[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Heres an idea for the UN: 1)Get your heads out of your asses and try to find some other solution besides throwing money at it.

And... what else do you propose they throw at it? Money buys materials for building roads and houses. Money funds the process of getting food over there. Money pays for filters to get clean water into remote villages. Money allows people to be in these countries, helping improve the situation. Money funds education. Money funds hospitals. Money given to a third world country can help to bring it out of poverty, and towards a self-sustaining future.

2)Stop making up nonsensical data that doesn't have any real world implication. What Johnny said is right. Maybe aliens will attack. Maybe George Bush will get drunk and nuke Canada. Who knows what might happen. Simply making big sweeping predictions that will likely never happen anyway (do you really expect funding to DOUBLE over the next ten years, especially with a US budget crisis?) won't solve anything.

Firstly, the "real world" extends beyond the US - this doesn't have any direct implications for you, other than what comes with the general feeling that you are doing the right thing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't do anything. Also the UN report doesn't specifically say the aid should come from the US, but rather from "wealthy nations"... if the US is going through a budgetary crisis, couldn't you argue when prompted that you aren't a wealthy nation, rather than being hostile toward it? Or, is it just that you don't like the UN and want to say everything against them that you can? Secondly, this isn't making a "big sweeping prediction that will likely never happen anyway" - the UN is not saying that this will halve poverty, but saying that it has the potential to do that, and that even if that isn't exactly what happens the effect will still be quite good.