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More than 100 countries have endorsed a campaign to raise an additional $US50 billion ($71 billion) a year in development aid to combat global hunger, but the United States has poured cold water on the project.
Originally posted by AceOfBase
The problem the Bush administration had with it is probably because the money would be raised through a global tax and it includes a tax on arms sales:
These included a global tax on financial transactions, a tax on the sale of heavy arms, an international borrowing facility and a credit cards scheme that would direct a small percentage of transaction charges to the cause.
Originally posted by specialasianX
I agree the fact that the taxes would throw the USA off, especially since it probably does the most financial transactions and buys the most heavy weapons, and uses the most credit cards... but i think its a small price to pay to make sure that everyone in the world has suffcient food to eat.
USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP is already lowest of any industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically in the last three years, their dollar amount has been the highest.
Commenting on the change in aid trends in 2001, the OECD noted that:
Most of the United States' increase in 2001 was due to a $600 million disbursement to Pakistan for economic support in the September 11 aftermath.�
�Japan's ODA fell by nearly $4 billion. A key factor accounting for this was a 12.7 per cent depreciation of the Yen, which fell from 108 yen to the dollar in 2000 to 122 in 2001. Other factors included the timing of Japan's disbursements to multilateral organisations and loan repayments from Asian countries that have recovered from the Asian financial crisis. In real terms, Japan's ODA fell by 18 per cent.�
Commenting on the increase in overall aid in 2002 (by just 5%), the OCED commented amongst other things that:
�The United States increased its ODA by 11.6% in real terms in 2002 ... mainly due to additional and emergency funds in response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks as well as new aid initiatives, especially in relation to health and humanitarian aid.�
�Japan's ODA fell slightly by 1.8% in real terms in 2002. Most of the fall ... was because the Yen depreciated against the US dollar.�
Bangladesh: Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998, has argued convincingly that famines in the Third World are not caused by actual food shortages but by institutional failure. For example, he has demonstrated that the Bangladesh famine of 1974 "occurred in a year of greater food availability per head than in any other year between 1971 and 1976." But the government dominates the buying and processing of jute, the major cash crop, so that farmers receive less for their efforts than they would in a free market. Impoverished farmers flee to the city, but the government owns 40 percent of industry and regulates the rest with price controls, high taxes and unpublished rules administered by a huge, corrupt, foreign-aid dependent bureaucracy. Jobs are hard to find and poverty is rampant. This crowding leads to problems such as sporadic or inefficient food distribution, but this problem is caused by that country's flawed domestic policies.
Ethiopia: The Ethiopian government caused it by confiscating the food stocks of traders and farmers and exporting them to buy arms. That country's leftist regime caused the tragedy.
Originally posted by specialasianX
Fair enough the USA already has aid programs in place, but so do most other countries. If the rest of the world backthis initiative do you really think the USA could refuse to? Does anyone have on hand the percentage of its budget the US puts towards aid? I know the UN suggests 0.7% of a countries total budget should be allocated to aid.
I agree the fact that the taxes would throw the USA off, especially since it probably does the most financial transactions and buys the most heavy weapons, and uses the most credit cards... but i think its a small price to pay to make sure that everyone in the world has suffcient food to eat.