I'll put this here, because I have a low readership...my defence is that it has a hidden hare-brained language angle.
Obviously we've all heard about the earthquake in Turkey/Syria, but today it got me into an almighty disagreement with some people who ended up calling me 'right-wing' and 'racist'.
I was referring to the immediate action launched by among others Oxfam and Red Cross, trying to collect money from foreign countries (and individuals). There was this fellow saying that what needed to happen was to gather a massive financial fund (of euros, dollars etc). Yet this baffled me because even if it was a gift, a donation, rather than the usual crippling foreign loan, it isn't money that is lacking in Turkey, it is, they say, materials and manpower. If e.g. the EU was to send, say, 5,000 able-bodied workers, some experts' and some excavating equipment and even pay them all a salary for it. hell, even send them all on a year-long project to work on rebuilding, skill-learning and also building human cooperation links. Maybe pay for them all to learn Turkish! That would be infinitely better than vomiting anonymous foreign currency into a feelgood 'fund'. Where you gather together say 10 million euros/dollars/pounds and then what? Buy the majority of goods and services from the same people who 'donated' it and their private corporations? Seems fishy that doesn't it? A great boost for the sellers of goods and services...
But wait! There's also a hidden consideration in this. Isn't it odd to make a donation about the same size as, say, a government spending package, which then gets used to generate economic activity to deliver goods and services, when in the same breath the EU says it has to cut spending? Clearly this sort of thing, this 'mad Keynesianism' is actually quite brilliant.
In terms of Turkey though, they aren't really short of either manpower or natural resources or the financial issue to purchase it with! Whereas in Europe the local supply-shock weakness was uncovered by the pandemic once 'global trade' was slowed. So in truth they could forget waiting for the donation and take action. They probably won't because there's nothing better than donations of reserve currencies flowing into your coffers. Be clear though, I'm not saying they are nefarious or cynical or corrupt (though some of that will happen in murky corners), but that from every direction there is a lack of clarity in analysing the contradictions within this.