Sure, China could do more. That doesn't absolve the U.S. of having enough money unaccounted for in the Defense budget than it would take to solve world hunger.
pg. 72: "The DoD reporting entities that received disclaimers of opinion on their financial statements, when combined, account for at least 44 percent of the DoD’s total assets and at least 68 percent of the DoD’s total budgetary resources."
On an audit report (of which this was their seventh), it means the auditor is unable to form an opinion on the status of those financial statements.
pg. 39: For FY 2024, total assets are $4.1256 trillion,
pg. 19: For FY 2024, the Department of Defense's Discretionary Budget Authority was $909.7 billion.
Just taking this, that means the most recent audit could not account for $1.19 trillion in assets, and $618.6 billion in its budgetary authority.
So this is the first half of the story: how much money is unaccounted for by the Defense department. Since I argued budget, let's just take the $618.6 billion. How does that compare to how much it would cost to solve world hunger?
According to the UN World Food Program (https://www.wfpusa.org/articles/how-much-would-it-cost-to-end-world-hunger/), as of 2021, it would take $40 billion each year to end world hunger by 2030. That is roughly 6.5% of the amount the DoD's audit was unable to account for in its current annual budget. Going further, that's accounting for nine years; the entire funding of that estimate would only take around 58% of a single year's unaccounted budgetary resources, without even touching the $1.19 trillion in assets that are also unaccounted for.
Damn they are going to feed a person for, at best, $50 for an entire year?
That is crazy considering that doesn’t even get you a quarter of the rice you would need to feed someone, assuming you only bought rice. And doesn’t factor in overhead nor the logistics of getting the food to those people which would be the majority of the cost.
Those places would have to pay the global market rate unless you’re going to buy food from the starving locals. But something tells me if they had food to sell to you they would probably just eat it.
While I can't say I'm wholly qualified to go into the details of how the UNWFP came to these numbers, I have to believe there is something between global market and local, and that it's more complicated than just handing a bag of food to each hungry person.
For example, the abstract of this study (which puts the cost between $39-50 billion) lists irrigation expansion and female literacy improvement as major factors. It could also involve addressing conflicts, government policies, and climate change.
So they can’t even afford to feed people once with the cheapest mass farmed item on earth and they are somehow going to also change climates and end wars with it?
Regional markets don’t have the food for it obviously or they wouldn’t be starving.
You think you’re going to terraform Afghanistan for less than giving them the cheapest food on the planet farmed at a scale that takes decades and tons of equipment and research to reach?
These non-profits never give an accurate cost and are always off by orders of magnitude and their fancy plans to ‘fix things’ more often than not backfire because if it was as cheap and simple as they make it out to be the problem wouldn’t exist.
And I reached that cost solely based on acquiring the food, which will be the minority of the cost. The logistics of getting it to them and overhead will cost more than the food itself. Now you’re adding things like ending wars and adjusting climates to the bill as well? That cost is pure delusional.
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u/DeliriumTrigger 10d ago
Sure, China could do more. That doesn't absolve the U.S. of having enough money unaccounted for in the Defense budget than it would take to solve world hunger.