Give up your spare room for a grand?

Regardless, i don't think you can really point to one part of the budget and decide not to send aid because if we didn't send aid, they would still be spending that much on the program.

I think you can and I think it is a reasonable argument... India has a space program that they plough a lot of funds into (whether or not it is profitable overall they certainly have a thriving commercial business) - surely given the size of their economy and the funds they're able to spend on other areas then it ought to be up to them to manage their own affairs... it isn't like we're even able to use the funds to 'bribe' them to buy UK defence equipment... the French did that instead

frankly I'd rather UK aid was diverted to much poorer countries that are less able to help themselves
 
What return do we get on that 14bn investment if space programs are making us money?
We don't invest 14bn, that is what they produce. We invest measly amounts to private as well as european space agency.
Its far easier to get figures for a more conventional NASA, where depending what report you want to take, you make between $7 &14 per dollar invested.
 
I think you can and I think it is a reasonable argument... India has a space program that they plough a lot of funds into (whether or not it is profitable overall they certainly have a thriving commercial business) - surely given the size of their economy and the funds they're able to spend on other areas then it ought to be up to them to manage their own affairs... it isn't like we're even able to use the funds to 'bribe' them to buy UK defence equipment... the French did that instead

frankly I'd rather UK aid was diverted to much poorer countries that are less able to help themselves

The point im making is that they are able to but they won't. As i said before, if we don't send aid, the only difference is that the poor will suffer, the rich elites will still continue to fluff their weapon programs and stuff.

Your right, it could be handled better. Give more aid to countries who are poorer countries and ones that manage themselves to a higher standard. But i think expecting these countries to pick up the aid tab themselves if we were to stop giving, is naive.
 
Since we were in charge of India for many years and helped create the whole India/Pakistan issue in the first place, don't we have some obligation there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj#1947:_Violence.2C_partition.2C_independence

nope

they've been independent for a couple of generations now and they were fighting among the various princely kingdoms before we arrived... as much as they love to blame anything and everything on "muh colonialism" including why they're always ****ting in the streets, it is mostly down to them, their own religious intolerances and their own diplomacy skills or lack of them

The point im making is that they are able to but they won't. As i said before, if we don't send aid, the only difference is that the poor will suffer, the rich elites will still continue to fluff their weapon programs and stuff.

well that is up to them, they're democracies, how they allocate resources is their business

there are poor people living in countries that can't afford space programs and simply don't have anywhere near the amount of resources to allocate - I'd rather we spent more money in those situations
 
The point im making is that they are able to but they won't. As i said before, if we don't send aid, the only difference is that the poor will suffer, the rich elites will still continue to fluff their weapon programs and stuff.
And the poor might finally rise up and challenge the status quo, instead we enable the continued oppression .
 
The point im making is that they are able to but they won't. As i said before, if we don't send aid, the only difference is that the poor will suffer, the rich elites will still continue to fluff their weapon programs and stuff.

The money is used to buy influence in a developing economy. It's got very little to do with helping the poor.
 
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