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Originally Posted by jimbob
The assertion that Jan Egeland claimed 'Americans are "stingy"' is false. He was speaking the day after the Tsunami disaster, when countries were slow to appreciate the scale of the disaster and correspondingly slow in their relief efforts and donations. He said that countries giving less than 0.2% of GDP were stingy and expressed his belief that 'the people' thought governments should do more.
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I posted my feelings on Mr. Egeland's statements on how the people in those countries actually want MORE taxes on Page One of this thread. Unfortunately, I think that there is a logical construct that can be made using Egeland's statement. Logic statements were not always my strong point in high school, but let's see what happens...
STATEMENT: If the citizens of any nation give less than 0.2% of GDP to foreign assistance, then they are "stingy". The citizens of the United States give a total of 0.017% of GDP to foreign assistance. THEREFORE, the citizens of the United States are "stingy".
Egeland may not have mentioned the US by name, nor may he have even MEANT to imply that the US was a stingy nation, but by following the logic of his statement, one is left with only one conclusion - in Jan Egeland's personal viewpoint (or perhaps even the UN viewpoint, since he was speaking as a UN official), the US *IS* stingy.
Actual quote is here (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_egelund)
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Originally Posted by Jan Egeland
"Christmastime should remind many Western countries how rich we have become, and if actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income, I think that is stingy, really."
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