government officials, both Haitian and international.

By 2014, the fraud and larceny has only grown bigger. All of the collected relief funds have been diverted to many bogus charities and looted while depriving the Haitian people of any substantive disaster relief. 

The economy of rice in Haiti says everything about the condition the country is in. The US government subsidizes and "donates" ton after ton of rice in Haiti and in so doing has through the last several decades completely undercut Haitian rice farmers and left them destitute and migrating into cities where they live in hovels that were destroyed by the quake. 

Here is perhaps some bitter irony here that the subsidies were promoted in large part by President Clinton to help his home state of Arkansas, the largest rice producing state in the US, thereby crippling a sector of the economy in Haiti where Clinton has worked so tirelessly to help with the recovery-- any ulterior motives here?

Not that the people of Haiti didn't benefit from all this money and assistance. But, really, over the last two years, the effort to assist post-earthquake Haiti has mostly benefited -- or at least subsidized -- the aid and relief institutions and private corporations that nominated themselves to help Haiti in its 2010-based time of need.

"In the end," says Robert Fatton Jr., professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia and a son of and authority on contemporary Haiti, "if you read the reports -- the UN Report and so on -- you’ll see that actual Haitians got less than 1 percent of all the American money pledged."

Conclusion: Bottom line, the country of Haiti sucks for its people. It's location, location, location; so it is terminally earthquake ridden real estate and always subject to total destruction by hurricanes too. Its government is totally ineptly run from the top on down by officials rife with corruption and apathy. It is poor beyond a third world banana republic's standards without decent housing, clothing, running water, toilets, electricity, heat, education and medical care after many natural disasters. 

The Salvation Army - One of the Highest Rated CharitiesI feel that so many good-hearted, generous American people, the electorate, did not know all of this as the Haiti disaster took over the TV news cycle and social media to generate a frenzy to send donations. I believe all of this effort was wasted and a travesty, a sham was perpetrated by our government officials, various leaders and celebrities performing to raise acute awareness while stirring up emotions to send money to be thrown away into a pit full of vipers within a den of thieves. It was akin to those bogus, phony money scams out of Liberia, et. al.--but it's just done on a much bigger global Billion $ scale.

No one now ever talks about where are the accounting books or provable net results from any of the dollar amounts given to these charities went--and that includes the fly-by-nights and legitimate ones too.

Isn't it about time to stop wastefully depositing monies ino the pockets of the good-for-nothing ne'er-do-wells? -- Be an active consumer/donor by giving to reputable organizations to give more for your buck. Well known Wealth investor Phil DeMuth, a Forbes contributor, offers some suggestions:

(1) At the most elementary level, avoid all celebrity or athlete charities. Almost without exception, these are dodges set up to avoid paying taxes and employ deadbeat relatives while posturing to make themselves look noble. E.g., Kim Kardashian’s generous donation of 5% of the proceeds of her “Charity Auctions” to the likes of the “Life Change Community Church” owned by her mom, or Lady Gaga’s charity that took in $2.6MM in donations and then spent the money on lawyers, consultants and publicity (including $50,000 on ‘social media’) but only gave away $5,000 in grants. 

(2) Does your old school really have any good use for the money? Ben Stein has pointed out that Yale is essentially a $21 billion hedge fund with a small college attached as a loss leader.  Whenever people donate down this type of big, traditional sinkhole for philanthropic dollars, it always raises the question of whether, with a little more thought, they might have made a shrewder investment elsewhere.

(3) Never give to anyone asking for money. The last thing you want is for half your donation to be siphoned off by some professional solicitor. Don’t put money in the box next to the cash register, even if it has a heartrending picture on it (unless it’s a tip jar — keep reading).  Be very afraid of any charity that happens to cross your path: all that means is that they have a big marketing budget.

(4) To put it more positively: everywhere and always where money is concerned, trust your money to the people you find, not to the people who find you. Give to the cause you prayerfully decide to back — not to the one in your face doing the big ask. If you want to throw them a bone, offer to look up their outfit on Charity Navigator when you review your annual giving. How much does your proposed charity spend on administration and fundraising? What does the CEO earn?  Put as much effort into selecting your charity as you would in, say, selecting a new mobile phone.

5) Do not confuse the worthiness of the charity with the worthiness of the cause.  Many of us would like to see peace on earth.  That does not remotely suggest that a charity with peace on earth as its goal would have a clue how to use any money you gave them.  I suspect that many big medical charities are overfunded beyond any intelligent ideas on to spend their next dollar.

6) The more generic the mission, the less your impact. Don’t toss nickels into the Grand Canyon. Give Well tracks how cost-effective a charity’s spending is. The more you concentrate all your giving on a single well-targeted charity (and that charity over a period of years), the more likely you are to actually accomplish something.

7) If it includes a gala night (and as Groucho said, a gala night is enough for any man) or tickets to some swell event, it’s not charity, it’s consumption. Similarly, while you may be blackmailed into giving to ankle biting friends when they hit you up for their walkathon to whatever, that’s office politics, not charity.

8) A dollar spent abroad goes much further than a dollar spent in the USA.

9) Congress has just extended the option to donate your mandatory IRA distribution to a charity--that is a rookie move! You will almost always do better giving appreciated stock from your taxable account to charity (getting rid of your embedded capital gains tax), and then using the deduction to convert a like amount from your traditional IRA to a Roth (lowering your future taxable required minimum distribution).

10) A dollar given directly to a person who needs it will be spent far more efficiently than a dollar put through the sieve of a benevolent bureaucracy in the hope that it trickles down somewhere. While you won’t get a tax deduction, you can give away half as much money and do far more good. As Milton Friedman says, the most efficient operation is where you have people spending their own money on their own behalf. The least efficient operation is where you have one group of people spending other people’s money on behalf of a yet a third group of people (which is how governments and charities operate).

For an instant proof that will restore your faith in humanity, look at the effect of giving $100 tips to fast food workers. Watch  4 min. video here: TIP Paid Forward (get out your handkerchief and watch to the end). Overtipping entry-level workers has the salutary effect of rewarding those who are working hard to get ahead in life, as opposed to going on welfare or worse. The marginal George Washington means far more to them than the extra Ben Franklin stuffed in your wallet means to you.  

Your donations could help the homeless in Washington DC.



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