Posted on 07/02/2005 9:41:10 PM PDT by bayourod
PRIVATE American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the developing world than their European counterparts, research reveals this weekend ahead of the G8 summit. Private US donors also handed over far more aid than the federal government in Washington, revealing that America is much more generous to Africa and poor countries than is claimed by the Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns.
Church collections, philanthropists and company-giving amounted to $22bn a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the $16.3bn in overseas development sent by the US government. American churches, synagogues and mosques alone gave $7.5bn in 2003 - a figure which exceeds the government totals for France ($7.2bn) and Britain ($6.3bn) - according to numbers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which deal a blow to those who claim moral superiority over the US on aid.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com ...
Good post bump! ;-)
What's a "great hand over"?
hangover
This cannot not be said too often. It is also true about "domestic aid," but then again, if we did that there would be no way to buy votes.
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Indeed we are. Through wars, rebuilding, natural disasters, you name it, Americans are there.
I think it shows that we give far more when we're not forced to give.
The dollars do not include the amount of TIME and the cost of travel for people that build new homes, create temporary medical clinics and dig wells or other infer structure projects. This would add billions more and shows how our aid is used to increase airline and other international revenues.</p>
A man never stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
We are blessed with such troops.
But this model ignores the private donations made possible by the lower tax burden in the US of 31.8%, against the eurozone's 45.6%. Figures for philanthropic donations have been collected for the first time by the Hudson Institute.
The 2003 figure counted money pledged by the Clinton administration, Adelman said. Since then President Bush has pledged to take aid to Africa from $1.2bn-a-year to $8.7bn a year by 2010.
Adelman added: "We're already world number one in absolute aid assistance. By the time the additional pledges are delivered, we will probably be number one in relative terms in about two years' time."
And that, btw, would still not include the absolutely huge, indispensable (and extremely expensive) contributions we make towards global security.
Consider only the tens of billions of dollars for the 5th Fleet, maintaining security for oil shipments in the Persian Gulf. If the oil generating countries had to provide or contract the necessary security themselves, and then pass the cost to consumers, what would that do to the price of oil? Add $5 dollars a barrel? Maybe even $15 or $20? This is related to development since (along with wellness and health-care) cheap energy is the primary factor in maintaining high growth rates in developing countries. (It's important to economic growth rates in the developed world too, of course, but to nothing like the same degree relative to other factors.)
Bump.
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