[quote]On Monday, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer pledged $7.7 million to international aid agencies.
Japan sent a 21-person disaster relief team, including doctors and nurses, to Sri Lanka with medical supplies, drinking water and tents capable of accommodating up to 1,000 people, the Foreign Ministry said.
China was preparing to dispatch to Indonesia a team of more than 40 experts for relief and rescue work, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
In Britain, three charities
This is for my good buddy Rascal and all my German pals out there… hee hee hee
A brief thought in defense of the Germans
To me, one of the most interesting aspects of this thread has been the very different paradigms people hold regarding the role that their governments should play in making the world better.
I forget which posters were involved (or even if it was this thread), but earlier this week someone had explained that care packages to US troops in Iraq were primarily composed not of armour plates, but of books, shaving cream, treats and other items designed to make the troops
Very interesting Hobbes and it is not just the money donated either. It is HOW it is donated. Read on…
AMEN!!!
eubusiness.com/imported/2003/05/110707/
Please also note that the Europeans fully recognize that the US “shoulders massive military burdens” including protecting Europe and East Asia among a host of other first-to-arrive peacekeeping efforts including transport. NONE of this is counted in official US govt statistics for aid NOR is US contributions which provide the vast bulk of peacekeeping efforts in many countries.
Let’s examine some of those figures… Now, this is for GOVT aid mainly and I think that given the fact that so much is wasted and has actually HARMED the recipient nations, the US approach to give through private charities is the much wiser, more effective and ultimately more humane approach. Where is this idea that only govt aid should count? It is often not only unhelpful but downright harmful!!!
[quote][b]The British economist Peter Bauer once described foreign aid as "taxing poor people in rich countries and passing it on to rich people in poor countries." The unambiguous failure of foreign aid over the past fifty years proves that Bauer was correct. Instead of stimulating economic growth, foreign aid has bred poverty and corruption. This is especially true of Africa, the world’s poorest region. A growing body of evidence suggests that far from helping the poor countries, foreign aid slows economic reform and retards growth.
Africa, for example, has been the largest recipient of foreign aid. But according to National Bureau of Economic Research analysts Elsa Artadi and Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Africa has experienced decades of economic decline. In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita gross domestic product is now 11 percent lower than what it was in 1974. Ghana, for example, had inflation adjusted per capita income of $800 in 1967. By 1997, that figure had fallen to $370. Regions that received less foreign aid per capita fared better. As a result, Africa today accounts for a greater percentage of the world’s poor than ever before. In 1970, only 1 in 10 poor people lived in Africa. Today that number is 1 in 2.
Foreign aid also fuels corruption among African officials. Because of faulty domestic institutions and poor oversight, African leaders were able to steal billions of foreign-aid dollars over the past forty years. A study commissioned by the African Union in 2001 estimates that corruption continues to cost Africa $150 billion per year. William Easterly, Ross Levine, and David Rodman of the National Bureau of Economic Research updated the World Bank data and found no positive correlation between foreign aid and economic growth. Harold Brumm of the United States General Accounting Office concluded that foreign aid retards growth even in countries that follow sensible policies. As Ian Vasquez of the Cato Institute explains, foreign aid can serve as a disincentive to continued economic reform even under the best of circumstances.
Not surprisingly, the United States and the EU have chosen to ignore those studies.
With foreign aid, like other government programs, results do not matter. It is the thought that counts
. [/b][/quote]
nationalreview.com/nrof_comm … 190845.asp
Fred, I still refuse to deal with obviously corruped (incorrect) numbers or to try to draw conclusions from them. Again, EU is not defined in this paper and obviously they did not stick to the offical EU definition as UK is excluded.
From FALSE you can conclude anything, so it is no use to do so:
F->T
F->F
… as it is written down in information science with (T)rue and (F)alse.
I do not want to make an elementary-school like competition who has the longest thing. Whose governement is donating more, or whose people to other organizations. Or how effective the aid is.
A good and very effective way to help poor countries is EU’s way to stabilize Eastern Europe by giving them giantic amounts of money to build up their economies and to make them join the EU. Better than anything else.
When we are done with Eastern Europe, we continue with Latin America. Don’t they speak the same languages there as in Portugal and Spain?
Bob, I’d save your breath if I were you. Fred makes this kind of oversight with the full knowledge of what he is doing. The fact that the individual states give by themselves as well as through the EU channels is completely ignored. This is umiportant to fred however as it would lessen the (melo)drama of his postings on the subject.
Now to even it up a bit, how much does California or Texas or New York give not through the federal government.
A truly spurious and bullshit rant of a thread. :loco:
Nice try but the fact is that the 850 million given by the US is backed up by another post which says the US gives more than half. Let’s say 55 percent, then what does the EU give? what does Japan give? Those figures are there so extrapolate and do a bit of math and then you can see what is roughly left for the rest of the world. So to help you out here 850 million is 55 percent of 1.6 billion that leaves 750 million left and then you subtract 180 million for the EU and 150 million for Japan and 120 million for the UK (say) and what do you get? 300 million right? So that is for all remaining countries including Australia, NZ, the rest of Europe, Korea, etc. etc. and Canada so we can roughly extrapolate that the EU is in fact not in the same ballpark. We know this already from the quote given earlier that the US gives more than half. Got it? If you still do not understand I will go back and get all the various quotes that I have posted here and spell it out for you. Really, this should not be THAT difficult to understand, but apparently it is. 
This quote says the US gives more than half but there is no source for the quote.
Also re the original post - how did the author manage to quote figures for 2004 before 2004 is even finished? Something very fishy going on here don’t you think?
[quote=“bob_honest”]
When we are done with Eastern Europe, we continue with Latin America. Don’t they speak the same languages there as in Portugal and Spain?[/quote]
I usually take no issue with anything you post, but…Hahahahaha…OOOOOh yeah…Europe will step in and solve all of the problems of Latin America. And then it will be Africa. What a white man’s burden you have, Europe!!! And people claim Americans are pompous?! Honestly, I think the revitalization of E. Europe has far less to do with contributions from Western Europe than with the resolve of the E. Europeans to better their own lot. As for the Latin Americans, I don’t doubt their resolve, but sometimes the social problems of one group as a whole…such as the world’s largest class divides… are greater than the social problems of another. Of course, I hope you Europeans succeed for more than just the sake of the masses you will uplift. Then you WILL have something to brag about for once. 
Yes, I know there is little of substance in my reply. But sometimes you read a real gem of a statement… 
Haha, I tried to impersonate Fred’s neocon style with that quote. I was not tooooooo serious you know 
And the endless amounts of money EU gave to Eastern Europe are real of course. But the people there were doing a good job solving their problems. And their economies are on the rise, which is good!
Eu has built up its former poor members Spain and others in the same way before.
Butcher Boy:
Check out this site for the more than half the total amount…
OR
japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030226a5.html
Also, the 2004 figures are already out. I mean the year is already over so how much did each nation give at the beginning of the year or budget for that year.
The headlines recently have read that the US is “cutting” its commitment to the world food aid program but NONE have mentioned in their respective articles that the US is and always has been by far and away the largest donor. This thread was posted to recognize the US and its generosity. Naturally, I fully expected that any praise given America would draw out its usual detractors both at home (our resident John Walker Lindh) and abroad (various foaming at the mouth America bashers) and surprise surprise, it surely did.
The question then becomes, what is more important: that food aid is being given or that it is being given by America, in which case no matter how much is given, it is NEVER enough.
Finally, Canada has traditionally been third after the US and Japan so I would say that recently the EU must have jumped a bit in 2004. I think more nations of the EU are giving in concert through the EU government now. Britain has always been an exception so we have the list of US, then EU, then Japan, then the UK and in all likelihood probably Canada in fifth place and we can assume that perhaps many of the other EU nations are now channeling what they would normally give through the EU. Could be. But either way, we can extrapolate from this to determine rough amounts given right?
More on the subject…
[quote]WASHINGTON (AP) – A suggestion by a U.N. official that the world’s richest nations were “stingy” irritated the Bush administration, especially when U.S. aid for Asia’s earthquake is expected to eventually rise from the millions to more than $1 billion. The comment reopened the question of how to measure American generosity. The answer ultimately depends on the measuring stick. The U.S. government is always near the top in total humanitarian aid dollars – even before private donations are counted – but it finishes near the bottom of the list of rich countries when that money is compared to gross national product.
The United States uses the most common measure of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 rich nations that counts development aid. By that measure, the United States spent almost $15.8 billion for “official development assistance” to developing countries in 2003. Next closest was Japan, at $8.9 billion.
That doesn’t include billions more the United States spends in other areas such as AIDS and HIV programs and other U.N. assistance.
Measured another way, as a percentage of gross national product, the OECD’s figures on development aid show that as of April, none of the world’s richest countries donated even 1 percent of its gross national product. Norway was highest, at 0.92 percent; the United States was last, at 0.14 percent. “We outmatch the contributions of other nations combined; we’ll continue to do so,” Bush spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters in Crawford, Texas, where the president is spending a post-Christmas vacation at his ranch.
Natsios said the Paris organization’s figures overlook a key factor – the billions more Americans give each year in private donations. Americans last year gave an estimated $241 billion to charitable causes – domestic and foreign – according to a study by Giving USA Foundation. That’s up from $234 billion in 2002. The foundation did not break down how much was for domestic causes and how much for foreign.
[/quote]
Fred
I’m not saying that the US is not generous. I am just a bit suspicious of the original article because of the sloppy use of figures in the article. I looked around and found that in 2002 the US accounted for 51.4% of contributions to the WFP. However the contribution both as a percentage of the total and as a dollar amount was a drop from 2001. If the figures for 2004 are correct then there has been a substantial further decrease. Also those two links you gave, wilst interesting, do not speak specifically about contributions to the WFP.
I will be interested to see the raw data. I have emailed the author to ask for it.
Fine BB:
Glad you asked the author for the full report. Should make for interesting reading. Given that the amount is still half to 60 percent depending on whether you go by 2003 or 2004 and traditionally it has always been over half, I think that the relative amounts should be very easy to determine. I have no idea why the dollar amounts and percentages are confusing to you but will take your “concerns” in stride. Let me know when you get the whole report.
Brilliant blog by a US State Department Official slamming the “nitwicks” at CIDA 
diplomadic.blogspot.com/2004/09/ … riend.html
Canada has become for all intents and purposes a Third World country: Egypt with snow. It whines; it cries; it takes the UN seriously; it hopes that the terrorists will leave them alone, in other words that Moloch will eat them last. All symptoms of a country torn apart by insecurity and not really sure that 10-15 years from now Canada will still exist.
So what do our “friends” in the North do as they confront their national crisis? They build a
monument to honor/honour American draft dodgers. They implement Sharia Law . Yes, indeed. All those poor Muslim women who fled to Canada to get away from Sharia, now, in the name of multi-culturalism, get to “enjoy” it in their new home.
Well, we propose a two-step response to the Canadian crack-up.
One, let’s build a monument to all the Canadians (remember the slide show?) who have fled Canada for the USA.
Two, let us all get down on our knees and thank the Lord for the Aussies. Take an Aussie to lunch; buy a bottle of Australian wine; get some Aussie beer; send a fan letter to Nicole Kidman; visit the Aussie bloggers and drop them a note of appreciation; thank Australia for sending us Rupert Murdoch to save the American media. Compare the Aussies to the Canadians and you’ll soon see there is no comparison. Australia is a vibrant, proud, confident country. And we Diplomads are proud to call them our friends.
Here’s an update…
[quote]“The foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income,” Mr. Egeland said on Monday. “I think that is stingy really. I don’t think that is very generous.”
He pointed out that only Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as the Netherlands and Luxembourg, give at least 0.7 percent of their gross national income, a level suggested by the United Nations 25 years ago.
[b]Mr. Egeland
Massive quake hits on Sunday, tens of thousands are killed, Dubya’s taking another vacation on his ranch, the US agrees to give $15 million in aid. The US government is criticized (again) for being stingy, so finally on Wednesday (three days after the disaster) the president decides to get off his mountain bike and make his first public statement, vowing to throw in another $20 million. Recall, for comparison purposes, the immediate outpouring of compassion and aid from leaders and citizens around the world, starting just moments after the 9/11 tragedy.
So, was the US govt stingy with response to this disaster – offering just $15 million, then doubling it only after it was criticized for being cheap? Was the president insensitive not to offer condolences and support earlier?
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti … 975267.cms
azcentral.com/news/articles/ … aid29.html
[quote]. . .the State Department acknowledges on an official Web site that its direct economic aid is “the smallest among government foreign assistance programs” . . .
Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because permanent aid, as opposed to emergency provisions, has not materialized in the amounts pledged, aid officials said.
“Over all, there is too little money for foreign assistance, for development and for humanitarian relief, especially in Africa,” Mr. Egeland said. “We get one-third of what we ask for in our humanitarian appeals to poor African countries, and the number is going down. I see too many hungry children in the world, too many uncared for refugees, and too many unmet needs.”[/quote]
nytimes.com/2004/12/29/inter … 29aid.html
No MT:
I would imagine that like all the other countries involved, the US offered an amount and then as the full scale of destruction and the amount of devastation were revealed, it raised the amount and is continuing to raise that amount. Remember no one knew in the beginning how much devastation had occurred. Don’t worry, as always, the US whether government, private charities or individuals will give and their contribution will as is usually the case probably equal and surpass the help and donations of all other nations combined.
Finally, the donations that have not arrived for Bam are from ALL countries I presume and not as you have attempted to imply only from the US. I assume that you realize that by posting that piece of information with the rest of your quotes, that is could “mislead” any readers to assume that the UN official is talking about the US but he is talking about nations that have not met their commitments. Sounds more like France and Germany to me, but then these two nations histories of not meeting their Kyoto commitments (France) and (Germany only because of the collapse of industry in Eastern Germany), the financial stability pact and their treaty obligations under NATO are more likely candidates for those nations failing to meet their commitments.
Also remember that while the Taliban was our enemy, the majority of food aid (75%) was still coming from America. This was also true during the North Korean starvation and Ethiopia among other nations.
On a personal note, I just have to ask, when someone talks about Enron, Worldcom and other such companies do you also rush to criticize your company as being “far worse” and for doing things that “you are not proud of?” or if you have children, do you rush to say when someone is arrested as a serial killer that your own son or daughter has done far worse things that do not give you the right to criticize, etc? I really am trying to figure out where this tendency comes from. You simply must be from nothern California, the Bay Area? went to Berkeley? etc.? Right? What is this John Walker Lindh tendency that exists in people from that area? Too much dope? An unhappy childhood? Rabidly foaming leftist teachers? Brainwashing? LSD? Moral incoherence? What?
There is a difference you know. The US as we have shown gives the MOST of any nation in the world either by volume/value and per capita. How then, can anyone be criticizing the US here? If we give the most, if we give the most per capita, shouldn’t we be the ones criticizing others? Yet, here we are having to defend America on this regard, right here on this forum. What exactly do you think that America should do that it is not doing? How much more do we have to give to satisfy you? Considering the fact that I have documented how much of our aid is not counted in the total, why then are we still discussing this?
Mother Theresa wrote: Massive quake hits on Sunday, tens of thousands are killed, Dubya’s taking another vacation on his ranch, the US agrees to give $15 million in aid. The US government is criticized (again) for being stingy, so finally on Wednesday (three days after the disaster) the president decides to get off his mountain bike and make his first public statement, vowing to throw in another $20 million. Recall, for comparison purposes, the immediate outpouring of compassion and aid from leaders and citizens around the world, starting just moments after the 9/11 tragedy.
Good god man!!! It is Xmas!!! Do you really expect him to be anywhere else during the holidays? Were you working on the holidays or just making up stories about stealing wallets in crack dens