Posted on 05/26/2003 8:12:28 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
Is the United States the least generous among the world's richest nations? Or are U.S. critics manipulating the figures to make Uncle Sam look like the world champion of stinginess? A new index published by Foreign Policy magazine measuring the 21 richest nations' commitment to fighting world poverty is not good news to the Bush administration. The United States ranks near the bottom of the list. The index, created by the magazine and the Center for Global Development (CGD), a middle-of-the-road Washington think tank, describes itself as the first of its kind that takes into account six factors: foreign aid, trade, migration, investment, peacekeeping efforts and environmental behavior. According to the ranking, the country that does the most to help the world's poor is the Netherlands, followed by Denmark, Portugal, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and Spain. The least generous in relation to the size of their economies are Japan, the United States, Australia and Canada. PREVIOUS REPORT The new index comes a year after the U.N. Human Development Report ranked the United States last among the world's 28 top foreign aid donor countries. According to that report, the United States spends only 0.1 percent of its gross national product on foreign aid, compared with Denmark's 1.06 percent of its GNP. Other indexes show the United States is by far the world's biggest oil consumer and the largest polluter in terms of throwing dangerous gases into the atmosphere. But U.S. officials charge these indexes are grossly biased. If you measure things differently, the United States comes out as a model of altruism, they say. In dollar terms, the United States' $9.9 billion a year in foreign assistance ranks only second after Japan's $13.5 billion and is far ahead of European countries. And if one adds the estimated $9 billion in U.S. charitable aid -- money given by churches, corporations and private citizens -- the United States is by far the largest aid donor in the world, they say. TRADE OPENNESS If you look at trade openness, the United States is far more open to developing countries' exports than Europe or Japan. For instance, U.S. farm subsidies, which developing countries say badly hurt their own ability to export their own agricultural goods, are far lower than Europe's or Japan's. The annual U.S. subsidy to cattle producers is $151 per cow, compared with $435 in Europe and $1,296 in Japan, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. ''The authors of these indexes have a bias and select their statistics to fit their bias,'' a State Department official told me. ``If we developed an index giving greater weight to other factors, we could come up with an index that showed that the United States is the greatest contributor to international development.'' So who's right? As is often the case, it depends on where you stand. If you are looking at it from the standpoint of African countries, the biggest recipients of rich nations' foreign aid, the Foreign Policy/CGD index is pretty accurate. PITIFUL COMPARISON The U.S. foreign aid figures are, indeed, pitiful when compared with those of other developed nations. U.S. foreign aid has been cut in half in recent years, and the Bush administration's recent vow to increase it by $5 billion over the next three years will not do much to change the overall picture. But if you are in Latin America, the six-factor index can lead to misleading conclusions, the index's own creators admit. Most countries in the region, for instance, are middle-income nations that do not qualify for rich nations' foreign aid programs. ''If we did a specific index taking into account the issues that the Latin Americans are most concerned about, such as trade, investment and migration, the United States would rank much higher,'' Foreign Policy publisher Moises Naim told me. ``U.S. policies are much better for Latin America's development than those of Europe or Japan.'' I agree. It would be great if these indexes were divided into separate rankings tailored for various regions. The United States would rank much higher in many of them, although probably not nearly as high as U.S. officials claim or most Americans suspect. • POSTSCRIPT: On another issue, pay attention to Venezuela. Regardless of the outcome of a planned referendum on Venezuela's political future, well-placed U.S. officials suspect populist President Hugo Chávez will try to provoke a new coup against him to make a sweeping purge of the armed forces and complete Venezuela's transition to an authoritarian regime. If that happens, there will be a toughening of the Bush administration's policy toward Venezuela, the sources say. U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are unlikely, but U.S. officials could release information that would be embarrassing for Chávez, such as reports about the alleged presence of nearly 1,000 Cuban officers in Venezuela. Stay tuned.
Is that before or after the cost America bears to protect the rest of the World is calculated?
That would also mean that if Fidel Castro throws a few bucks at some beggar in Rio, Cuba would rank among the most generous.
Good point.
So the rest of the world now wants to tell the US taxpayers where to send their money, unreal, they have got some nerve. LOL
They think they can shame the US into handing out more and more money to the "poor" countries, I guess it's so we can all be a little "poorer", that seems to be the goal: Bring down the USA, good luck, we're not buying.
According to her, it's very "quaint" in having no "super markets," transportation by bicycle, political correctness, and extreme environmental guilt trips - but where it gets weird in my view is the school curriculum. This girl just turned thirteen but her class project was to envision a world including religion, morals, laws, etc.
Maybe it's just me but that seems like a heavy burden for such a young person and leaves the door wide open for life-long commitment to moral relativism.
They can up with this method of making the US, which is far and away to greatest in aid to foreign nations directly and through the US, SEEM to be a piker in this regard. In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a pack of maroons?"
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, now up FR, "The Knight of Draper's Liquor Store."
| You cannot bring about prosperity discouraging thrift. | |
| You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. | |
| You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. | |
| You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. | |
| You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. | |
| You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. | |
| You cannot further brotherhood of men by inciting class hatred. | |
| You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money. | |
| You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative. | |
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You cannot really help men by having the government tax them to do for them what they can and should do for themselves.
~ Abraham Lincoln
From: A World Free of Wealth
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Actually, if they want to help the poor, Bank officials should focus less on "inclusion" and more on freedom—because that’s the real antidote to poverty. This is confirmed by the "Index of Economic Freedom," published annually by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation. This guidebook ranks nations by how economically free they are. It consistently shows that people who live in countries with the fewest economic restraints are wealthier than those in economically repressed countries.
Take Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two developing countries with a common border. The 2001 Index shows that of the 155 countries graded, Haiti ranks 137th, while the Dominican Republic is 59th. So what? Well, the answer to that question is this: Thanks to a more market-oriented economy that features low tax rates, Dominicans earn nearly five times as much as Haitians: an average of $1,799, compared to Haiti’s $370.
Examples like these abound. So why the Bank’s misdiagnosis? Partly because of what it sees in the former Soviet Union. We’ve poured billions into many of these countries, and they’re worse off today than under Soviet rule, Bank officials say. So capitalism obviously doesn’t work.
But as the United States and other democracies have shown, capitalism isn't just the absence of socialist-style economics.
The reason should be clear: All the loans in the world are no substitute for economic reform—for freedom. Countries that want to be rich don’t need charity; they need to unshackle their people’s economic potential. Perhaps then the Bank can adopt a new slogan: "Our Dream is a World That’s Really Rich."
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