The good lord baby jesus in heaven knows I do not want to be insensitive to the issues surrounding ‘the tragedy’ as we’re now euphimistically calling it. And I, for one, could not care less what anyone does with their money at this time.
But
Holy Patrick Star, Spongebob! Aren’t we amassing a TON of cash here? Everywhere I turn, every building I walk into, every store, bank, restaurant is collecting money “for relief efforts”. I’ve counted about sixteen “firefighter funds” (one of which I donated to). Howard Stern has a fund for ‘rescue workers’, CBS has a fund. I went to the Bears Game and they were collecting money, I went to the Hawks Preseason game and THEY were collecting money. Chicago firefighters are out on the streetcorners collecting money. Tomorrow General Cinemas (I think) announced that a dollar of every concession sold will go to ‘relief efforts’. I personally know of six or seven people in my immediate friend group who have donated no less than $100 to something or other, not including blood.
So my question is, besides pensions for widows and children…what the H is this going to? (And I mean it literally) Are we supplying overtime salary for workers? Paying for equipment, housing? I mean, my God, it’s got to be over a billion raised by now…it HAS to be.
And really, wouldn’t the whole country be better off if at this point we saved our money and either:
a) put it back into the economy via the stock market or big ticket purchases
or
b) bought war bonds, which I heard are coming back.
I’m sorry if this question is deemed inappropriate, I’d just like to know where ALL of this cash is headed.
same thing here in Canada. Everybody seems to be collecting money for the ‘victims and their familes’. Everyone from Starbucks (which seems to have the same amount in there all the time) to little kids doing car washes this past weekend. how do they get the money to where its supposed to be?what is the money for? how much money is actually needed???
Jarbabyj, I doubt if a billion dollars in private donations have come in yet but even so a billion doesn’t buy what it used to. Thousands of families have lost a member, in most cases the breadwinner. I’d like to get a picture of this too but I think we’re a long way from doing all that needs to be done.
Well, and here’s where I may get flamed to high heaven…but I guess that’s my question: What needs to be done?
I don’t even know how to ask this without generating anger but: Are we paying for these families for…life? Like retirement? Or are we providing a supplemental income? College? Health Care? And didn’t the fire and police departments HAVE pension plans for their workers?
I understand that the magnitude and sudden influx of people who need help demands help from the public, but for instance, I see that the Firefighter Fund I donated to has raised $3.8 million. Red Cross $22 million and Salvation Army $1.6 million. Howard Stern announced this morning that he has over $1 million for firefighters and ems workers.
I just can’t help but wonder if people are tossing their money around because it makes them feel better (which is fine!), but if it could be put to better use.
This doesn’t answer your question, but I hope people would choose stuffing $5 into a fireman’s boot over buying another stupid teddy bear or bunch of wilting flowers to leave at a crash site.
As far as the Red Cross goes, I’m not sure each and every penny is going to New York. I suspect some stays in the local areas – I know that’s how it was with the blood drives.
Actually, this might be an interesting bit of research. Anyone up to checking on this?
I imagine that there are lots of hidden costs/losses in instances like this. Imagine that some lady’s husband works on the 103 floor of tower 1 and hasn’t been heard from since a cell phone call last Tuesday morning. We (and she) know his fate, but that doesn’t mean much for Mr. Landlord. See, our lady has quite the rent on her Tribeca flat and she and hubby were barely making it. Once his life insurance kicks in, she’ll probably be alright for a while, but until then…
Let’s add in that the insurance company won’t release benefits until there is a death certificate. There won’t be a death certificate until there is a body. There won’t be a body possibly for weeks (if ever.)
Let’s make it a bit worse… Some group term policies have little clauses making the company not liable (doesn’t have to pay) in certain instances which include but are not limited to… “terrorist actions”.
A lot of the victim relief money is to help along these lines. So, when our lady finally gets her late hubby’s policy benefit, does she pay back what she was given? Probably not, but that’s not why we gave, was it?
Call me a cynic but I’m sure a lot of people are making a lot of money by taking cuts of the donations as “service fees” and just plain old skimming. Add to that all the money that will stay in the area instead of actually going to NYC or DC and I’d bet a fair bit of what people donate isn’t going where they think it is. But overall, I agree…I can’t see where all this money is going. We’ll never know the truth though…I can guarantee that.
The wording on the Red Cross announcements has changed recently. Before, the wording was something about the recent disaster. Now the messages read, “this and other disasters.” I am sure the Red Cross will have many more opportunities to do their good works. Tornados and hurricanes never fail to return. I think the ads are classy.
Apricot
I know that the NY firefighter’s fund for families of deceased firefighters (can’t remember the name) has announced that if it had to pay out to all of the people who now need and are eligible for funds, they’d go bankrupt by December. The largest number of NY firefighters that ever died in one fire before this was, IIRC, 12, in the sixties.
However, when a friend of mine committed suicide several years ago:
It took several months for insurance to kick in (and that’s where they had a body and cause of death etc. w/o the 'terrorist action thing),
the widow’s burden of bills went up vs. down in the time period immediately afterward (bills were about the same, but included the funeral, the clean up of the car he was in :mad: and the bad check he wrote to K-mart for the gun he used :mad: ) while her income went seriously down (no $$ from him of course, and she was off work for a while).
IN addition, there’s level of devestation that’s pretty difficult to comprehend - your entire life’s belongings gone (for those who lived close by).
For those who worked in the towers and remain alive - they don’t have a place to work therefore probably no income.
for those who lived nearby - they suddenly are homeless, may have less income. etc. Saw an article about some guy who worked at J Crew, lost all of his belongings, is living at a homeless shelter etc.
Think about what /how you would manage if suddenly you couldn’t go home (and didn’t know what would be left and when you could). Eating out every day costs much more etc.
thanks wring and all. I just want to emphasize again, because I almost didn’t post this question due to sensitivities…I’m not begrudging anyone anything, and I don’t want that to be the prevailing thing you’re thinking of me.
I just wanted to know if there will ever be a time when someone (ala the bloodbanks) will stand up and say “OK, thanks…we’ve got it covered”. I heard today that to date $500 million has been raised (my ‘cite’ is talk radio commentary) and that doesn’t even count the telethon earnings.
And I guess I didn’t understand we were providing money for EVERYONE’S family in the WTC, not just fire and police workers.
And I do wonder if all of us took $1,000 and invested it in the economy or stock market, how much more helpful that would be.
Speaking of the telethon…are there any numbers on how much money that supposedly made? I keep seeing figures for how many people were watching, but not pledges. I have a sinking feeling 90% of the people calling in were just yelling to their roommates: “DUDE! I am TOTALLY talking to Halle Berry!”
Speaking of the telethon, I was just exercising in front of the television when I heard on Entertainment Tonight that “Joan Rivers pulled out of the telethon when she learned that the money will not directly go to the victims of the NYC attack.”
I just checked http://www.tributetoheroes.org to see if there’s a total posted for the telethon - there isn’t (although $230-240 million has been mentioned in the press here a few times).
The site does state, however, that the funds are to be administered by The United Way and are to help “the thousands and thousands of victims and their families who have suffered from this heinous assault on humanity.”
I recall a couple of corporate donations being announced the day of the disaster which were specifically targeted towards the rescue effort, and as Red Cross was quoted at one stage as serving 50,000 meals in a day (something no organisation can maintain for any length of time without additional funds), I suspect there are costs involved keeping rescue workers and other personnel at the WTC sites which we haven’t even considered, and which will be met out of “the relief effort”
CARE Australia had an ad in one of the weekend newspapers soliciting donations for CARE USA, so that material aid can be provided where necessary.
My guess is that once the totals are in, some big multi-agency group will be formed to oversee the distribution of funds.
The Gossip Column at http://www.salon.com reports that Joan actually dropped out of the all-star recording of “We Are Family,” not because she can’t sing worth a lick, but because the proceeds will be going to a racial unity charity and not am immediately-related-to-the-WTC-disaster one.
The telethon money is indeed going to such charities.
What about all the con-artist spammers that are pretending to be raising money for the victims? Can we get a quick constitutional amendment to allow us to use them for medical experiments?
We’re also going to have to start banning the word “tragedy” from the media. There’s always a recent tragedy of some kind and to use such a generic term diminishes them all. Let’s call them “the Columbine School shootings”, “the terrorist attacks on the WTC and Pentagon” or whatever they actually were, lest they start sounding like bad movie sequels ; ‘The Tragedy XXV’, coming soon on cnn.