Stingy Americans Live Like Paupers
The NY Times (registration required) reports that:
"A week before world leaders gather here to set a course for combating global poverty, a United Nations report released on Wednesday names the United States and Japan as among "the least generous donors" and says American and European trade policies are hypocritical and contribute to impoverishing African farmers."
The Independent reports:
"Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality."
Hmmm...wouldn't the second report explain the first? We need our resources to address our own problems.
Or is a big donor conference on the Global War to End American Poverty to be scheduled soon in the plummy confines of Brussels or Geneva? Maybe a rock concert to focus the world's attention on the plight of the poor Americans?
Nah...probably not. We're all too fat...and we smoke too much.
I, of course, do not believe we are stingy. And anyone who thinks we are? Perhaps you could post your annual charitable giving in the comments. Does that seem stingy? I didn't think so.
posted by Presley Bennett @ 9/07/2005
3 comments
3 Comments:
I think that it's less about contributions to the Third World as its about an effort to fight poverty wherever it stands, with the first priority being within our own borders, where we are evidently lacking. Its as simple as this: In the most wealthy and powerful nation in the world, there are people starving.
Inexcusable considering that the federal government pays farmers to destroy portions of their crops each year as a means of price control.
Actually, I think Saije's point here is that the U.N. is just another "let's bash the U.S." organization that doesn't even check to see if their own claims contradict each other.
But I also think that the U.S. should be putting more effort into our poor and starving people instead of running to everybody else's aid first. Healthier Americans can help the world better.
I don't mind that we help other people although I'm not sure in the end that throwing a lot of money at NGOs and corrupt governments is really helping. I just think that it has become tiresome to hear us on the one hand accused of being miserly but on the other hand castigated for not providing for our own people sufficiently.
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