The US is extremely rich, but the money is not necessarily in the government. Our GDP is twice that of the next closest nation (China), but I think a lot of the cash is in the hands of very very few people. Think of how many actors and business leaders and CEO's are worth obscene amounts of cash. Sure, they are all over the news all the time, but in proportion to the rest of the country, we're talking about less than 1% of the US population. Together they could probably pay off the national debt a few times over, but I don't think they ever would. I wouldn't were I that rich. I've seen how the government handles cash.
A note about the giving: the one thing that other nations are not taking into account with their aid calculations is the individual contributions. In a lot of European countries, they are taxed significantly higher then we are giving their governments more cash to play with (and they get things like universal healthcare and good education systems in return). The average US citizen isn't taxed as much, so we have more personal wealth. I think the majority of US aid is going to come from people on their computers clicking the 'donate with paypal now!' buttons. How you track that I have no idea, but I bet it will be significant.
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Date: 2004-12-30 06:00 pm (UTC)A note about the giving: the one thing that other nations are not taking into account with their aid calculations is the individual contributions. In a lot of European countries, they are taxed significantly higher then we are giving their governments more cash to play with (and they get things like universal healthcare and good education systems in return). The average US citizen isn't taxed as much, so we have more personal wealth. I think the majority of US aid is going to come from people on their computers clicking the 'donate with paypal now!' buttons. How you track that I have no idea, but I bet it will be significant.