I don’t blog much these days; I don’t have the time. But this is worth writing about.

Everyone donated money when a tsunami hit southeast Asia; it was almost as if giving money was the “in thing”. I remember people comparing the size of their donations, sort of like you brag about how expensive your car was.

Where is everyone’s generosity now? For the tsunami, worldwide donations numbered in the billions of dollars; the UN is asking for only $550mn to cope with this tragedy. It’s not like the Internet doesn’t make donating really easy. But they still aren’t getting the money they need.

I did a few notes, because I wanted to know how much it would really take for Americans to provide the estimated $550mn needed for relief efforts. The results nearly made me cry:

GDP: $11750000000000
Population: 295734134
Labor force: 147400000
Employed labor force: 139293000

Donation target: $550000000

0.004681% of GDP
$1.86 per citizen
$3.95 per working citizen

$3.95 per working citizen. I’m no economist and I’m sure these numbers aren’t totally accurate, but it’s a ballpark figure, and that’s enough.

(For those who want to see how I got there, the code is available at http://moxn.net/~mesozoic/pakistan_quake.py. If you find any problems with the math, let me know; I’d rather be correct than be uncorrected.)

I don’t believe, for one second, that every single working citizen in this country couldn’t give up $4. The fact that our country alone has not provided the UN with the relief money it needs is, well, simply pathetic.