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.