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If We Are So Poor As A Nation

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bazwillrun | 20:07 Mon 13th May 2013 | News
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http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-05-13/uk-provides-extra-30m-humanitarian-support-for-syria/

how comes we can as usual find 30millions to throw away into some foreign cess pit ?

Total thrown away is now £170million (what % has been pocketed ?)
I bet some of these "rebels" are doing pretty well thankyou very much, with god knows how much stolen and stashed away

yet another example of the outrageous actions of a government who seem happy to put foreign citizens welfare above its own, in this case millions of which is to help the islamist "rebels".
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Chris..if you are saying we are giving aid for something we haven't seen, you haven't looked...or you don't want to.
well said gness
LB and Pdust...not much makes me hot under the collar but this attitude does. One of the charities I work with does a great deal in the UK too, but the hardship here is nothing to what is seen abroad.
Two others I support are friends..one a retired doctor and one a tour rep who are not charities but work in a hospital built by a lady in Kettering and with some families in Ethiopia.....I see and hear their first hand reports of what is happening in those places.....I will never see nor hear of poverty on that scale in this country.
Whatever the cut the 'caring' ABers oppose.
Its only 200m, its only500m, its only 1/2/5/%. We're borrowing money to survive, for goodness sake.
Define survive, Svejk.
Survive is a serious exaggeration. Africans are starving to death, Syrians are getting killed by their own government in the thousands (and, sadly, the rebels appear not to be all that much better), and to ignore this is to abdicate our responsibility as human beings.
Google it.
I could give you a list of cuts I'd be happy to see ... but you probably wouldn't agree with them.

Salami slicing arguments are rarely convincing - as I said before 0.56% of the national budget going on aid doesn't seem excessive to me.

(for someone earning £20,000, who will pay around £2,000 in tax, it equates to about £11 per year - not exactly a ball breaker? )
its heartbreaking gness, i read somewhere that the money spent on arms worldwide in 8 days could end world hunger/poverty for a full year.. shame the powers that be decide to spend it how they do......
can I just get a pre-emptive liberal, lefty, handwringing, taliban-supporting do-gooders post in now to save time?

Is that the best you can do when you don't have a leg to stand on? Google it?
Jim I could hug you...you have used the most important word..responsibility. When we stand up and become responsible for each other it will be a better world...but there are too many turning their backs I suppose.
Quite so pixi - lets scrap Trident and all the other 'big boys toys' - that would do more good than quibbling about 'aid'.
Gness - I do try to choose my words carefully so as to avoid confusion. I said "We are no longer a rich country" I didn't say "We are a poor country".
Whilst I truly sympathise with countries with conditions you describe and do as much as I can on a personal level regarding charitable donations, I haven't been made aware of any significant impact our contributions have made.
Jim360 - I have heard this insignificant amount argument many times now and consider it spurious. //compared to, say, cancelling trident, dealing with tax avoidance or stopping general government wastage. //
If these things had been tackled and if the amount of money saved were significant we would still not be a rich country. The fact that they haven't been tackled only exacerbates the issue.

You do have a point, Chrisgel, that any money that can be saved should be saved, no matter how small it is. On the other hand I don't see that this is the place to save. There is a mess in Syria and ignoring it isn't the right thing to do. Similarly doing our bit to try and help out across the world is something worth doing. Yes, there are issues with money going to the wrong people. Yes, too, there are issues of paying money to some countries who don't really need it. India is often cited as the chief example.

These seem to be to more important questions than some "help ourselves first" attitude that smacks of a lack of charity. For the most part, I can't really claim moral high ground myself and don't usually give beggars money, although if I have the time I'll buy them food and/ or a coffee. That is a nice parallel, though, because it's about the difference between targeted aid, and aid going to places where we don't know quite what will become of it.

OP has provided a link to an article saying that we are giving more aid to Syria, without really justifying his claim that it is going to the wrong people. And, having made that claim, he proposes cutting it all off so that even the right people -- that is, those caught up in a bloody war -- get nothing.
That's great, Jim. You're a very caring chap.
Now, what if you owed money to everyone in town, would you go and borrow more to feed a tramp.
Chris..my point to you was not over rich/poor country. You said we would not give money to something we hadn't seen or didn't know would materialise. In some cases we have to...we have to trust we can make a difference or at least try.
You say you make charitable donations but are not made aware that they make any significant impact. Make yourself aware...I do.
If the food was life or death for the tramp what would you do Svejk?
International debt doesn't seem to work quite the same way as debt between friends and "people in town". We pay it back (or, perhaps more accurately, do not) in our own time. So in the case where I owed, oh to pick a random figure, about £20,000 but happened to have a fiver or so, I'd buy the coffee.

This is not that far from the truth. I am, after all, a student with all the debt that entails. I've not yet bothered to work out how much it comes to, partly because I really don't want to know. But it's a lot more than I have at the moment, that's for sure. I can still spare a bit of time, and money, to feed someone who's hungry.
Jim...if you ever need someone to adopt you......

On second thoughts...I am looking for a son-in-law....;-) x
same here jim, im not student but i am on the breadline as they say.... its only by the grace of God (or for those that dont believe in God, good luck) that we arent in the same position as they are

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