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Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:40 pm
The ABC’s Leigh Sales sneers:
In 2003, the US gave $19 billion in official development assistance – more than the next two largest givers combined, according to the Organisation for Economic Coordination and Development.
But when you look at what nations give as a percentage of their Gross National Product, the US is way behind. The most generous nations – Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands – give almost one per cent of their GNP to aid. The US gives 0.1 per cent, coming in at 22nd place, when nations are ranked according to their generosity.
Like percentage of GNP makes a damn bit of difference to the people receiving the aid. As Colin Powell notes, the US will likely contribute more than $1 billion to the tsunami aid effort. And USAID chief Andrew Natsios makes this point about GNP measures:
“That’s a European standard, this percentage that’s used,” Natsios said. “The United States, for 40 years, has never accepted these standards that it should be based on the gross national product. We base it on the actual dollars that we spent.
“The reason is that our gross national product is so enormous. And our growth rates are so much higher than the other wealthy nations.”
Ignored in GNP calculations are private contributions. According to a study mentioned in the above-linked piece, Americans last year gave an estimated $241 billion to charitable causes, up from $234 billion in 2002. And look what’s happening over at Amazon, where donations towards tsunami aid have now reached $841,335. (Via Instapundit, where a reader earlier observed 1,000 Amazon contributions arriving within five minutes.)
That won’t impress Leigh Sales:
While the US Government is so far giving $44 million to the tsunami victims, the National Retail Federation here predicts Americans will spend more than $200 billion on presents, food and holiday sales this Christmas.
Picture Sales congratulating herself for landing a telling blow against the Great Satan.
(Via reader Tony Le Bas and contributor Alan R.M. Jones)
UPDATE. The Amazon appeal has now gone above one million dollars.
- YOU BETTER HOPE I NEVER RUN INTO YOU BLAIR!!!
Because I’ll smother you with kisses Homer Simpson style!
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Ms. Sale’s absurd report. When I heard her on the news earlier today, aside from shouting obscenities at the telly, I nearly burst a blood vessel. Trust the ABC to contort the aid issue so much as to produce an outcome that made America look stingy.
On another note, hearing that Ms. Sontag will never again grace us with lines like “the White race is the cancer of history” was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak day.
- “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”
Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of England (1868, 1874-1880)
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2004 12 29 at 07:08 PM • permalink
- There is an American NGO known as World-Vision that has its headquarters in a Seatle suburb. On the Seattle local news they highlighted the effort that World-Vision is mounting to aid the countries affected by this tragedy.
W-V was sending doctors, nurses, sanitiation experts, logistitians, etc., by the hundreds over there. W-V also had a huge “war-room” getting certain supplies (medicine, anti-biotics, construction materials, water-purification systems, etc.) sent over there to lash up with their volunteer experts.
Will this effort ever be recognized by the United Nations as part of America’s contribution to world aid? Of course not, it’s a privately funded charity. Only official government spending is recognized. Statists only recognize state spending.
What’s most ironic is that 100 volunteers from World-Vision will accomplish more in one day than any 100 United Nations employees would accomplish in a month.
Posted by David Crawford on 2004 12 29 at 08:13 PM • permalink
- Now the Vatican are falsely caliming that Israel is refusing to send aid to Sri Lanka when it is the sri lankan gov that has refused the Aid. shades of the Iran earthquake.
What’s the betting that the MSM will refuse to report on Israli aid?
● A medical team headed by four doctors from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday night (Dec. 27), carrying medicine and baby food. The doctors specialize in rescue operations, trauma and pediatrics.● An IDF rescue team is now on its way to Sri Lanka with 80 tons of aid material, including 10,000 blankets, tents, nylon sheeting and water containers, all contributed by the IDF.
● A ZAKA rescue-and-recovery team arrived in the disaster areas Monday night, armed with its specialized
equipment for identifying bodies.http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Israeli_Aid3_Unreported.asp
● A Health Ministry contingent left for Thailand on Monday night to aid in rescue efforts. The group includes doctors, nurses and four members of the IDF.
● Israel has also offered its assistance to India ― a search-and-rescue team from the Home Front Command, as well as consignments of food and medicine.
- If you want to complain about the USA giving only 0.1% instead of 1%, you had better be donating 1% of your salary – in addition to the usual taxes etc. Similarly, if you want to grandstand about illegal immigrants being given a fee run in Australia, or any country, please ensure that your home is permanently open to people you don’t know but who need food and board.
- I just heard on the ABC’s 7:30 Report, host Emma Alberici, criticise the U.S. for spending billions of dollars on the Iraq war after the death of 3000 Americans on September 11 while spending only a fraction when it came to the death of 60,000 “Asians”. Can you believe these cunts?
In 2004, the ABC all but ignored the death of 70,000 people in what the U.N. referred to as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” in Sudan, and they COMPLETELY ignored the 1000 people who die EACH DAY as a result of the conflict in the Democratic Republic Of Congo! Their anti-American agenda dictated that they focus all of their attention on the Iraq war and underming efforts there at the expense of everything, and everyone, else! Talk about ruthless! And anyone who drew attention to this on one of the ABC’s program websites, saw their comments censored, as mine were literally dozens of times during the year. How does a taxpayer funded a public broadcaster keep getting away with this? Why doesn’t someone exposed this corruption? It’s a scandal!
- I just heard on the ABC’s 7:30 Report, host Emma Alberici, criticise the U.S. for spending billions of dollars on the Iraq war after the death of 3000 Americans on September 11 while spending only a fraction when it came to the death of 60,000 “Asians”. Can you believe these cunts?
In 2004, the ABC all but ignored the death of 70,000 people in what the U.N. referred to as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” in Sudan, and they COMPLETELY ignored the 1000 people who die EACH DAY as a result of the conflict in the Democratic Republic Of Congo! Their anti-American agenda dictated that they focus all of their attention on the Iraq war and underming efforts there at the expense of everything, and everyone, else! Talk about ruthless! And anyone who drew attention to this on one of the ABC’s program websites, saw their comments censored, as mine were literally dozens of times during the year. How does a taxpayer funded public broadcaster keep getting away with this? Why doesn’t someone exposed this corruption? It’s a scandal!
- Brian,
“Public” Broadcasting is a con. In reality it’s Entertainment funded by the threat of jail.Everywhere you find people who live by parasiting on others, you find anti-Americanism. The freedom to not choose them is a threat to the parasite classes that run public broadcasting. They know they only survive because of the threat of prison is used to mug taxpayers into funding the ABC, BBC etc.
Where you find an absence of freedom, you will find anti-americanism.
- Is there anything anti-Americans won’t use to bash Bush & Co? Clearly not.Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2004 12 30 at 01:02 AM • permalink
- how much has leigh sales donated? the bingleys, like many american families, has donated; we don’t sit about waiting for the govt to ‘do something’.Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2004 12 30 at 01:09 AM • permalink
- When I went to the Amazon site to contribute, I was surprised that the money was going to the Red Cross, an orgaqnization historically high in administrative costs, an organization which sells their help to the unfortunate.
I’d like to contribute, but not to a goup that provides limos and penthouses for its execs.
- David Crawford and Mr. Bingley are right. Americans strongly believe in private charity and grass-roots giving like this.
Gaffney, SC USA: House of Destiny and Bethel Baptist Church, yesterday, shipped 16,000 lbs worth of over-the-counter medical supplies to aid in relief efforts.�WYFF 4 News
Never heard of Gaffney?
Population: 13,000
Location: middle of nowhere–Red StateBible thumpin’, Jesus’ lovin’ black folks doin’ the Lord’s work�helping where help is needed. American salt of the earth. Will their efforts be recognized and counted? You think they care?!?
Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean black folks, I meant the �socially and economically disadvantaged members of American society.� (obvious sarcasm intended)
Posted by Mike SC USA on 2004 12 30 at 01:31 AM • permalink
- Also ignored: People always call the US stingy relative to GDP because they refuse to count military aid. Never mind that the military is one of the main deliverers of non-martial aid; this also assumes that there is nothing humanitarian about, say, keeping Stalin from overrunning your precious little European country and opening a gulag in the Tivoli Gardens.
- “While the US Government is so far giving $44 million to the tsunami victims, the National Retail Federation here predicts Americans will spend more than $200 billion on presents, food and holiday sales this Christmas.”
Neat trick – count what individual Americans spend on themselves, but ignore what they give to charity and only count the government contribution.
- In that a good number of the victims are undoubtedly Muslim, one wonders where the relief funds are from the Islamic states? What percentage of GDP is Saudi Arabia contributing? Iran? Dubai? Qatar? The UAE?. Where are all of the Zakat funds from the various Muslim charities? Why is it that whenever any heavy lifting is required these guys get to stand and watch while the West has to do all of the work?
- It may surprize you to learn the KSA’s GDP is one-half of our (USA) defense budget.Posted by Mike SC USA on 2004 12 30 at 03:39 AM • permalink
- It’s also a neat little trick to imply that Americans are out spending holiday money on themselves WHILE the disaster is going on. But I guess three weeks ago when I was out buying my mother-in-law a sweater, I should’ve had some inkling that 70,000 people would die in a tsunami.
All these news commentaries just reinforce the same point, over and over again: these people couldn’t give a crap about the victims. It’s just all about their blame game.
- Leigh Sales still gets in with her message on AM this morning. This is the same reporter who during a report from Guantanamo Bay observed a young male inmate with nice brown eyes and said that she would feel more comfortable about his incarceration if a court had ruled on whether he was a terrorist. A court? They have trouble convicting confessed terrorists, let alone those whom the prosecution merely has “evidence” about.
Sail On, Sales. Fill your spinnaker with misguided idealism and public funds, and let not the interests of your country come between you and a good storyline.
- Since when did reporting facts become a crime?
Ms Sales didn’t call the US “stingy” – the UN did! That sounds like a story worth reporting, right? If anything it makes the UN look stupid.
She also reported the fact that the USA was giving more than the next two highest contributors combined.
The juxtaposition of $$$ spent on aid and holiday gifts is unfortunate (and irrelevent to the story).
As to Ms Sales’ personal views on American consumerism – she has lived in the US for the past three years so she is at least slightly qualified to comment.
Certainly moreso than bloggers who haven’t lived there. 😉
- I’ve sent you a private warning email, Mr. or Miss Agauche.Posted by Andrea Harris on 2005 01 01 at 03:40 AM • permalink
In the time it took me to make my contribution (maybe 30 seconds), the total increased by about $20,000. Impressive.
BTW, I seem to recall reading a year or so ago that these same said generous Europeans are notoriously stingy when it comes to donations to private charities. They gave at the office…