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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Using tax money to feed hung - (nf)
Message-ID: <1003@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Mar-84 23:54:03 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1003
Posted: Tue Mar  6 23:54:03 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Mar-84 09:11:01 EST
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#R:watmath:-704600:inmet:7800067:000:1893
inmet!nrh    Mar  5 13:56:00 1984

	***** inmet:net.politics / watmath!saquigley /  8:57 pm  Feb 29, 1984
	I do not have any figures to substantiate the following claim,
	so I would appreciate it greatly if anybody could supply some.
	My understanding of foreign aid is that the US gets more money
	back from the governments it is "helping" than the original
	amount of money given to these countries in the form of "aid".
	If this is so, arguing about whether your tax money should go
	to "charities" is simply ridiculous, since "aid" can simply be
	considered as an investment of the taxpayers' money by the
	state, and not as money that is thrown away never to be seen
	again.

				Sophie Quigley
				watmath!saquigley
	----------

It's still charity -- even without figures, it's obvious that giving money
as aid might not be the best "investment" possible, and therefore you're
asking people with money to forego profits that are larger.  You may see
it as merely lower profits.  They see it as cost due to lost opportunity.
Andrew Carnegie, I think, once remarked that one should not feel
uncomfortable asking another to give to charity, any more than one should
feel uncomfortable giving another person a good stock tip.  If it really
WERE a good investment, you'd find people lining up to "buy in".

With figures: (the handy ol' argument-busting 1984 World Almanac comes out!):
Western Europe was the only net-return -- a total balance of $ -468 million.
All other major regions were net losses to the US, with a total worldwide
balance of $10,832,000,000.  Military aid comes to $1,399,000,000.
subtracting, you've still got a net loss of about 9 billion.
You may still have a point, of course -- one can argue that the money spent
in Europe is only now maturing, but I don't buy it  might be worth looking
up!   I'd certainly love to invest in a scheme that resulted in feeding
the hungry while making me richer.....