The Cost of Humanitarianism Is Minimal

The UN Is requesting $22.5bn for humanitarian aid

The United Nations needs a record $22.2bn to cover humanitarian relief projects next year, covering the needs of 93 million people in 33 countries, UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said on Monday.

"This is a reflection of a state of humanitarian need in the world not witnessed since the second world war," he told a news conference, adding that 80 percent of the needs stemmed from man-made conflicts, such as those in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria and South Sudan.

It sounds a lot, but let's put that into perspective

That's around $240 per person in desperate need.

Or another way of looking at it

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

The price tag for all of these benefits, however, is nearly $400 billion for 2,457 planes -- almost twice the initial estimate. To maintain and operate the JSF program over the course of its lifetime, the Pentagon will invest nearly $1 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Invest? WTF? That's not the bloody word I would have chosen.

That's equivalent to 17 to 43 years of humanitarian aid to fund just one of the causes for needing humanitarian aid in the first place.

The world spends around $1,500bn/y on its various militaries of which the US alone spends around half.

This of course does not include the cost of the carnage and damage caused by this expenditure.

Yet another way of putting these figures into context

Tax avoidance

Studies show that the costs of tax avoidance have a disproportionately large affect on developing economies, and one often-cited Global Financial Integrity estimate puts the price at close to $100bn per year in lost revenue. Another report, compiled by Christian Aid in 2008, entitled Death and Taxes: The True Toll of Tax Dodging, puts the same figure at $160bn, and adds that illegal, trade-related tax evasion will likely be responsible for the death of 5.6 million children through 2000 to 2015.

The same countries where often humanitarian aid is most needed.

The world is truly deliberately fucked up.

“The corporate tax rules we live with today are from a by-gone era and remain essentially unchanged since the 1920s. Yesterday’s tax system is not fit for purpose – let alone fair – today”, says Holder. “A third of the world’s population is excluded from the current negotiations on global tax reform being led by the G20, for example. Developing countries need to have a greater say in global tax matters and all countries need a seat at the table to fix the broken international tax system.”

Would you rather the super-wealthy and their corporations give to charities/own foundations and deduct this from their taxable income or pay their bloody taxes in the first place? Especially where they initially asset strip.

Fucked up - doesn't even begin to get there.

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SparkyGump's picture

than to feed them.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

Be sure to bill them for the bullet!

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http://www.msf.org/sites/msf.org/files/msf_financial_report_2015_final_0...

In 2015, more than 7,700 health professionals, logistics specialists
and administrative staff of all nationalities left on field assignments
to join 30,900 locally hired staff working in medical programmes in
nearly 70 countries.

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Big Al's picture

And we have a "leader" who prides himself and advocates for tax avoidance by the wealthy and wants to reduce taxes on the corporations.
Everything is so upside down I don't know how it can be righted. The lies are eating us up.

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asset strip the planet

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Lily O Lady's picture

taxes while encouraging employees to "donate" time to charitable programs in communities. This nets the corporation PR points. They encourage consumers to donate money at the checkout counter which corporate lawyers may use for deductions.

They conveniently forget to mention the tax breaks and government benefits their business receives while touting employee charitable work. Walmart does this shamelessly.

Thank you, LaFem.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

to get the lowest cost for the perfect vegetables.
That means the pickers get less and much is thrown away.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/13/us-food-waste-ugly-f...

Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment.

Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock or hauled directly from the field to landfill, because of unrealistic and unyielding cosmetic standards, according to official data and interviews with dozens of farmers, packers, truckers, researchers, campaigners and government officials.

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part of our fundamental nature. They're the product of lifelong indoctrination. If you grow your own food or know the people from whom you buy it, you trust the food because you know its provenance. If you have no clue where the food came from or how it was grown, you might not trust it enough to buy it, but if you're trained to judge by external appearance (not even smell or touch), you might actually choose a "perfect-looking" piece of plastic fruit from a factory farm over a delicious, healthy homegrown apple with a blemish or two on the skin.

What people buy in the most gentrified supermarkets might make for a nice still life subject, but its not a great choice if you're looking for flavor or healthfulness. How fortunate that so many of us have been trained to buy it anyway!

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what we buy tends to be what we cant grow here. They may not look like the photographs but the generally taste a whole lot better.
Started to harvest local seaweed as well as the usual mussels, cockles and oysters. The Brittany coast has an abundance.

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Hallelujah!

[video:https://youtu.be/H5w9skKcdnA]

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Damnit Janet's picture

We took shopping carts with bright pink phallic rockets complete with price tag on them (bombs are just big penises anyways) and marched them dressed as June Cleavers and took them to Sen Wyden's office and demanded a return. We wanted our money back from all the war and wanted it back for Oregonians needs.

Money for jobs and education, not for wars and occupations.

One bomb.... could send an half the state of Oregon's kids to a four year college.

America's priorities suck ass.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

I have been on a few big pink phallus marches, I smoke so you hear the occasional pop, lucky they were not filled with hydrogen...although

Wink

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Hawkfish's picture

Back in the 1980s when I was young and idealistic (instead of old and grumpy) I considered how much of my income I would have to give away to reduce my tax burden by the amount spent on war and other atrocities. War tax avoidance was a big thing back then because one of the taxes on your phone bill was for military purposes.

It turns out you can't do this. Even if you are rich enough to have a foundation or private charity, there is a cap (~30%?) on how much you can give to reduce your taxes to avoid paying for things like undeclared wars. So if you want to act in a moral (if undemocratic) manner to avoid supporting the MIC, you can't because of the cap.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Bollox Ref's picture

That's the problem.

(See Clinton Foundation 'overhead'.... and for 'overhead' see Bill Clinton.)

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.