Stingy Americans

(Hat tip: Clayton Cramer.)

You've undoubtedly heard how stingy we Americans are. You've also heard, no doubt, how we gobble up 80% of the world's resources (or is it 90%? One made up statistic is probably as good as any other), to support our 5% of the world's population.

We do consume a disproportionate share of resources, but we handle a disproportionate share of the world's defense. In battle against the bad guys, we provide a great deal of the armament, and a disproportionate number of our soldiers die.

And our hardware gives us the ability to project resources into disaster areas that is second to none.

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular: "See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..." After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud. and then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster. I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose - "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhuastible power supply? Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it? Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?

We're "stingy" because at first, we allocated only a small amount of money in "foreign aid" to the areas hit by the tsunami. I wonder how much it costs to dispatch an aircraft carrier? If you had to pay by the hour, what would the tab run? You've got fuel, depreciation, maintenance, and a highly-trained crew each of whom gets paid far less than he'd get in private industry for the same job.

One page shows the annual cost of running a nuclear aircraft carrier at $444 million. That's about $1.2 million per day, or $50,650 per hour.

I don't thinki that includes the cost of any aircraft on the carrier – it would make sense that those are costed out separately. I was just looking at the cost of operating a helicopter, and it runs anywhere from $1200 to $3000 per hour. Compared to aircraft carriers, choppers are cheap.

Fifteen million dollars in assistance? That's twelve and a half battleship-days, not counting aircraft. How many battleships have we sent?

Clayton does not include the comment from the "Hindi Friend". I think it's worth including.

"Can you let your hatred of George Bush end for just one minute? There are people dying! And what are your countries doing? Amazon.com has helped more than France has. You all have a role to play in the world, why can't you see that? Thank God for the US Navy, they dont have to come and help, but they are. They helped you once and you should all thank God they did. They didnt have to, and no one but them would have done so. I'm ashamed of you all..."

They say love is blind. So is hatred.

Now go read the rest of it.