The US, UN & Iraq II

Tartarin

Lovely data. Thank you.

Just as one of America's highest wage earners can get the smallest cut in his marginal rate and still allow you to complain that he's getting the "biggest tax cut", so too the country with far and away the highest GDP can pay far more in international aid dollars while spending a smaller percentage of that larger GDP.

I am always fascinated at how people pick and choose the way they view numbers based on which method makes those numbers tell the story they want to tell.

Without looking at the numbers I am sure that a country with a very modest GDP who spends anything at all on international aid will be spending a greater percentage of their GDP on that aid than does the US. So what? Does that mean they have helped more countries or more people than the US? No.

Contrarian comes to mind.

Yes, I suppose that fits. Thanks.

As far as that goes, Mark Twain observed "There are lies, damned lies, and then there are statictics". The fact is that either The US or Japan provides double or more Foreign Aid than does any other individual nation. Among the opinions drawn from this are included those influenced by the perception that the disproportionality of GNP Based Contribution exists as a necessarily bad thing. I question that premise. All nations should, by that logic, be required to spend proportionately on Defense, as well. Neither proposition stands to reason.



timber

Now you've gone and brought reason into it! This is not going to be pretty... :wink:

timber

re foreign aid

Just thinking about the population of some countries, the GNP, the total houshold of that state - I've seen other statistics with very, very different results.


Although this site doesn't give details, is older and the US may meanwhile have reached the top rank of donators:

I don't dispute the US spends less proportionately than may other nations. On the other hand, I mention again that The US spends more on Defense than does any other nation, and spends a far higher proprortion of its GNP than does any European or Asian nation apart from a few totalitarian states.

The argument might be made that The US would spend more on Foreign Aid if the EU and The New Asia spent more on mutual defense.



timber

timber

That's exactly the different point of view: some here (including me and most of my fellow citizens) think, money on foreign aid is a better investition than in military stuff.

I know, Walter, I know. It is a difference of view, and dispute arising from that difference engenders much ill will among many proponents of either view. Near term consensus is out of the question, I'm afraid.

It doesn't look good mid-to-long-term, either. The matter promises to remain a hugely significant issue for some time to come.



timber

[I'm glad, timber, that you are an expert on typos and could understand my above email :wink: ]

Perception wrote




People have been talking about shocking and awe-ing Saddam since it was first mooted an attack on him would be a good idea.

How much notice, or lack of notice, does it require to ensure Saddam is suitably shocked and awed? Is he going to hang around to be taken by surprise?


Timber

from your table at the bottom it reads

[/QUOTE]Note: The U.N. ODA target set is 0.7 percent of GNP. Most nations do not meet that target.

steve, someone on NPR yesterday called this the "timetable" war. It is difficult to take shock and awe seriously.

tartarin, thanks for Peter Freundlich's comments in text. I heard this piece yesterday, and was going out to look for text. NPR is promising a view from the other side, today.

just a thought here, but i was listening to a conservative economist explaining that the US budget was an excellent means of analysis of the intent of our government. he offered his stats on US budget from 1920 - present demonstrating that we have shifted from defense to offense with the example of 9/11 there were virtually no armed aircraft in US to deal with the terrorists because we are operating an offensive military whereas he felt we should have a defensive military. if you want i can look back and get his info. at least he offered a different point of view that made me think.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/opinion/14KRIS.html

The time comes when the talking must stop and the fighting begins. The reasons why 1/3 of Britain's entire armed forces are currently deployed against Iraq is now a matter for future historians, not me. I never wanted this war to happen, but I failed to prevent it.

Now, the only way British forces are coming home is either in a body bag, or injured, or after a successful mission. I can do no other but to wish them good luck and speedy success.

Oh but you have done your deed-------the doubts you and your friends world wide have raised have ensured many more deaths.

There will now be many more body bags----congratulations

timber

Re foreign aid and defence spending...

It's not, though it surely must seem it at times, that arguments from myself or others are reflections of hatred for the US. Rather, in my case and that of likely all the others here, they represent attempts to indicate where elements of American self-image (let's word that as heroic national myth) have become entrenched cliches, not much available for inspection, and even less so for contradiction. (That's why, for example, I noted the Kurdish story above. One day, if things go very wrong for the Kurds now, one of them might commit a serious act of terror against the US and when folks ask 'why do they hate us so?', a large part of that answer might be found here).

Charitableness is a noble characteristic. It is the characteristic implied in claims regarding the US foreign aid figures. But it is a very poignant question to ask who is more charitable...the billionaire who gives a buck or the pauper who gives ten cents? Particularly if the pauper just goes on his way, while the billionaire does a broad issue press release. How often do you hear a Netherland politician boasting of his country's foreign aid? How charitiable do we in the west look, with our incredible wealth, to someone who works one month for what we'd pay for a shirt?

On defence spending...you know likely better than most of us that defence is a profit-driven industry easily as much as it is anything like a community service. One of the common cliches here on these threads is that 'no one wants a war'. That's a happy and comforting delusion, and it's the delusion Eisenhower addressed.

Tres commented: Translation: "When comparing the US to other nations makes the US look bad, it is valid; when it makes the US look normal or good, we'll have none of it."

Tres, this is the kind of either/or response which often makes dialogue so difficult here. That isn't a translation of what Cicerone wrote. It is simply a way of dividing people among themselves and separating them from the truth. I hope that was not your intention.

Snideness of perception's above comment aside, it took me a long time this morning to catch up with all the great comments, opinions by columnists, facts, and discussion. And then lost my connection to AOL when I was typing the last sentence of a previously attempted reply here.

As a onetime instructor of statistics at the university level, I can attest to the fact that numbers and statistics can be found to make any point. Or, if you don't understand the use of numbers and statistics well, one can come out with some very bad, erroneous, research conclusions.

I have always felt that the criteria used in deciding to use certain numbers, or statistics, or source, should be fully and completely set out at the top of the discussion, not as a footnote or some such other entity pretty much buried.