Response To Comment About Global Poverty

An anonymous reader left the following comment:

While I agree with your assessment of the UN and its ability/inability to get things done on foreign aid and combat of world poverty, I disagree with your perspective on how unfair it is that the USA should have to bear a dollar amount in helping aid SOME attempt at foreign relations.

Your statistics for the US poverty rates clearly indicated that unemployment in America have been severely attacked by many congressional and presidential sessions over time, and though the numbers are not as staggering as we would hope, the overall percent is in a downward direction over time.

That said, the US, coupled with many other "Rich Nations" have all failed in foreign aid on the large scale to meet promised goals at UN and EU meetings. Take a look at the following link for detailed information as to where the US measures up in the aid of foreign nations

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#RichNationsAgreedatUNto07ofGNPToAid

Thats right, as of April 2008, DEAD LAST!!! That appauling. No wonder with US PR and reputation is at an all time low and no matter where we might vacation or "ehrm" WAR we look like a selfish nation bent on only our own sucess.

Now with all this said, I dont feel that the UN is the best "elected officer" for the foreign relations patrol, but the US does need to step up its game in aiding poverished countries. Perhaps not to the tune of $2500/person, but somethings should be done in order to turn this Self-Centered America reputation around. As of now, thats about all we are living up to with respect to foreign relations.

Obama is no godsend. Bush's war has been a less than appropriate use of funds as well. This is a war that started as 9/11 retaliation, then WMD and Saddam's removal and has now changed to a spread of freedom to Iraqi people. Its out of shear luck that it has actually worked out in the positive in terms of an overal success. It has done nothing but negative to further tank US reputation as a Self-Centered, oil hungry, capitolist driven society.

We have freedoms yes, and iy came with a price, but I dont believe that foreign relations should be viewed as Darwin views creation, a survival of the fittest.

The next president must have a plan for foreign relations, foreign aid and improving the dirtied US reputation.

There's my nickel's worth

I wanted to address these comments on a post rather than in a follow up comment, so here we go...

My point here is about prioritization. Let me try to explain a bit better.

You misunderstand the numbers I cited about poverty - the percentage of poverty has crawled down slightly, and the number of people itself has remained almost static. The point is that, for all the trillions of dollars spent to deal with poverty here in America, where there are as many opportunities as there are street corners (meaning that anyone who wants to make something of themselves can do so), there has not been significant progress. If we extrapolate the massive amount of money it would take to make even the same insignificant difference on a global scale, and even $845 billion wouldn't come close. Let's do the numbers.

With a population of 300 million people (and this is a generous number, because it's a snapshot of the current population rather than the population from 40 years ago) and a dollar amount of $9 trillion, that works out to $30,000 per person. Now, extrapolate that to 6.7 billion people on the world, and you have a total dollar amount of $201,000,000,000,000!!! I'm pretty certain that's a number that's way out of reach, even for America!

Now, remember, that amount of money would have to be spent to just make an insignificant difference...what do you suppose would need to be spent to make a significant difference? It's unimaginable. So, the idea that the U.S. can simply wave a magic dollar bill and make global poverty disappear is completely ludicrous.

On the other hand...

The extra $2,500-2,800 in taxes each American will be slapped with will make a significant dent in most people's checkbook registers, don't you think?

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's a matter of prioritization. This bill can't possibly make a difference to global poverty, but it will make a difference to American families trying to make ends meet. That's where we need to focus, especially in these uncertain economic times.

Now, to address your greater point - you say that America should pay a higher burden for global poverty. If you're referring to the concept of those who have been blessed much should give much, I agree with you. The website you reference has more information than I can possibly digest fully, much less comment on, but I would like to make some general points.

First, America is incredibly generous. As your website points out, it gives the biggest amount of money to aid global poverty, though the numbers show its percentage as very low. Fine. Would you rather have someone donate 1% of a billion dollars to charity, or 80% of $10,000 to charity? I think the answer is obvious. And, your website also points out the obvious fact that the American people give more than double what the government gives. I don't know about others, but that's what I mean when I say that America is the most generous nation on the planet. Without American aid dollars, how would any country recover from natural disasters? It would be a different world if America's generosity dried up!

In my humble opinion, the way that America can best help fight global poverty would be to export the things that made America great: tremendous work ethic, ingenuity, the freedom to succeed (which also means the freedom to fail), technological advancement, etc. Wherever these things spread, prosperity follows. Look at the world over the past few decades - every nation that has been defeated and subsequently liberated by America (i.e. Germany, Japan) has been re-established with some form of free democracy, and it has seen incredible growth and prosperity. The entirety of Eastern Europe is exploding right now because the Iron Curtain was thrown back, and they have been allowed to scratch their way out of poverty; some of our most die-hard allies are in Eastern Europe, where America is very popular.

And, you're missing the point of aid entirely. It's not to provide the solution, but rather the means to a solution. What happens to many lottery winners? They go bankrupt in just a few years. Why? Because they simply aren't equipped to handle the responsibility that comes with a vast amount of money. The same thing can happen to poverty-stricken nations. If vast sums of American aid money suddenly get dumped on them, it ends up being worse because they come to depend on handouts. The far better solution is to use that aid money to provide avenues for the people of those poverty-stricken nations to pull themselves out of poverty. By doing so, they will have learned and earned the things they need to properly handle that aid money.

See the difference? I guess it all comes back to the fish example: if you give a man to fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. I'd rather provide aid in the form of teaching than giving.

Now, you make some other assertions that I feel must be addressed...

There is no "Bush's War". Don't forget, Congress not only gave Bush their approval to fight this war, but they actually required Bush to come back to them a second time so they could vote in favor of the war on the record. You can't change history just because it doesn't agree with your argument.

This war was also not a retaliation for 9/11 - that suggestion shows a shallow understanding of what this war is all about. Islamic terrorists have been attacking American targets for decades, but it is only when Bush took office that America decided to actually fight back. I suggest you look at my previous blog posts about the differences between fighting terrorism as a law enforcement policy rather than a military policy. It is the law enforcement strategy of the Clinton years that ignored numerous major attacks that led to the escalation that ended with 9/11. Since Bush implemented the military strategy, how many major attacks have we experienced? Zero.

The stated goal of Iraqi freedom and WMDs was always a part of this military action. Again, you can't revise history just because it doesn't agree with your argument! And, hindsight tells us there is no doubt about the tight connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. No one ever suggested Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, but there is no doubt that he was an active and major participant in Al Qaeda's training, financing, and supporting operations. There were WMDs, and he used them. Again, all these details can be found in my blog.

Victory in Iraq is not luck. It is the result of a brilliant strategy that has been even more brilliantly achieved through the proper equipping, training, and execution of the strategy by our incredible military men and women through their tremendous sacrifice. Don't shortchange them.

Do we really need to care what the world thinks of us? I thought we were supposed to teach our children to do the right thing, even if it wasn't what 'everyone else is doing' or what was popular. Does that not apply on a global scale? Real leadership means tough choices, and often tough love. America certainly hasn't gotten everything right, but I don't believe that there's nearly as much animosity toward us as you imply. The rest of the world knows that it's far better to be a friend of America than an enemy.

I hope that helps clear up some things. Again, thanks for your comments!

And, by the way, you don't get a nickel's worth of comment...it's my blog, and even I only get two cents! ;)