On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 04:16:24PM -0800, Nano Nano wrote: > On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 11:29:02PM +0000, Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote: > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > > Paul Morgan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >Not to mention the fact that the US is following more than one thread by > > >being by far the largest donor of aid to poorer nations > > > > Google for "foreign aid usa denmark netherlands" and you'll > > find things like http://www.just1world.org/development-aid.htm > > or http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/foreign_aid.html which show that > > this is untrue to say the least. > > Lies, damn lies, and statistics. > Fact is we feed more people than them: TRUE.
Here's another view of that data: Country Aid(Billions) People(Millions) Dollars/Person Norway 1.7 4.5 377.78 Denmark 1.6 5.3 301.89 Luxembourg 0.1 0.4 250.00 Netherlands 3.4 16.1 211.18 Sweden 1.8 8.8 204.55 Switzerland 0.9 7.3 123.29 Belgium 1.1 10.2 107.84 Ireland 0.4 3.9 102.56 Finland 0.5 5.1 98.04 France 5.2 60.1 86.52 U K 4.7 60 78.33 Japan 9.2 127.2 72.33 Germany 5.4 82.3 65.61 Canada 2 32.2 62.11 Austria 0.5 8.1 61.73 Australia 1 19.7 50.76 USA 12.9 290.3 44.44 Spain 1.6 40.2 39.80 Italy 2.3 57.9 39.72 Portugal 0.3 10.1 29.70 Greece 0.3 10.6 28.30 New Zealand 0.1 3.9 25.64 Under this view, the US is not the worst -- but we still have room for improvement. I would interpret this data as saying the Scandanvian countries have few responsibilities such as defense or the poor of their own country, therefore they have lots of extra money for giving away. I would explain the other data as: Partly, none of the other countries spend much on their military. If the US didn't do it, they'd have to, and their aid would shrink. Partly, what you're accusing the US of, greed. There's some of that. But it's more complicated than you're saying. These numbers don't exist in a vacuum. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
