What America Owes The World...

IronLionZion wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
What are you talking about? You talk in percentages that are meaningless. Take a look at totals instead.

Its been said, McGentrix, many ways, many times, and by many people, but exactly what the hell is wrong with you?

Must you lead off so offensively? It only belittles your arguements and makes me respond in kind.

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As I have said numerous times: It is not how much we give, it is about how little we give relative to what we could easily give. To go back to the analogy I made - tossing a few crumbs from the feast to the starving masses does not qualify as a benevolent act.

I bet the starving masses are grateful for those crumbs. We could easily give less.

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The "totals" are irrelevent. The moral culpability remains. For example, according to the chart, Netherlands, with a population of roughly 5 million manages to cough up a quarter ($3.4 billion) of what America can muster with a population of 300 million ($10.9 billion.) Also, according to the chart America gives a lesser percentage of its GNP than any other industrialized nation on Earth. If you honestly do not understand the signifigance of these figures, then I really see no point in furthering this conversation.

Do I understand that we could give more? Duh. Do I understand that there are people in America that will whine about it? Yep. Do you realize that comparing the US and what it contributes to world affairs to the Netherlands and what it contributes to world affairs is a stupid comparison? Obviously you don't or you would stop doing it. Instead, compare it to economies of equal size and compare what we give to what they give.

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...US totals are higher than the lowest 12 countries combined....

I would be hard pressed to come up with a more meaningless statistic.

In all fairness this was the only response your moral bankruptcy and limited intellect allows at this point. I can only hope that your ineptness is not representative of most Americans. If it is, then I am genuinly afraid for humanity.

I am done with you.

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IronLionZion wrote:

Giving 1% of GNP is not a great deal of money - at least not in the sense that it would affect our economy in any substantive way. Consider the Japanese experiance: for more than a decade Japan gave more raw dollars of foriegn aid than any other nation - even though it is far smaller and has been beset by economic woes. In 2001, the United States gave $10.9 billion, Japan $9.7 billion.

It is much easier for Japan to give that much aid since their military needs have been provided for by the United States for over 50 years. They have a lot more 'unassigned' cash to play with.

IronLionZion wrote:

Also, where are the sources I asked for? Namely, the sources that prove America gives as much per capita yearly as other nations when private donations are taken into account.

Since there are over 100 large private charitable organizations that give money to other countries it may take a few to look them all up and tabulate the results.

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McGentrix wrote:

Must you lead off so offensively? It only belittles your arguements and makes me respond in kind.

It is the fact that your argument is incredibly absurd coupled with the fact that this basic line of thought contributes too unneccessary suffering and death on a mind-boggling scale that makes me respond that way.

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Do I understand that we could give more? Duh. Do I understand that there are people in America that will whine about it? Yep. Do you realize that comparing the US and what it contributes to world affairs to the Netherlands and what it contributes to world affairs is a stupid comparison? Obviously you don't or you would stop doing it. Instead, compare it to economies of equal size and compare what we give to what they give.

I'm afraid that you simply do not understand. Especially considering your last sentence is self-contradictory because the percentage of GNP statistics you are railing against are equivalent to comparisons of "economies of equal size" - that is the point of bringing them up. In any case, I accept the fact that some people are either immoral or intellectually unable to comprehend these basic ideas, and I am willing to give up on you at this point.

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The author of this thread claims moral and ethical superiority over most American voters, superior understanding of the macroeconomics of developing nations to that of officials of the World Bank and the IMF, and intellectual superiority to any of us here.

I have no interest in disputing these claims. However, I wonder why one so gifted is wasting his time here.

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pistoff,

American economy is a capitialist one, most people are proud of it and if I was them I woudl just admit that we do give less than we could and are not ashamed of it and leave it at that.

In point of fact, I can't really say anything because I am not willing to take anything away from family though there is a lot of that we could do without very easily to give to others. I give things that we don't need anymore like clothes and sometimes I donate food to a charity and from time to time we give things away to those we know need things. But on the whole our family does not sacrifice a whole lot for those less fortunate though I know we should.

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McGentrix wrote:

Must you lead off so offensively? It only belittles your arguements and makes me respond in kind.

You ought to follow your own words.

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Gotta give props where props are due.

IronLionZion has made some damn good arguments, and it's still standing strong in the face of the criticism. I'll toss my vote towards his side of the fence...

Unless some better arguments start coming along :wink:

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um something in the bible along the lines of treat others as you wish to be treated.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

I happen to agree that it is shameful that we don't do more to help our impoverished brothers. I'm more for teaching men to fish than giving those fish, but I admit we do to little of either. However, I think your stats are a little over the top because they ignore too much of what we do for our fellow man.

Medicine: The US carries the lion's share of the burden for drug development R&D, Medical advancement research and other related Items. I think it's fair to assume that it isn't just Americans that benefit from these advancements despite paying the largest portion of the costs.

Defense: Even before we decided to engage in the war on terrorism, the US was footing the Bill for many a nation. 276 Billion in 1999. Sure it can be argued that we do this purely for selfish reasons but the security is enjoyed by more than just us. Costa Rica, for instance, has no standing army and dedicates virtually no money to their own defense, which in turn frees up more of their own funds for other, more humanitarian, purposes.

Energy Research: I would agree that this too is under funded by the US, but it is another example of the US spending huge sums on research that, if successful, would be beneficial to all of mankind.

The US picks up quite a few tabs that wouldn't be included as "charitable contributions". Assisting the Russian's in dismantling the former Soviet Union's Nukes, for instance, is another place where American money is being used for a selfish purpose, but, none the less is good for the entire world.

I wouldn't know how to tabulate a total including these related items, but I think they should be considered, before claiming the US only contributes .1% of it's GDP to help the rest of the world.

Good post, Bill. You raise some good points. I don't dispute that the United States does some good things. It is just that we do pathetically few good things compared to what we could easily do. Two things that strike me in your post:

First, you note many of the things we do that benefit other nations are simply side-effects of actions we take for no other reason than protecting and promoting our own interests. I hardly think this sheds a good light on us though, as your post seems to imply.

Secondly, you note we take a "lions share" of the work in areas like medicinal and energy research. Ostensibly, this is because we constitute the lions share of the industrialized worlds power, population, and wealth. However, don't forget that all other industrialized nations (Germany, Britian, Netherlands, Japan, etc) contribute in these areas as well - it is just that they have less population, less wealth, and less power, and as such, thier contribution is less. They still manage to cough up tremendously more foriegn aid than us.

So I am not sure what your point is. If it is to say that America helps the developing world in more ways than just government foriegn aid, I agree completely. However, other nations utilize these methods as well and it still doesn't change the fact that we do little compared to what we could easily do.

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Fedral wrote:

Since there are over 100 large private charitable organizations that give money to other countries it may take a few to look them all up and tabulate the results.

Don't forget to tabulate the countless charities in other nations that give to the developing world. People who espouse your argument are always praising the magnanimous nature of the charity-loving American public - while forgetting that people in industrialized nations all over the world give to charities. So you are not going to alleviate the disparity between the amount of aid America gives and the amount of aid every other industrialized nation gives.

Also, judging by the stats I quoted earlier, we would have to give 70 billion dollars a year to charities just to meet the minimum UN agreed target for foriegn aid. So, when you account for the fact that all other industrialized nations are also giving money to charities, we would have to increase that number by more untold billions of dollars to match them.

In short, even if you were able to tabulate such statistics, the result would be meaningless.

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I see your point ILZ. At 70 billion that comes to $250 per American. Well, at least I can say I kick in more than my fair share! Cool

Do you?

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

I see your point ILZ. At 70 billion that comes to $250 per American.

Actually, my bad. It would come out to roughly 60 billion.

Clearly, this changes EVERYTHING.

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Well, at least I can say I kick in more than my fair share! 8-)Do you?

I can respect that, Bill.

I try.

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This is an older commentary (From April 3, 2000) but the substance still stands on its own merits.

The Welfare Mentality[/u]
Release Date: April 3, 2000

Recently President Clinton begged the wealthier countries of the world to provide help to the poorer countries, so that they too could expand their economies and improve the lives of the people. Now that sounds like a nice charitable sentiment until you think about how the good ole US of A grew from a poor nation into the wealthiest people in the history of the world.
We did not become rich because of charity from Great Britain or France. Our ancestors built this country with their bare hands, and their dreams. We had what so many countries did not have: freedom. If you want a country to be rich, encourage it to be free.

Of course, a lesson in free-market economics is probably not a lesson your typical dictator wants to hear. They'd rather have the handouts. The kind that are easy to divert to Swiss bank accounts.

Al Gore shares this same welfare mentality when he calls Internet access "a fundamental right." Thanks Big Al, but in a free country we're getting on line just fine on our own.

The people who started this country embraced freedom and individual responsibility. As James Madison said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. . . . [but] upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves . . ."

This is Common Sense. I'm Paul Jacob.

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Paul Jacob seems to have viewed history through a particular lens which suited his thesis in advance. During the English Civil Wars of the 1640's and the subsequent Protectorate of the 1650's, Massachusetts and Virginia just barely hung on by the skin of their teeth. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, trade again began to flourish, and prosperity gradually to return. So much money was leaving England before the civil wars, that King Charles prohibited Puritans from leaving.
Before 1630, it is estimated that as much as 12 million pounds sterling (an astronomical sum for the time) had been carried out of England to Holland and the New World. By and large, the settlers who came to the new world were from an educated class and a financially secure class. It was only later that the English tried to bring convicts to the new world. For a farmer in England, Germany or Scotland, who was a religious dissenter who wished to be left to his own worship, it took a fair amount of capital to move to New England, Virginia or the Carolinas and set up anew.

The thesis that we were ever a poor nation which bootstrapped itself to prosperity is nonsense. Even when less-well-off immigrants began to arrive, they were not the poorest of the poor, because, once again, they had to make passage here. With millions upon millions of acres of land available for settlement, and the boom economy assured by a constantly growing consumer base, it is small wonder that we were prosperous. Add to that the vast natural resources to be found within our borders, and you have a resounding refutation of Mr. Jacob's statement, which was either naive, or willfully disingenuous.

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In particular, i want to point this out: "We did not become rich because of charity from Great Britain or France."--a patently false statement. Before our revolution, owing to the mercantile theory of imperial economics, England spent a great deal to keep her North American colonies viable and paying. There was certainly a great deal of chicanery and theft by agents in London in their dealing with Southern planters, but the Parliament and Crown spent a fortune here. The Molasses Act, the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Act, and what we called "the Intolerable Acts" all arose from the Parliament's contention about how much they had spent on us in the French and Indian War. I personally think they protested too much, but to contend that we owe nothing of our prosperity to them is simply nonsense. As for France, she provided us uniforms for our troops, more than 70,000 Charleville model 1777 muskets, powder and shot--France quite literally bankrupted the royal treasury in the war with England, and failed to achieve her objectives in that war. Mr. Jacob needs to go back to school.

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The American government is indeed giving a lot less in foreign aid than comparable countries. But it is also taking a lot less from the third world in tariffs, and it's allowing a lot more immigrants in than comparable countries. Moreover, its non-government initiatives are about as generous as those in Europe and Japan. I seem to remember an article in The Economist that evaluated the whole package, and concluded that America isn't out of line with other countries by that measure. Americans are just helping in a different way than Europeans and the Japanese.

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Thomas, in terms of internal charity I think we bring eleemosynary contrinutions about at the level of other comparable nations.

Thing is, almost nobody believes the maxim "charity begins at home" more so than Americans.

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"eleemosynary contrinutions"

Craven is making up words again...

*sigh* edited to add :wink:

I was trying to be funny...guess that doesn't go over well.

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Eleemosynary isn't made up or misspelled. But "contrinutions" is supposed to be "contributions".

I've been psoting too fast.

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el?ee?mos?y?nar?y

Pronunciation: (el"u-mos'u-ner"E, -moz'-, el"E-u-), [key]
?adj.
1. of or pertaining to alms, charity, or charitable donations; charitable.
2. derived from or provided by charity.
3. dependent on or supported by charity: an eleemosynary educational institution.

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What America Owes The World...

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