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[moonraven]

Published on Monday, January 10, 2005 by the Seattle Times
Are Americans Generous?
by Neal Peirce

After a slow official U.S. response to one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, our government's assistance to victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami seems to be catching up with the wave of private contributions by Americans, many made instinctively and rapidly over the Internet.

"We're a generous, kindhearted nation," proclaimed President Bush, shaking off critics who had noted the $35 million Washington initially offered was no more than we spend in seven hours of military operations in Iraq.

Still, the tsunami raises interesting questions about Americans' generosity. Especially: Are we great at short-term disaster aid, but off the mark when it comes to thoughtful long-term assistance that helps people "at home and abroad" build self-sufficient lives that translate into economic and political security?

Foreign economic assistance represents a minuscule percentage of the U.S. federal budget. In recent years, the European Union has been far ahead of the U.S. in aid for developing nations.

At home, we do have a level of private giving that no other part of the world even comes close to equaling, with 89 percent of American households contributing to charities or religious institutions, the Independent Sector, which tracks philanthropic giving, reports.

But the stark fact, labor economist Sam Pizzigati points out in his new book, "Greed and Good," is that income disparity between classes of Americans has soared to heights reminiscent of the post-Civil War Gilded Age when "robber barons" of steel and rail and oil squeezed gargantuan fortunes out of workers and consumers alike.

During the 1990s, average worker pay barely outpaced inflation. But the most affluent 5 percent of families saw their incomes rise 111 percent. The inflation-adjusted incomes of the very top 1 percent increased 184 percent, from $454,200 in 1979 to $1,290,800 in 2000.

Corporate CEOs saw their pay soar 571 percent in the '90s, to a $10 million-plus average. An average worker would have to labor centuries, and in extreme cases a millennium, to equal what some of these plutocrats cart home in a year.

Yet, our tax codes are packed with special breaks for the affluent, and the Bush-era tax cuts are enriching them even more. Contrast that with the fate of a minimum-wage worker, paid $3.35 hourly in 1981, $5.15 since 1997. That is well below the poverty level, and too little, in most regions, to afford even a modest apartment. (Washington's minimum wage is $7.35, the highest in the nation.)

Do mega-chasms in income make a difference? Yes, asserts Pizzigati: "the greater the greed, ... the greater the strain on the bonds that make societies good, communities human." Deep income division is "the root of what ails us as a nation, a social cancer that coarsens our culture, endangers our economy, distorts our democracy, even limits our lifespans."

Highly paid executives, for example, tend to focus on short-term corporate profits that will enrich their stock options, shortchanging long-term R&D that could keep the U.S. competitive in a fast-shifting global economy.

The rich and super-rich move into mansions and gated communities, losing touch with the "commons" of everyday life, ceding a bit of their humanity in the process. Stingy politics punishes the poor, children most alarmingly, denying, for example, government aid for early childhood care and basic health services. In 2000, 9.8 percent of French children lived in poverty; in the Netherlands, 8.4 percent; in Sweden, 3.7 percent. But in the United States, 26.3 percent of children were growing up in poverty.

The tragedy is that 50 years ago we made such radically better decisions. We invested in people. We democratized higher education with the GI Bill. We used federally guaranteed loans to open housing opportunities to an expanding middle class. We put vast public wealth into infrastructure, from schools to cyclotrons to interstate highways. In the 1960s, we launched a war on poverty. Through these policies we boosted our productivity dramatically, cementing our position as global economic leader.

So how do we now become, in fact as well as fiction, the "generous, kindhearted nation" the president claims we are? For starters, we could make a bold maneuver to tame our extreme income differentials. Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., has authored an Income Equity Act to do just that. The highest and lowest pay in a corporation would be linked. Any executive compensation package (stock options included) that's worth more than 25 times the pay of the firm's lowest-paid worker would no longer be a tax-deductible corporate expense.

With Sabo's bill, CEOs would actually have an incentive to raise wages of their lowest-paid employees. Generosity would benefit them personally � a metaphor for how we Americans now need to see the entire world.

Neal Peirce's column appears alternate Mondays on editorial pages of The Times.

[Nagoyaguy]

[moonraven]

Nagoyaguy now wants to censor an article from The Seattle Times--a CONSERVATIVE newspaper--that was posted on this forum because it disagrees with his opinion.

He then indicates: "This article has little to do with disaster relief and a lot to do with social engineering."

Oh? In what sense? Is there any meaning in his statement? Where is that meaning? And where are the facts to back up his opinion?

His final comment is classic in its propagandistic aims: "Plus, dont forget that the US fronts a huge portion of the United Nations operating buget and various programmes."

Sounds great, but the facts indicate otherwise, as the US owed the UN as of Nov. 30, 2004 exactly $1,168,000--37% of total owed by ALL UN member countries. The UN has been limping and whimpering for years because of the US' failure to pay--and the US has used its debt as a hammer over the organization by threatening not to pay if its bidding is not done.

[jpvanderwerf2001]

moonraven, I never had you as much of a copy-and-paster; that's jeddahracist territory, and you're above that.

Also, the Times might be conservative, but this was written by a columnist . (Of course, as you've stated before, you think The Economist is conservative, so what isn't conservative?) I mean, even my Minneapolis StarTrib has its conservative columnists.

IMO, anyone who doesn't believe the US is generous has their head in the sand. Perhaps what the US should do is just isolate itself totally and see what countries crumble without its aid. (Not saying it should, but what would happen if it did?)

[moonraven]

It is my perfect right to put a relevant article from one of my hometown papers on this forum if I feel like it. I don't see that anyone forced you to read it.

You apparently misunderstood my allusion to CONSERVATIVE. The person to whom my comment was directed is apparently much further to the right than a CONSERVATIVE position, given that he didn't agree with it.

If the US stopped with the maority of its aid, it would be a blessing for other countries, given that US aid ALWAYS comes with strings attached--usually to the barrel of a rifle.

[Glenski]

Personally, I found it hard to follow the article. Maybe I'm stupid.

The title suggests that it will discuss American government or American individuals' generosity, but it never really reaches that point. It starts out that way, tangents into an excerpt from a book talking about wages in America, then falls on its face with a weak nondescript ending fairly unrelated to the title.

If this was a high school report, I'd give it a B minus.

moonraven,
Have you posted this in the long thread on US stinginess? If not, why start a perfectly new thread on such a similar topic?

[Nagoyaguy]

Moonie, of course the US owes the UN money. If you dig a little about it, you would see that the reason is that the US and UN are in a dispute over how much 'credit' the US gets for various peacekeeping efforts done in the UN name. You see, countries that contribute to peacekeeping get a break on their dues to be a member. As a result, until the dispute is settled, the US is withholding a portion of the dues. The US spent between 11 and 15 Billion dollars on UN peacekeeping in the past 10 years or so, much of which has not been credited properly (according to the US). This is the root of the dispute. It isnt so simple as you would like it to be.

Doesnt the fact that ONE COUNTRY has to pay so much to the organization tell you something? That perhaps the burden should be distributed a little more?

I am surprised that you consider the position of the writer in the original article to be a conservative one. He is calling for mandatory salary caps on company executives- hardly conservative in my view.

[moonraven]

Most things are not as simple as some of us would like them to be. I took my figures from the most current UN spreadsheet. If you want to argue that it's a lie--do so with someone else.

As for your erudite commentary:

Nagoyaguy wrote to Moonraven:

"You are an idiot."

I believe that you have been warned about using abusive language on this forum. I personally, will accept no further outbursts of this sort.

[Twisting in the Wind]

I think MR's original question, couched in the article, is very interesting.

Are Americans generous?

I would broaden that to include "Westerners."

Are Westerners generous?

Are we, as mostly white people (maybe I'm mistaken here, and if I am I don't mean to be) generous here?

"Hotel Rwanda" is a popular movie in the States now. I think that's a little lugubrious, given that when the original stuff was going on, hundreds of thousands of people were dying in Africa.

BUT, POINT STILL TAKEN: WE GIVE AID MONEY TO WHITE AND THEN ASIAN PEOPLE IN THAT ORDER.

BUT WHERE AFRICAN PEOPLE ARE, WE DON'T GIVE A WHIT!!!!!!

That's wrong! That's immoral!

Am I the only white person who thinks about that in moral terms? I think that's wrong. But there's nothing I as one person can do about it. Is there something we can do as TEFLers about it? AS world citizens? Would appreciate any feedback anyone can give me on that (No b**it, please, as I recognize myself as a world citizen) and all of us, white, Asian, black, live on a very small, fragile sphere and we need to conserve our planet and speak out when crimes like that happen in Rwanda. Maybe we're only TEFLers, but maybe if we get started and start to do something, we can change things...who knows????

[Sheep-Goats]

[Alitas]

Moonraven, I crown you the Queen of Retorts.

Now as for my own personal, unthought-out and unconscious opinion...America is FULL of philanthropists. You make a lot, you spend a lot, you give a lot.

[Nagoyaguy]

[Atlas]

wow Alitas, you're like pretty and stuff.


Are Americans generous? If you are talking about girth I say hell yes!

[Atlas]

wow Alitas, you're like pretty and stuff.


Are Americans generous? If you are talking about girth I say hell yes!


Yes I am being redundant

[Sweetsee]

Yes, they are.