Relief? Anyone?

[peter-griffin]

Eloquent as always, ey peter?

thanks sweetypie. you mind researching your numbers a bit on that quote you made before?

[Deacon]

[quote="Martin Blank";p="539809"]The President does not get vacation. EVER.[/quote]
In addition to this, I'll note that the President's primary role is to work with Congress, and Congress was off for what, the entire month of August, right? That means "off" as in not in active session, not "off" as in chillin' on the beach in Cancun.

Posted Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:02 pm:

[quote="chapium";p="539803"]I think as concerned Americans, we should be asking, WHERE THE FU@# was are own country the first few days? I mean holy crap, we are just now getting food, water, and extensive military support to these people?[/quote]
It wasn't supposed to be an issue, because people were well aware of the danger and had been ordered to evacuate. I'm not sure what you're referring to, exactly, when you mention "extensive military support", but a military presence in a law-enforcement role is never something to rush into, and it's something that should not have been necessary because a) people were supposed to have been out of NOLA by the time the storm ever hit, and b) people are not supposed to be shooting at rescue helicopters and looting and such. As much as bleeding hearts love to go on about the noble trash of society, how being low class (note: not just of meager financial means, but low class) somehow makes you a better person, it turns out that, at least in Nawlins, the trash of society served to bring down their fellows in whichever category they fell.

In hindsite, the results of this should have been easy to see. If we could not get enough humanitarian to Baghdad, a city we knew we were going to destroy, how can we get aid to these people in an event that we only had a week or two of notice for?

Out of curiosity, what's this about a week or two of notice?

What really pisses me off is we saw this hurricane coming and knew the doomsday scenarios for New Orleans, why the hell were we so slow to respond to the point that the city went into pandemonium when people got desperate for food and water?

Remember, people were supposed to have left. They were ordered to leave, they were provided transportation should they somehow be devoid of any means themselves. They knew a storm was coming, that it was a big one, and they decided not to worry about it. This is not something where some earthquake came suddenly and wiped out a million people.

If there is anyone I can't be more angry at , its [Bush]...

Could you explain why? Did he sign some bill into law that you don't like? Or what? Where all this animosity comes from, I have no idea. I can't tell if it's people who are just totally clueless about how our governments work, or people who just sit slack-jawed in front of their television sets and nod dumbly at anything spouted by Ted Koppel or Dan Rather, or whether it just boils down to a deep-seated irrational and personal hatred for Bush that brings people to either a) lie through their teeth, knowing full well that what they're saying is stupid and false, but hoping enough people believe it that they'll come over to their side of the fence or b) have allowed themselves to become so deluded by their hate that they honestly believe the rhetoric they allow to dribble from their fingertips.

Posted Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:19 pm:

[quote="SunTzu";p="539975"]You're also AFAIK the country that earns the most in the world.[/quote]
Well, besides the fact that the country doesn't earn money, but individual people within the country do, http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/gdp ... y_desc.php shows 2003 numbers for Luxemborg earning far more per person, with the US following up in 2nd with Norway immediately on its heels.

* USA’s aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP has almost always been lower than any other industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last four years, their dollar amount has been the highest. (Only in 2004 did they move up from last place by one.)

This is an example of clever number-play, as it does not take a number of things into consideration (lower taxes, any non-government aid, etc) as well as trying to compare raw GNP numbers as though individuals in America all get an equal share of that number, and they do so without having to pay through the nose to live. If our cost of living were what it is in some African countries, we'd live like kings. Additionally, those stats refer only to the OECD's Official Development Assistance (ODA) numbers, not a total running count. And they're all being presented to you by an Indian-Britton with a CS degree via his personal web site who admits bias on his own about page, making statements like, "We often hear about America's desire to spread human rights, democracy and freedom to the rest of the world. Yet, so many peoples and countries are increasingly frustrated that the United States has not done this, and instead has only been pursuing its interests, that it is important to look behind the rhetoric and try to hold the United States to those standards." as part of his explanation on why he spends so much time finding fault with the US.

[SunTzu]

[quote="peter-griffin";p="539995"]

Eloquent as always, ey peter?

thanks sweetypie. you mind researching your numbers a bit on that quote you made before?[/quote]

As i said, this was from a quick Googling, not through extensive research. I said i was going to try to find the sources for what our newspapers claimed, but thats going to take some time.

Posted Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:24 pm:

Im sorry to have to ask, but what does taxes matter? What i want to know is how much money does your government give away, and what percentage is that?

Anyways, where did we derail?

[Deacon]

[quote="SunTzu";p="539979"]The point is, you dont donate nearly as much as the rest of the world overall.[/quote]
Wait, what? Are you expecting the US's ODA numbers to meet those of the entire rest of the world combined? Because otherwise your statement makes no senese. Remember, the US's ODA numbers for 2004 was $18,999, and the next in line, Japan, had numbers at half that ($8,859), which continued in that same vein for France ($8,475), United Kingdom ($7,836), and Germany ($7,497) before being halved again for 6th place with the Netherlands at $4,235, and being halved again for Sweden in 7th palce with a total of $2,704. When you're giving out $2.7 billion and chastizing another, much larger country with bigger problems and bigger expenditures for only (officially) giving out $19 billion through the OECD's recognized governmental donations, maybe you can understand where there's a little puzzlement there.

A large part of your countrys politicans claims they need to be there to "guide the world", yet you arent paying up for it.

Yeah, that still doesn't make sense. Hopefully if it's ignorance that spurs such statements, it's been cured now.

Posted Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:29 pm:

[quote="SunTzu";p="540012"]Im sorry to have to ask, but what does taxes matter? What i want to know is how much money does your government give away, and what percentage is that?[/quote]
When a government takes away over 60% of its citizen's income and has low expenditures, having only a relatively small number of people and disasters and such to worry about, very little military expenditures (again, relatively), low expectations, etc, it's much easier to take a larger portion of that 60% and donate it through officially recognized channels and then talk about how awesome you are for doing so compared to the US. It's a little like a single bachelor who makes $50k chiding the guy with a wife and 8 kids who makes $100k for not giving more to charity, what with all that money.

[SunTzu]

Look, im not trying to analyze the numbers, im not an analyst I follow what every conclusion ive ever seen says, and that is that the US pays less money, compared to what the country earns in taxes, then any other industrialized, wealthy country.

And no, it doesnt make sense to me either Of course, i dont believe in what some countries have done in the past (namely throwing money at a problem and hoping it will solve itself. Give a man a fish/teach a man to fish is what i belive in).

Anyways, i googled for another 10 sec and found another site:

How do U.S. aid levels compare with those of other countries?
The U.S. foreign-aid budget as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) ranks last among the world’s wealthiest countries (at about 0.1 percent). In raw dollars, however, the United States is now the world’s top donor of economic aid, although for more than a decade it was second to Japan, which is far smaller and has been beset by economic woes. In 2001, the United States gave $10.9 billion, Japan $9.7 billion, Germany $4.9 billion, the United Kingdom $4.7 billion, and France $4.3 billion. As a percentage of GNP, however, the top donors were Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden. The tiny Netherlands (pop. 16.3 million) gave $3.2 billion in 2001—almost a third of what America contributed.

http://cfrterrorism.org/policy/foreignaid.html

[Deacon]

Heh, yep, look at those numbers. It's amazing how Clinton had us running at the back of the pack, wheras Bush steps in and suddenly we're number one by twice as much as 2nd place.

[SunTzu]

In what? Percentages or pure dollars?

BTW i have no opinion on Clinton, he was before my time.

[Bigity]

Since we were talking about who gives the most, I'd think dollars is what you'd look at.

[Roma]

I'd have to agree.

[SunTzu]

Why? Its not about pure numbers, its about how much you can give. You cant expect the Vatican to push out as much funds as the US, becouse they dont even HAVE the amount of money the US gives away each year. Remember, the US is a *huge* country. My country has 9 mil inhabitants. NYC has what, 6 mil?

[Calus]

I love the idea of slapping the hand that gives because people think they are not giving enough.

SunTzu, we can give are entire gross national profit, but I doubt that we would like falling to a 3rd world country in a matter of days. The turn Can is the ablity to. May is the desire to. Do not confuse the two.

[HTRN]

[quote="SunTzu";p="540053"]6 mil?[/quote]

More like 10 million in the city proper, and 25 million if you include the NY metropolitan area(Long Island, Eastern NJ, Southern NY, Southern Conneticut)

We(and by we I mean the people of NYC) also have spend probably 10 times what you're entire country does on infrastructure. Right now, they're digging a water tunnel thats going to cost at least 6 BILLION and is over 60 miles long.

The government can't give what it doesn't have. Unlike the Socialist paradise of Sweden, Americans prefer to keep what they earn.


HTRN

[Calus]

Calus smacks HTRN.

Let me fix that statement for you.

Americans perfer to give with their own freewill then be forced by their country.

[SunTzu]

What im saying is that per person, Sweden pays more then the US. As are most countries, according to every piece of info ive seen so far.

[Calus]

Lets see these numbers.