Saturday, January 08, 2005
US Generosity
Many are making much of the fact that while the US disaster relief is the highest in the world, it is not as high as a percentage of GDP.
One question you might ask of someone making that point- what choices did the US make to become the biggest economy in the world, to put itself in a position to give far more money than anyone else? We made the decision to allow most problems to be solved by private decisions, not federal or statist solutions. And as a result, we don't have the bloated governments of Europe which are sucking their countries dry. Will they still get credit for being so generous for giving a larger proportion of their GDP for disaster relief, after their GDP's have shrunk to nothing? Will their "percentages" feed any orphans (to paraphrase a commenter on Moxie)?
America has not taken the easy road that the European socialists have. They value leisure and security. We value personal responsibility and hard work. Americans work an average of 1800 hours a year, compared to 1400 a year for Europeans, according to the Wall Street Journal recently. So we have a huge economy and theirs are shrinking or stagnant. Lord willing, if we continue to value the same things, then we will continue to be around for years and years to come, shouldering the lion's share of international aid just as we have for so long.
How do you suppose the comparisons would come out, if you measured giving as a percentage of available time in a year, instead of GDP? It takes time to make money, and Europeans have the same number of hours in a day as Americans do.
One question you might ask of someone making that point- what choices did the US make to become the biggest economy in the world, to put itself in a position to give far more money than anyone else? We made the decision to allow most problems to be solved by private decisions, not federal or statist solutions. And as a result, we don't have the bloated governments of Europe which are sucking their countries dry. Will they still get credit for being so generous for giving a larger proportion of their GDP for disaster relief, after their GDP's have shrunk to nothing? Will their "percentages" feed any orphans (to paraphrase a commenter on Moxie)?
America has not taken the easy road that the European socialists have. They value leisure and security. We value personal responsibility and hard work. Americans work an average of 1800 hours a year, compared to 1400 a year for Europeans, according to the Wall Street Journal recently. So we have a huge economy and theirs are shrinking or stagnant. Lord willing, if we continue to value the same things, then we will continue to be around for years and years to come, shouldering the lion's share of international aid just as we have for so long.
How do you suppose the comparisons would come out, if you measured giving as a percentage of available time in a year, instead of GDP? It takes time to make money, and Europeans have the same number of hours in a day as Americans do.
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