Tim commented briefly on the recent debacle caused by Jan Egeland of the UN saying that rich western nations where ‘stingy’ in regards to foreign aid. US officials got rather angry about it, and maybe rightfully so as the statistics for foreign aid that Egeland based his comments on do not include military aid for instance, an area where the US currently shoulders a bigger piece of the cost pie than other nations. Or that US citizens, due to the US culture of more things done in the private sector, might be making more private contributions than their European counterparts (no idea if this is true or not).

Sadly enough I found that
Nagsios who seems the be the head of US aid didn’t mention these items as the reasons for criticizing Egeland’s comments; instead he basically
says that the US is to rich and are growing even richer so fast that they can’t be expected to give as high a percentage as other wealthy countries (see two last parahraphs in linked article). In most circumstances great wealth is considered a reason to do more to help the less fortunate and not a reason to do less, but I guess my thinking is stuck in a pre-bush era or something.