Ethicist Peter Singer wrote an article in the NY Times titled "What should a millionaire give". He calculated that if the top 10% income earners in the US, who earn over 200,000 a year, donated 10% of their income, the amount donated would be 171 billion dollars, more than enough to cover the UN Millennium Goals.
Here, at home, our government chose to give 57 billion a year in tax cuts to the wealthy 1%; our government spends 8 billion a month on the war in Iraq instead of choosing to provide health care to our uninsured children.
It's all about choices. Our country needs to start making better choices. We need to consider the effect of our own choices not only to the poor in our own country but how our nations' policies effect the poor in the rest of the world.
A statement made by the film, The Silent Killer sums it up:
"The United States could help reduce world hunger by 50% by the year 2015, and eliminate it by 2025, at a cost of as little as two cents per American per day."
Can we afford not to give our two cents?
| Purchases: | Cost in Billions of US $: |
| BASIC EDUCATION FOR ALL | 6 |
| US COSMETICS SALES | 8 |
| WATER AND SANITATION FOR ALL | 9 |
| ICE CREAM SALES IN EUROPE | 11 |
| REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH FOR WOMEN | 12 |
| PERFUME SALES IN US AND EUROPE | 13 |
| BASIC HEALTH AND NUTRITION | 13 |
| PET FOOD SALES IN US AND EUROPE | 17 |