[extropy-chat] Still Stingy

[Mike Lorrey]

The US government has committed $350 million to the tsunami effort,
(while US charities have raised hundreds of millions already and some
charities, such as Doctors Without Borders have said they have all they
need), which at this date is only surpassed by Japan. 

On the flip side, the US failed to make the list of the top ten freest
economies, which could indicate why our charitable giving is starting
to lag behind past efforts. While property rights scores are tops in
the US, government fiscal burden and tax rates have not kept up with
the trend in the freest nations and are now ranked among the socialist
states in level of tax burden. See:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/4/154315.shtml

"15 cents per day per person"? Not our fault. All those tv commercials
tell us we can support a child in the third world for $0.50/day. Based
on that calculus, Americans support about 80 million kids in the third
world.

--- Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:

> I wonder how much more (or how much less?) would people voluntarily
> donate
> if the USA didn't collect any taxes at all?  (Sometimes I just hate
> to think
> ...).
> 
> "The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the
> margin of
> error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria.
> Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them
> children
> and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.
> 
> But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people
> will die
> of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the
> tsunamis,
> and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000).
> 
> And that's where we're stingy.
> 
> Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development
> assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times
> that on
> soft drinks daily."
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/opinion/05kris.html?oref=login&hp
> 
> Olga
> 
> 
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> 


=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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