Including both governmental and private, how much manpower, equipment and money has been donated so far? Does anyone have any idea or is that way too vague to figure out? I know that countries like the US, Japan, Australia and some European countries have already pledged about $100 million between them, and I know alot of countries are sending in teams of experts as well as millions worth of supplies but is the private sector playing a major role too?
Cripes, dude, they don’t even have an accurate body count yet, and you want somebody to process the time sheets???
According to a NY Times Editorial this morning - 12/30 - Are We Stingy? Yes, Bush had Powell hold a press conference in which he announced the US would contribute all of $15 million. When shrieks of dissaproval went up Bush upped the ante to $35 million which is still far, far below our fair share. Considering the depth and breadth of the castrophe, we should be contributing billions.
(Incidentally, 15 million bucks, according to the Times is “…less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush Inaugural festivites.”)
Bush said the $35 milion is only the beginning. Well let’s hope so. We have a history of promising aid and then failing to deliver.
Antiochus, if you’d like to pit President Bush for his efforts, to date, please take it to The Pit. If you’d like to discuss the initial declarations as insufficient, take it to GD or IMHO.
Please do not attempt to turn this General Question into a political rant.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
I apologize, if it seemed I was pitting Bush.
But mostly, all I did is quote the Times.
Fact is $15 million - even $35 million - is absurdly inadequate. Compare it to what others are donating and it is nothing less than mortifying.
And the US really does have a history of breaking promises of financial aid. Please read the editorial.
On Foxnews they said it was $270 million so far in international aid. I assume that personal charity and corporate charity will add many millions more. Plus there is also the fact that many countries are loaning equipment and scientific expertise to the area (which is invaluable too). The US navy for example, whose ships are capable of processing and purifying drinking water, they are moving to the area to help provide millions of gallons of drinking water. Germany donated a variety of water purification machines as well.
All in all this is admirable that the world responds this way to a threat that doesn’t even affect most of the nations that are helping, and this beats the hell out of Darfur and Rwanda where everyone just sat on their hands.
$35 million, yeah it seems small esp. considering that countries like Australia, Japan and the UK are giving about the same amount even though their economies are 2-6x smaller, and Spain is giving $70 million or so. But even so, $35 million is alot better than $0 which is what alot of countries are giving to help out and it still beats the hell out of the old days when nobody gave a shit.
Yehaw. THis morning FoxNews said $270 million had been donated, now in the afternoon Kofi Annan says its up to $500 million. Hopefully combined with all the military, medical and disaster training and equipment that is getting loaned out and given away that will make a major change.
Yesterday the head of the Federal agency that handles disaster relief was interviewed. Right now the agency has 20 (soon to be 40) agents in the field assessing what needs there are to be met. We can’t just throw money out there somewhere and hope it does some good. He also mentioned the fact that the dead bodies are not what will cause health problems. If they had died because of something like the plague then there would be a threat of disease, but of course that is not why they died. The problem is with sewage getting into the water supply.
We have sent 16 ships that can process fresh water, which I’m sure is not counted in the $35 million.
Our government supplied 40% of the relief funds donated this last year from all countries. That figure showing we were at .14% and Norway was over .9% is an example of using figures in a way to prove a point. For one thing it did not include our food donations.
The UN offical from Norway that made that famoous statement included a reference to taxes. The fact is that Norway has very high taxes and therefore the government does most of the giving. His idea is that we should raise taxes so our government can give more. The fact is that private giving in the US is extremely high. Yesterday, I heard that Richmond, VA had already collected $300,000 and their phones were still ringing off their hooks. If Richmond is doing that much think of what the figure must be nationwide.
With all the misery caused by this disaster I can’t believe all this political bickering about how much relief is being supplied. The best thing to do is find a good charity and donate some money.
[sup]disclaimer - My only sources come from what I’ve heard on the news. I didn’t get any collaborating sources before passing it along.[/sup]
FWIW the UK made an initial commitment of GBP15M(illion) which has just been increased to GBP50M.
Private contributions in the UK to a disaster appeal (additional to government aid) are currently in excess of GBP25M, and the 20 teams in the Premier League have just pledged GBP50,000 each.
That’s roughly GBP1.25 a head.
It doesn’t sound much - I think we could do better.
I couldn’t help but laugh (in horror?) when I heard about $15M in aid. They do a news story about soooo many dead, and mass destruction, then follow it with, “the US is pledging 15 million…” My reaction was, “I’m sorry did they say million with an M?” Might as well have said 15 thousand… I can’t imagine what the final price will be, but 15 million is hardly gonna scratch the surface.
I don’t mean to give that number any cred. As has been pointed out, there is a lot not included in that, and it is a little early to say any kind of total. I have to wonder why they ever tossed that number out in the first place.
And not to make it too political, but in my eyes, any world events and their respective pricetags (to the USA) will be forever compared to $300+ billion to choose to invade a country that did not pose a threat. If we can afford that, what can’t we afford?
Bush has been criticized for not speaking sooner and you say he shouldn’t have said anything about how much we had committed. Should he have lied and made it a larger figure? If Bush waited too long, why did Kofi Annan wait until today to speak on the issue (and that isn’t a knock against him)? I think this comes down to the public wanting to know something before it needs to be done.
I saw Hilary Benn (UK Secreatry of State for International Development, i.e. in charge of this stuff) interviewed very early on - and his attitude was ‘money is no object’ (his actual words), but he firmly stated that it would be irresponsible to state absurd figures before any information is available about what needs to be funded.
On the other hand, the public donations seem to have surprised everyone - the UK govt. interim contribution got raised to £50m soon after the public donations had outstripped their earlier figure. But it could easily descend into a “whose is bigger” contest, without paying attention to where the money needs to go - has any other natural disaster in history ever affected people across such a large geographic area?
GorillaMan has hit it on the nose.
If any of us are worried about who is giving what and why, the best thing to do is pick up the phone and donate.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20041230/wl_nm/quake_aid_dc
According to that it doesn’t really matter since those affected are cut off from everyone else and they are having trouble getting to them. They’d need to fix that otherwise the aid will not help anything.
If my contribution pays for fuel for a bulldozer to clear a road, or for landing fees for a charter flight, or for a taxi taking volunteers to the airport in this country, it’s still money gone towards the cause. Of course not every penny buys new housing, or drugs, or whatever.
Yeah I know, about 80%+ goes to help and the other 20% goes to overhead. However it seems like all the aid may just rot in warehouses unless they figure out a method of distributing it.
a great in-depth wikipedia article.
When hurricane Andrew hit south Florida, all of the major aid agencies scrambled to help, with the result that a lot didn’t get done, and a lot of perishable supplies were lost. Afterward, they all got together (i.e. FEMA, ARC, Salvation Army, plus others) and came up with a new cooperative plan. I can only hope that that planning philosophy was available for anyone to read. I cannot imagine the logistics needed to help such a large area. If you break it down by country, it becomes more manageable, but then you have to hope that each country has some sort of mass disaster plan worked out. I’ve started studying ICS (Incident Command System) from FEMA which helps me understand how disasters can be managed.
Vlad/Igor
watch the news dude. I’m sure it’ll be much more accurate and up-to-date and faster than sitting in front of the computer waiting for people to post messsages on here.
Apparently this has now risen to GBP50M - not bad in two days.