from The New York Times
We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.
5 comments:
It's bad enough when an AP story is writerless, but a NYT editorial. With lies like that, I don't blame the poge who got tagged to write for leaving his/her name off.
Not to change the subject, but Happy 2005. It's a rooster year. That's what I am, so it should be a good year. :) For me at least. Hahaha.
Of course, the Chinese New Year doesn't actually begin until February 9th this coming year, but what the heck--Happy New Years anyway.
Embarrassed by the world's attention on our Scrooge-like contributions to the disaster, it's reported this morning in the NYT that $350 million has been advocated now. That's $50 million more than was cut from the Pell Grant program from next year, but still less than what we're spending on Iraq in a week. But George is sending Jeb, who has experience with natural disasters, so that's ... priceless.
"the world's richest nation"
Are we? With the combined foriegn debt, movement of production and capital to foriegn labor markets, foriegn investment and such.
I have to wonder if the stingy $15 million/$35 million/$350 million in promises isn't really a reflection of our real state of wealth.
Rich people don't get rich by squandering money on luxuries, only investments, the same is true of nations - how much have we invested in our own nation over the last seven decades? Damn little.
Happy 2005. And I really like that Times editorial. I do hope Powell was embarassed. $350 is a lot better. . .and I'm glad he's sending a team to SE Asia. However, there is still a lot more that could be done.
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