Tsunami stinginess? Are we giving enough?

[FearlessFreep]

Phoenx makes a good point, and brings up another good point

Also, there are two philosophies. Some take a view of 'the state is elected by the people and therefore the state carries out the collective will and representation of the people" Others take a view of "Individuals act on their own or through targetted private organizations to express their will in specific directions" Without getting into whic is 'better", it does give skewed numbers in terms of 'who gives more'. I'm not surprised that the governments of more socialistic leaning countries would have a high per-capita donation; I'm neither surprised that a more conservative country would have a low per-capita donation bt the government, but a high donation level from citizens to private relief organizations. Americans in particular like to give, but don't seem to like to be taxed and give through the government; they seem to rather give individually to the Red Cross and other agencies directly involved. Not all countries carry out the same pattern, but it doesn't really matter. If the money that is needed comes in and serves the need, whether it came from one million $100 checks or one big $100M check doesn't really matter to the people that get helped. Anything beyond that is just people trying to use it to advance their own position, which ends up being a pretty petty response to take advantage of others hardship

 

[michaeledward]

I'm not surprised that the governments of more socialistic leaning countries would have a high per-capita donation; I'm neither surprised that a more conservative country would have a low per-capita donation bt the government, but a high donation level from citizens to private relief organizations.

It may be interesting to take a look at what the Scandinavian countries are giving from their governments ... and then also look at what they are donating from a personal level.

At this point, the problem I think, is that the huge influx of cash to the NGO's is being restricted to only work on the tsunami relief. This limits these charitable organizations from making choices on where the money is best spent.

m