you oughta know
Around the globe, nations purchase weapons – chiefly from the United States – at the cost of about $1 million every minute; collectively, they spent about $800 billion on their militaries in 2002, compared to the $56 billion in development assistance to help the poor nations of the world.
In the United States, 35.9 million people live below the poverty threshold.
In Manhattan, the top fifth of income earners make 52 times more that the lowest fifth: $465,826 compared with $7,047 – the latter an income roughly equivalent to what one would find in Namibia.
The world’s wealthiest five hundred individuals have the same combined income as the world’s poorest 416 million people.
A cow in the European Union receives a daily government subsidy greater than what the world’s poor live on ($2.20 a day) and the American government paid more in farm subsidies to its twenty thousand cotton growers in 2005 ($4,7 billion) than the total amount of U.S. aid to Africa.
In 2000, 11.1 million children under the age of five died from preventable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, tetanus, whooping cough, and measles.
The AIDS epidemic has claimed about as many victims – almost forty million – as the Black Death in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century.
Five million people died of AIDS related illnesses in 2004.
The Caribbean is location of the world’s second-highest HIV infection rate; in 2000, half a million children in this part of the world died from AIDS, while another half-million became newly infected (primarily from mother-to-child transmissions).
Life expectancy in Swaziland is 34.4 years, and experts predict that by 2010 it will be 30 years. In Zimbabwe, the average is only 33.1 years, and in Zambia, 32.4 years.
The United States is the richest nation in the world, but is among the least generous donors to development assistance, giving only 0.16 of its gross domestic product.
The U.S. government donates only about $16 billion each year for development assistance, compared to the $450 billion that it appropriates for the military – or compared to the $11 billion Americans spend on their pets.
~ Just thought you should know.
In the United States, 35.9 million people live below the poverty threshold.
In Manhattan, the top fifth of income earners make 52 times more that the lowest fifth: $465,826 compared with $7,047 – the latter an income roughly equivalent to what one would find in Namibia.
The world’s wealthiest five hundred individuals have the same combined income as the world’s poorest 416 million people.
A cow in the European Union receives a daily government subsidy greater than what the world’s poor live on ($2.20 a day) and the American government paid more in farm subsidies to its twenty thousand cotton growers in 2005 ($4,7 billion) than the total amount of U.S. aid to Africa.
In 2000, 11.1 million children under the age of five died from preventable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, tetanus, whooping cough, and measles.
The AIDS epidemic has claimed about as many victims – almost forty million – as the Black Death in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century.
Five million people died of AIDS related illnesses in 2004.
The Caribbean is location of the world’s second-highest HIV infection rate; in 2000, half a million children in this part of the world died from AIDS, while another half-million became newly infected (primarily from mother-to-child transmissions).
Life expectancy in Swaziland is 34.4 years, and experts predict that by 2010 it will be 30 years. In Zimbabwe, the average is only 33.1 years, and in Zambia, 32.4 years.
The United States is the richest nation in the world, but is among the least generous donors to development assistance, giving only 0.16 of its gross domestic product.
The U.S. government donates only about $16 billion each year for development assistance, compared to the $450 billion that it appropriates for the military – or compared to the $11 billion Americans spend on their pets.
~ Just thought you should know.
posted by Jessica @ 11/02/2006
3 Comments:
At 8:28 AM,
Arya said…
Let me add another depressing statistic that reveals the profoundly unjust world we have built on this planet:
FACT: Obesity is the number one cause of death in the USA.
Reflection:
While Americans die of hunger, 3/4 of the rest of the world die of hunger...!
Arya.
At 12:06 PM,
Anonymous said…
Good observations.
I saw this on the bumper of a car once, obviously driven by a teacher:
"Someday, we'll have all the money we need in the US for education and the Air Force will have to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
At 2:32 PM,
Anonymous said…
Sort of indicts us Christians, don't you think? Your article begs the question, why is the U.S. government obligated to do anything more than its constitutional mandate of "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"? Somehow I don't think that by "general Welfare" that the founding fathers meant healthcare. And while I would never champion hunger, the poverty line in the US is defined by politicians and bureaucrats rather than any natural measure, and our "impoverished" are still far better off and richer than the truly poor of other countries.
Shouldn't the burden of charity and care for the poor rest on us Christians? Seems to me a certain messiah spelled that out for us about 2000 years ago ...
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