Generous (Misers) Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Posted by Tom in culture, life, money, politics, society, thoughts.trackback
So I got an e-mail today from an acquaintance. It was a link lauding how great the US is in terms of giving foreign aid. And that people need to stop believing what they hear about how bad the US is and start believing in what the US actually does (which apparently is to give generously to those around us).
PROBLEM – the US is NOT that generous. And statistics bear this out. True, we do give a bunch of money. In fact, we give more than any other nation. Here is where things get confusing. We have the largest economy in the world. Almost twice as much as the country with the next largest economy. Our economy is as large (almost) as nations 3-10 combined. Now, based on this info our giving is around .16% of our Gross National Income (similar to GNP) which puts us at the bottom of the 22 wealthiest developed countries in terms of giving.
What all of this means is this: we give a huge amount of money but considering how much we have (economy, income, etc) we give very, very little.
So depending on which statistics you want to use will determine whether the US is generous or not. Based on face value, we are generous. Based on how much we have been given to how much we give in return…we are, in the words of an article, “generous misers”.
Comments»
No comments yet — be the first.