Posted on 12/28/2004 8:02:21 PM PST by OXENinFLA
Since there's a huge uproar over the comments made by Jan Egeland and there doesn't seem to be a transcript of the press conference posted by the UN (and even if you E-mail the UN they tell you to read a Fox News Transcript of him backpedalling because his comments were "taken out of context.")
I decided to transcribe the relevant part of the press conference so all could read what this arrogant UN Humanitarian really said. And he said a bunch.
[I can't make out the question.]
[31:00]JE: "It is really a problem that for to many rich countries..er. it's..the pie is finite... to take out a slice and [????] is left for the rest, and I think an unprecedented disaster like this one should lead to unprecedented generosity from countries that should be new and additional funds, cause I wouldn't want to see many of our friends, the donor countries, depleating their natural disaster coffers the 1st two weeks of Jan. then have nothing more when we come to other disasters. Some others have the same, some for all disasters in the world, I'm afraid for the coming year, cause there are several donors who are actualy less generous than before in a growing world economy."
[SKIP]
[40:40] Blond Woman Reporter: "When you were talking about donor countries that in a growing economy that were giving less are you prepared to name them?
JE: "No.. er... ah....I would say that ..er....I'd rather say that it is remarkable that we may, we have ...um...no country up to the 1%...um..line of foreign assistance in general and we have, I think, three ....um...Scandinavians that have exceeded, and Holland, the 0.7% line of cross national income for assistance...em....We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries. And it is beyond me why we are. Why are we so stingy really? When we are ...and even at Christmas time should remind many Western countries at least, how rich we have become and if actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2% of their gross national income. I think that is stingy really, I don't think that is very generous.... And I have an additional point. Politicians do not understand their own populations, because all the populations, in the United States, in the European Union, in Norway which is number one in the world, we want to give more as...as voters as taxpayers. People say we should give what we give now or more. Politicians [?? upon ??] their belief that they are really burdening the taxpayers to much and the taxpayer wants to give less, that's not true. They want to give more."
The stingy remark is nothing compared to his remark about how "all" of the US thinks and how our Politicians view us.
A guy on Fox News explained it well. Norway is proud that they donate .9% of their gdp (i think it is) to foreign aid (possibly disaster relief), while the US only donates .14% of their gdp. But, no one took into account the amount the US gives privately, and thru other avenues.
Perhaps if more of the Third World Disaster countries fully
observed Christmas, there would be less poverty and more
prosperity.
Bianca Jagger was mouthing off today also about how "stingy" the United States is. What a twit.
I saw that. Witch.
The last I checked, .14% of the US GDP translates into a sh*tload more cash than .9% of Norway's GDP.
cha ching bump
Has the UN and others forgotten we have a war to finance? If they have I hope our team remembers our priorities.
The verbatim quote from Jan.
Yeap. The host on Fox pointed out that Norwegians are taxed up to their hairlines. And, also pointed out that no other nation can probably compete with our private donations.
YAWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN I'm going to bed..........
Good Find,
They also did not count food donations in those figures.
And they don't define our donations to sources within our own country that then go on to donate as a group to foreign AID..
Regards,
Joe
What a rat b****rd. I think we should divert ALL foreign aid, except 2 or 3 countries, to this disaster. After that they can all go hang.
Blonde woman reporter? That's a necissary detail?
The USA gives .13% or .14% I've seen both numbers used.
Jan's remark was Aimed directly at the USA.
Myself and anyone else would rather have the USA's .13% of a $10 trillion economy than Norway's 1% because the USA's .13% is a vastly larger amount of money. Those that want to bad mouth America use the percent because that is the only measurement that we're not number one in.
Part of the luxury of having a $10 trillion economy is that we can do so many more things because each thing takes a smaller slice of the $10 trillion economic pie.
Everybody is drooling over the possibility of a huge slush fund for "relief". I sympathize with the thousands who lost loved ones, and the millions who lost their homes and other possessions. But giving a potload of money to the U.N. is not the answer. Remember Oil for Food.
And notice how the countries affected have started raising the statistics for loss of life? Soon, they will be doing the same for cost of rebuilding. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The country which screams the loudest and claims the most loss will get the highest amount of relief from the U.N. (after Kofi and boys take their cut).
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