Just another question ( Archived) (33)

I think it's a # of factors including their own government.

Right you are, People seem drawn towards the dark or hateful side of things. I guess it makes people feel better about themselves when they see others or can cast others in a negative light.

27,457 Million dollars in 2005 (Does not include loans or private donations (NGOs)). Sorry it was a quick search and I don't have a lot of time to find states for 2006. Probably one of the reasons people think we are greedy is because although we give in dollars more than any other country, the percentage of GNP given is the lowest of the industrialized nations.

Hi, Jerry and Marina,

There are many different forms of finacial and technical aide programs sponsored by the US.

Some of these are in the form of low-interest loans (e.g. via the IMF, World Bank, etc.) and some is in the form of donations.

The low-interest loans typically are for large infrastructural projects, like dams, energy, telecommunications, ports and airports, etc. Recently, the US and other wealthy countries have forgiven some of these loans when it became evident that the recipients could not ever repay the loans.

I am going to focus on the donations side of aide, as that is usually used as the measure of a country's 'generosity.'

After World War II, the US emerged as the wealthiest of all countries, and with little internal physical damage. The US launched a intensive effort to help those countries that were devastated byt he war to rebuild.

The US Marshall Fund was a massive effort to help rebuild, and IIRC most European countries were recipients in one form or another. (Finland voluntarily turned down the offer of US assistance). The Marshall Fund was immensely successful, and is viewed by those in the socio-economic development community as national altruism at its best. The Fund served as a model for all subsequent US aide programs, though none, IMO, achieved the same brilliance of results.

Gradually, US aide became politiciized during the Cold War. For example, the US aide program for Greece and Turkey was designed with an eye to keeping the USSR out of the area, and later, the US and USSR got in a race for influence in Egypt, won initially by the USSR with the Aswan Dam project.

In part to counter the view that US aide had become politicized and self-seeking, the US created the Peace Corps, in which qualified volunteers -- teahcers, agricultural experts, sewer and water experts, etc. -- rather than money is the aide.

The US government organization that administers the US aide program is the US Agency for International Development. They are a group of highly skilled technocrats and have done marvellous work around the world.

In the '70s, US aide took an unfortunate turn away from its pure humanitarian and developmental focus, and parts of the USAID budget were diverted to non-assistance goals. The first large bite took monet was directed it at the "War on Drugs," a massively ineffective program that continues to this day, and that has fuinded a lot of the corruption and civil fighting that we see in Latin America.

(continued below)

Another big bite out of the USAID development budget came when the US began to assist Russia after the fall of the USSR. Outright budget support was viewed as essential to keep the Russian economy from descending into poverty, which the US feared might bring the old communists back to power, and might tempt Russian scientists (and especially nuclear ones) to build stuff and sell it to the highest bidders.

The third and largest bite taken out of the US aide budget has been Iraq and the "War of Terror", another immensely ineffective (some would correctly say, counter-productive) project.

The growing politicization of the US aide program is symbolized by the growing subordination of USAID to the US State Department. Today, aide is viewed, I regret to say, as an extension of US foreign policy, rather than an altruistic effort to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Not only have these 'bites' taken away the bulk of the US aide budget, leaving only crumbs for the countries in which we do genuine humantitarian and development work, but they didn't stop with bites out of the USAID budget: every US government program other than those directly involved with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the "War on Terror" has had its budget also cut, inculding the education, social assistance, agriculture, and energy development programs.

In this nutshell review of US aide programs, I must mention a relatively new program: the mutli-billion dollar Millenium Challenge. An initiative of the Bush program and neocons, Millenium Challenge represents another diversion of US aide, this time in the service of the neocon's view of 'democracy'. Countries are given aide IF they meet the necon definition of democracy, which includes support for US foreign policy goals. For example, some countries, like the Republic of Georgia, succumbed to the inducements, and what should otherwise be a pretty good Georgian president has become an 'enthusiastic' supporter of the neocon vision and recipient of Millenium Challenge money.

The US gives a lot of money to its aide program, in absolute terms, but several other countries give significantly larger amounts as a percentage of their GDPs. What defines altruism best? The absolute amounts, or the GDP percentages?

I do believe that the American people are generally fair, when they know the facts of a foreign situation. I also believe that they generally don't study -- study -- what is going on in the world, and so are too often unable to make the informed judgments that are required, and so end up going along with a lot of nonsensical assertions about foreign situations. Of course, these are broad generalizations. I also believe that the American people, if they adopted for themselves capable national leaders, could once again assume a place in the world second to none in credibility and admiration second. The instincts, altruism, energy, knowledge, imagination and skill that went into the Marshall Fund still lives in the American people.

What is the proof of this? It is in front of our noses. That we here, in CS, a singles dating site, can be having these many and often passionate discussions, and be seriously examining the weaknesses and strengths of our country is, in my opinion proof positive. It is a painful self-examination; yet we do it.

In this self-examination, the goading of our foriegn friends here on CS is, in my opinion, an important and welcome help. I thank you for your willingness to participate in this, emotional as it may sometimes become. But most essentially, I thank my fellow Americans heer on CS who participate, thread after thread, because it is out of these discussions, replicated a million-fold throughout the country, that we will find our way.


Oceans

PS. I've written a lot here (my apologies) because I'm travelling for the next several days and will miss you all.