The size of foreign aid in different countries

Read post #29, which explains this.

 

1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.
2. Something given to help the needy; alms.
this is the definition of charity.....sure seems exactly what the military does in natural disasters, as you do state.....the receivers sure aren't paying for it....

 

Actually if you look hard enough you will find that some of it is. Admittedly not the majority of it or even a large minority of it but ...

Some of them but not all and there are upkeep costs just in staying prepaired for disaster relief ops.

You really should have put this in bold and increased the font size.

Very good question. I think several of us were replying to what we thought was inaccurate information. It may well be that all of us were as English is a very easy language to be ambiguous in.

I think I'll try to avoid posting in this one for a while (perhaps for good). This sort of thread doesn't seem to acomplish much but get everyone riled up.

 

I feel that way too. Except that I know better that the society as a whole benefits if those "consequences of risky behavior" are not totally left to the individuals to be suffered. "All" surveys show that the societies with more forgiving attitude produce better well-being for all - the tax-payers included.

No, that's the way we have mutually agreed on. That's called democracy.

As have been already discussed, the military expenses do not equal as foreign aid. Of course if the extra expenses of the aid operation can be separated then that sum (only) can be counted as aid - but not all of it.

See Green Slime's post #39, that should explain quite a lot.

Still here's some more:

"Finland has a long track record in international peace operations. 50.000 men and women have served in some 30 different operations since Suez in 1956. "

http://peacekeepingfinland.fi/

http://formin.finland.fi/public/default.aspx?contentid=123905&contentlan=2&culture=en-US

FYI - I myself have served as a peacekeeping officer for a year, so I think I have earned the right to hold my head up...

 

but with no maintenance, no aid....no carrier, no aid....no training of troops/pilots, no aid...without $billions paid by US citizens, no aid...without the maintenance every year, no aid....so, you are just going to add fuel/time on deck/etc to the aid column...??what about ACVs??[air cushioned vehicles used at Haiti ] we pay all those taxes for this, and then people don't want to give the US citizens any credit at all....I pay these taxes, so when the time comes, and people are saved, my wallet tells me I've given to charity/aid....

 

Please, stop the pissing contest! It's not that people "don't give the US any credit at all"; it's the histrionics (repeated use of double question marks) , and wanting to add the entire US military budget and call it "foreign aid", that gets people's gander.

Obviously, you have issues about aid, and the way it is spent. Do something constructive: contact your representative in congress, don't rant on a forum.

 

On Alms:

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men."

 

According to you. But in natural disasters, famines, genocide, the people receiving American food via American planes and American ships and protected by American troops and paid for by American dollars, consider it aid.

As shown in the link provided, privately, Americans, western Europeans, Aussies, Canadians, others all give far more to the unfortunate than individual Finns do. Finns rate below many 3rd world countries in terms of generosity. You introduced the subject and the longer it goes on, the worse Finland looks.

 

Dozens of countries are giving both civilian - governmental and private - and military aid. The USA surely helps a lot, as a big wealthy country should. However the same is done by a lot of other countries - proportionally even more so. That still doesn't take anything off from any country.

If the US carriers, pilots or dollars would not be available it naturally would diminish the aid, since the USA is such a big country. It still would not stop anything, just making it that much harder.

You are mistaken in thinking that people wouldn't want to give any credit to the USA. However it often seems, that some people imagine that it's only the USA which is doing anything or giving any aid, when in reality the USA is just pulling her weight - sometimes more, sometimes less.

 

Not only by me. The military expenses only, if they are extra, caused by the aid operation - not all of it.

There's nothing exceptional in your list. Many countries do the same, Finland included. You have still failed to present any comparable numbers of other types of aid to be added to the official governmental aid figures.

That link is still irrelevant, since that list only presents the share of individuals giving any type of charity - mostly for domestic purposes, I presume. About the differences in social welfare systems and the need for alms giving instead of proper social security system we have already discussed several times.

Your ridiculous statement is still false, for the reason already explained earlier.

I did not introduce the subject but continued an off topic conversation - started by somebody else - here.

 

I wasn't going to respond to this thread anymore for a while but since this was addressed directly to my remarks.

Acutally you believe it you can't really "know" it. We simply don't have a large enough data base to draw from. It is by the way a rare case where the consequences are totally left to the individual and in most cases where they are it is the individuals fault. As for "'All' surveys" showing that I'd like to know how you are sure you have read all of them. "Forgiving attitude" seams a questionable term by itself and "better well-being" could be defined in many ways some of them mutually exclusive. There's also the question of time period under consideration. It's entirely possible that such things lood good in the short term but long term are bad for both individuals and the society. Welfare as it is currently conducted in the US may be a very good example of that.

Just because a society appeals to sheeple doesn't mean that it's the society that is best for humanity in the long term.

 

Actually I kind of know... Here are some of those surveys and ways to measure different well-being factors:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-30-most-prosperous-countries-in-the-world-2014-11?r=US
http://www.escapeartist.com/live/2014/05/23/best-countries-for-raising-kids/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html
http://democracyranking.org/?page_id=738
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/11/29/the-worlds-10-most-responsible-governments/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index

How long term are we talking about? At least now - and for the last 50 years or so - those "societies appealing to sheeple" seem to do pretty well in many ways...

 

Im going to bow out of this topic because quite frankly a few are just dead set in their views, Not a bad thing but at times just makes a topic of discussion absolutely pointless.

To put it bluntly yes we know how much foreign aid the US gives out annually both government and public ($102 billion last count) but for most other nations we only have the government accounts, With little to no figures on the public donations. yes the US uses more military assets then any other nation to deliver said aid but it is merely a fraction of their assets and annual usage time, Unless we can get hard fact's on the amount of time they spent their and the costs we wont be able to work out what the US military contributed. Yes US military assets are built with the ability to deliver aid in mind but that is always a secondary thought, Same with most other nations.

We quite simply lack any of the needed fact's or figures to come to any definite conclusion.

Wish you guys all the best in this topic,

Cheers, v_n

 

Well put v_n! I also think I've said more than enough and can't really add anything. So - Happy New Year to everybody!

 

??? You "kind of know"? If you "know" then you are aware of all the surveys in all countries related to the topic at hand. Otherwise you don't "know" that they all support your position. Even if you are an academian in the field that's questionable.

So those surveys don't measure "well-being" in general just certain factors. Factors which one may or may not rate highly or at all with respect to over-all well being. Indeed some of those reputed to answer one question but actually chose measures that gave only a rough approximation of it. Furthermore it's clear that at least some of them are stronly politically motivated brining to question their utility in the discussion at all.

50 years is just bearly leaving the short term.

 

That's exactly why I wrote "kind of" - meaning: I know enough to make reasoned conclusions. Nobody ever knows literally everything.

Those surveys I presented are all related to well-being. Something being supposedly "politically motivated" - as you suspected - does not change the results of the measured factors.

BTW - this is what I found by searching with the exact words "well-being":

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3028590/the-10-countries-with-the-highest-national-well-being-see-the-us-anywhere#1

And of course everything is relevant. 50 years seems to be quite long enough time to draw conclusions, although if only measured by purely Darwinian terms the "survival of the fittest" surely works better e.g. in Somalia...

 

Your initial statement had no such qualifier. It's far from clear by the way that your second setance is accurate either. I will concur with your third.

Are they? If so how? If the authers have different defintions some mutually contradictory how can you claim they are measuring the same thing. As for "politically motivated" effecting the "measured factors" it has huge implications. Politically motivated surveys almost never end up with findings that contradict the politcs of those sponsoring them. You can bias a study intentionally or unintentunally in a number of ways and the impact can be huge. Politiclally motivated surveys must be used very carefully if at all. You need to look very closely at exactly what questions were asked and what populations were polled for instance. I didn't see that info on the sites.

So you found another politically motivated and thus useless survey. Congratulations.

In counter point you might look at surveys such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Competitiveness_Report
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ease_of_Doing_Business_Index
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom
So much for your "all" comment.

 

1. You have it now.
2. It's clear for me.
3. -

1. Yes, they are.
2. It should be obvious if you read the titles.
3. Those surveys measure different things, that's the point. So many different angles and still similar type of results.
4. Almost every survey is actually politically motivated in one way or the other. The surveys seem to be plausible enough to me. Blaming something "politically motivated"(?) when you don't like the results is a bit cheap...
5. If you like to devalue those surveys you are free to present your findings. I'm pretty sure one can find the questions and populations if one tries.

1. See my answers above.

2. And naturally all those economy/business related surveys are actually less relevant to general well-being than the ones I presented.

 

The text below indicates the fallacy of your convictions.

Only if you accept that their definitions are acceptable and what the statistics they are measuring are indeed good measures of those defintions. Their polictical nature brings to question all three.

One of the best introductory texts in Statistics is titled How to Lie With Statistics that however isn't the focus of the book. If you trust a title without looking at the details you are a fool.

But are they really that different as far as the "angles" go. I see a pretty common theme at least politically. Then there's the question of how many of them are "cooking the books" most or all from what I could tell which means they are essentially useless for the points under discussion.

Wrong. There are many surveys that are not politically motivated. Of course you don't see them being publisized as much. I discount all political surveys. That you can't seem to find anything else is your problem.

No they are not. Indeed they are arguably more relevant than any of the surveys you mention and they were conducted for non political purposes which makes them more trustworthy. Of course you don't like them because they invalidate your opinion rather conclusivly.

 

HA. Love that - "how to lie with statistics".