U.S. debt 14, 460, 000, 000, 000 dollars (as of June 2011)

[MTAtech]

Mom always advised not to argue with a crazy person. It was good advice.

[BigJon3475]

Come into the fast lane!

Your brain is going to have to adjust.

[Grim Reader]

Originally Posted by Rick Roma

I'm talking bottom line dollars- not per capita. Nice try though.

Actually, what you said was:

Originally Posted by Rick Roma

The U.S. provides more foreign aid than the rest of the countries in the world combined. Is this fair to the citizens of the U.S.?

We've seen that the US provides less foreign aid than the EU, and is barely ahead of some of the single countries (despite the much larger population).

It is quite clear that the US does not provide more aid than "the rest of the countries of the world together".

I'd say nice try, but that would not be truthful.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Grim Reader

Per capita, the US donations are somewhat less than Ireland and Finland:



If we multiply this up by the total population, the US does squeak out a win, by a very tiny margin. As long as the EU is considered as separate countries, as a block the EU donates almost twice as much as the US.

Top Ten Doners Of Foreigner Aid Map

Barely ahead of Japan. Notice that Norway, with 5 million people still donate more than 1/10 of what the 300 milion people of the US does.

America is not a particularily generous donor, and certainly does not donate "more than everyone else put together"

I don't like using Wikipedia as source but it's such vast difference than what that map shows..........

United States foreign aid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Total economic and military assistance: $44.9 billion
Total military assistance: $11 billion
Total economic assistance: $33.9 billion of which,
USAID assistance: $11.7 billion

Private donations even exceed what is listed on that map:

Aid from private sources in the U.S. in 2007 was probably somewhere in the 10 to 30 billion dollar range. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that net private grants from the U.S. to developing countries totaled $12.2 billion that year.[2] A private think-tank, the Hudson Institute, gave the following figures for U.S. private assistance for 2004:
Hudson Institute Data

U.S. Private Assistance: $24.2 billion
of which, contributions from:

Foundations: $3.4 billion
Private and Voluntary Organisations (eg., NGOs): $9.7 billion
Universities and Colleges: $1.7 billion
Religious Organizations: $4.5 billion
Corporations: $4.9 billion[3]

Then we can start on UN, the US contributes 22% of it's budget.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by Venezuelan

Is the U.S. really independent? (Oil dependency + Biggest debtor nation)

You realize the US has a vast amount of untapped resources? We're easily the most independent nation where potential is concerned. We could for example meet power and diesel needs with coal alone for the next century. Diesel derived from coal comes in around a $40 or $50 barrel and with more than 1/4 of the worlds know coal reserves it's vast resource.

There is other resources like the trillion barrels, that's trillion with a T, in the Green river formation.

These resources are not exploited because of the volatile oil market but as prices rise and stabilize at higher amounts they will come into play.

Here's a question for you, what is Venezuela going to do to support the economy when they have no oil left? Will there be rioting in the streets when people have to pay more than a few cents for gallon of gasoline? You're country is walking a tight rope and when the oil runs out your toast.

[BigJon3475]

Originally Posted by MTAtech

Mom always advised not to argue with a crazy person. It was good advice.

http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf (broken link)

But remember, in this assessment, at least IMO, their idea of the population growth is underestimated.

Population: 6,928,198,253 (July 2011 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.092% (2011 est.)

The more you look at it the more likely it looks like one of the worst case scenarios are likely to happen. That report isn't factoring in the massive amount of money Obama has inflicted upon this nation either. I'm sure that he saw a much more detailed report than this so why he picked the path to an even worse position globally is beyond me.

But then again he did say he wanted to "fundamentally transform America" and that he wanted to be a transformational president.

[monkeywrenching]

that is the funded debt. if you add in the unfunded debt that number is well over $100,000,000,000,000.00 or over $100 trillion. that number will never be paid off thanks to both the democrats and republicans.