Because you have no intelligent response to my post. :1orglaugh

Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself.

You tell me what you believe makes the USA the world's most generous nation in the world, without resorting to total dollars given, which even you agreed was not an accurate measure.

...or is that all you got?

Show me some statistics, anything... ball's in your court, chump.

This is so good it deserves a repost;)

Okay 12th... we're doing better now. :1orglaugh

Dumb ass, it's not me that needs to 'redeem' himself, it's you.

I just showed you how your reasoning is flawed and that your analysis is producing two entirely different results yet you claim that BOTH are correct.

Now your only hope to win a debate is to throw out the one piece of information that actually matters to those who were affected by this situation to begin with, namely the 'total'.

If you remove the most relevant information and accept contradicting results as being valid then congratulations, you win whatever the fuck it is that that proves. :1orglaugh

From the LATimes article:

Nevertheless, Roodman said, "if you want a meaningful measure of how much countries are trying, you have to look at aid either per capita or as a share of GDP," which measures countries by their capacity to give.

But you yourself admitted that this was a meaningless statistic without allowing for population. You conceded that you could not fairly compare a country with 300 million people to a country of 6 million people by looking at total dollars given.

So which is it?

AMEN!

Thank you brother SilverTab!

OK, Joe Citizen did both. Both methods came up with different answers. Both methods contradict one another. Do you think they are both valid?

huh both method proved that US isnt the biggest donator....

you expected both to have the exact same result???

(I've figure it was useless to post in this thread like 2 pages ago...but I'm boosting my postcount here...)

Did you ever stop using numbers from 1997 to prove your point?

No you have not...

This thread has made me laugh more than any other thread in the past 2 years :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Well the US has to spend a lot of money on a few things almost every other country in the world doesn't really worry too much about. Something like 30% of our budget goes into our military and has since the 1940s. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars supporting that. After you factor that in there's a lot less of the pie to give out and we still give out a lot.

Now why does it matter if the US spends a ton on the military?

Well the last time we didn't spend much on the military was in the 1930's and that turned out real well when some German and Japanese Jackasses went on a friggen rampage.

Without the US diverting 1/3 of their tax dollars into their military europe would be speaking german.

In the 1950's through the 1980's there was only 1 reason that the USSR didn't trot through their asses right through the rest of Europe. Again the US. If not for the thread of us North Korea would own SE asia, China would have duked it out with India, and people would be spending $20/gallon for gas because the middle east would be slaughtering each other.

Now for example I realize Denmark requires mandatory service in the navy for all their male citizens but fear of rebuttal from the Danish armed forces is not exactly keeping anybody in check.

So my point is we give a lot of money to relief efforts for disasters that have already occured, just not as much per capita as others. HOWEVER we pay plenty per-capita maintaining armed forces that prevent much much much worse disasters from ocurring. Add those two numbers together and we're pretty damn generous.

One is a very simple calculation. Total amount given divided by the population of that nation. This is the per capita figure. Or amount given PER PERSON.

The other measures the generosity by looking at the total amount given as a proportion of that countries GDP, or $$$ earned in a year. This essentially looks at a country's ABILITY to give. That Nationmaster statistic expresses it in terms of dollars and cents given for each $100 of GDP.

Simple when you think about it.

Why is this thread still going?

huh try to read the LATimes article (I know i'm asking you a lot here...)

Numbers are from 2002-03

What? Please referance this post, I have said no such thing.

Because AlienQ is an idiot and I'm stubborn. :1orglaugh

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showpo...&postcount=175

Focus on the section that says: "No, I think there is no fair way to compare it."

To all of those who have read this thread from beginning to end, please cast your vote accordingly. :1orglaugh

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=510836

But they both PRODUCE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT RESULTS.

And if you think GDP indicates ability to give, you are not accounting for other important factors. GDP doesn't account for one nation having greater expenses than another, which would affect it's discretionary income for charity.

Page 5 - are you guys still arguing about the same thing you were on page 1 and 2? Check. Ok, I can skip reading the rest of this now.

Joe Citizen still has not grasped that Quality and quantity are not equal! :1orglaugh

Quality Citizens donating or Bottom Dollar Total?

LOL!

Thick and dumb, it must be hard to live like the shit stain does every day wondering why Quality does not matter when compared to a dollar.

No such thing as quality dollar. Its a fucken dollar!

THEY PRODUCE ENTIRELY DIFFERENT RESULTS BECAUSE THEY ARE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE SAME ISSUE... BUT THEY ARE BOTH ARE BETTER WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE ISSUE THAN SIMPLY LOOKING AT TOTAL $ GIVEN, WHICH DOES NOT ALLOW FOR POPULATION DIFFERENCES!

Seriously, I'm done with this thread now. You're gonna have to do your own research from here on in. Needless to say, I was proven right.

Sometimes I wonder what happens to you Americans in school. Maybe it's that retarded pledge they make you parrot from the first grade. That's some serious fucking brainwashing. No wonder you never question anything about America.

And in the end that will be your undoing.... but hey, that's life! :winkwink:

Joe Citizen out.

I can see how that might be confusing if you don't read it very carefully.

I don't think there is any way to compare generosity fairly - meaning considering what each contributor is starting with and their situation - given that those being compared are going to be in entirely different situations.

However if someone insists on trying to turn generosity into some type of a contest, then the total dollar amount would be a good way to compare it.

I can actually see how both points of view have some merit but that doesn't make for good GFY drama. Only black and white viewpoints fuel these type of threads, so I don't want to take the wind out of anyone's sails. Just stopping in and... exit... stage left :winkwink:

Why are they better, because they support your point? And any methods that don't suppport it are not right then? Total $ given doesn't matter in the issues of charity because population differences of the DONORS does?

LOL You are one fucking dense tool.

:1orglaugh

Thank you for a most amusing day.

Did you read the LATimes quote I posted above?? The quote is from David Roodman...

someone who actually has a clue
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pro120.html

you can see from his work that he did a bit more research on the subject than you did

again...
evertheless, Roodman said, "if you want a meaningful measure of how much countries are trying, you have to look at aid either per capita or as a share of GDP," which measures countries by their capacity to give.

Working papers

1. David Roodman, 2004. "An Index of Donor Performance," Development and Comp Systems 0412004, Economics Working Paper Archive at WUSTL. [Downloadable!]

2. David Roodman, 2004. "The Anarchy of Numbers: Aid, Development, and Cross-country Empirics," Development and Comp Systems 0412003, Economics Working Paper Archive at WUSTL. [Downloadable!]

3. William Easterly & Ross Levine & David Roodman, 2003. "New Data, New doubts: A Comment on Burnside and Dollar's "Aid, Policies, and Growth" (2000)," NBER Working Papers 9846, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]



---

Details about David Malin Roodman
E-mail: [email protected]
Homepage: http://www.cgdev.org/Experts/?Name=Roodman
Workplace: Center for Global Development (CGD), (more information at EDIRC)

but hey I guess you know better than him hmm?

oh it suddently went quiet in here LOL

Again, regardless of who he is, he is wrong. You don't need to know many specifics of what he's talking about to know that. Here's why:

If you're not going by an absolute measure like total dollar value (or so you don't get hung up on that then some other absolute value such as quickness of delivery, etc) then you're trying to measure it in relative terms.

If you're trying to measure it in relative terms then there are too many other factors to consider it properly. Gross domestic product being one, expenses being another (which he hasn't mentioned). Now should you consider population of the donors or not? Should you consider the other economic trends (recession, growth) of the donors or not? All these factors end up muddying up the results so much that even the two example methods this Roodman gave give two different results. :error

OK, I'm done here for the night.

400 :)

Yes, undoubtedly

I will never understand why people with zero knowledge to even attempt to make such posts. You don't even have the slightest clue. You probably don't even know enough American history to argue your own topic.

:ugone2far

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

argueing an economist...who did plenty of works on aid donations...Priceless..

sure maybe if you're talking about cars...

but you're talking about aid donations statistics LOL....


Well your donation per capita might not be that big but DAMN you're ego is huge hahaha

Because I was typing a response you arrogant ass.

If people who've written papers on economics impress you so easily, perhaps you should read some of Karl Marx's theories. Oh wait, he wrote a bunch of drivel that millions believed in and it still failed. But I suppose you think he's some kind of authority on what he was writing about. :1orglaugh

You sir are a very good man. :thumbsup

Homeless person on the streets of any town in the world scenario:

person 1 drops .25 in his cup
person 2 drops .50 in his cup
person 3 drops .75 in his cup
person 4 drops $1.00 in his cup
person 5 drops $5.00 in his cup

the homeless person dosn't give a fuck how much money any of those people make. he's thankful to all BUT PROBABLY THINKS the person that dropped $5.00 in his cup is the most generous.

Doesn't really matter what anyone thinks ... just the person getting the Aid

:2 cents:

hello we're not talking about Karl Markx here..but about an economist who did several papers on the subject we're argueing about now..

Let's see...I say per capita statistics play a role when you are talking about aid donation/country....you say it doesnt....I have an economist..(not a fucking philosopher) backing me up..an economist who happen to wrote several papers on that very matter...while you have....hmm well you're personal opinion...


ohhh sure the economist can be wrong..i'll still trust him over you ..sorry...(add to this the fact that I actually agree with what he says)

Not in Americas Case. They spit on us.

Sure... too bad the starving african only cares about food...and not about who paid for his rice...

but if you want to take your "person" example...an american would have dropped 1$ in his cup while a danish would've dropped 10$...

But hey..the starving african doesn't care about ALL that...if you explained it to him though, i'm sure he'd understand that the danish is more generous...and that overall, USA gives more money, because their population is bigger...

US National Debt

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 01 Sep 2005 at 07:02:04 AM GMT is:
7,941,745,303,925.55


The estimated population of the United States is 297,043,008
so each citizen's share of this debt is $26,736.01.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$1.68 billion per day since September 30, 2004!

So would he be more thankful for more money or "level of generosity"?