With a few minor edits, this could apply as much today as when it was originally broadcast 37 years ago. Gordon Sinclair Radio Station CFBR 1010 2 St. Clair Avenue West Toronto, Ontario, Canada "LET'S BE PERSONAL" Broadcast June 5, 1973 CFRB, Toronto, Ontario Topic: "The Americans" The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the earth. As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did. They have helped control floods on the Nile, the Amazon, the Ganges and the Niger. Today, the rich bottom land of the Misssissippi is under water and no foreign land has sent a dollar to help. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy, were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of those countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When distant cities are hit by earthquakes, it is the United States that hurries into help... Managua Nicaragua is one of the most recent examples. So far this spring, 59 American communities have been flattened by tornadoes. Nobody has helped. The Marshall Plan .. the Truman Policy .. all pumped billions upon billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now, newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent war-mongering Americans. I'd like to see one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplanes. Come on... let's hear it! Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tristar or the Douglas 107? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all international lines except Russia fly American planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or women on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy and you find men on the moon, not once, but several times ... and safely home again. You talk about scandals and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everyone to look at. Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them ... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here. When the Americans get out of this bind ... as they will... who could blame them if they said 'the hell with the rest of the world'. Let someone else buy the Israel bonds, Let someone else build or repair foreign dams or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters .. with the year less than half-over… has taken it all and nobody...but nobody... has helped.
Canuck - While old Gordon expressed a great truth in his broadcast which cannot be denied - both he and his buddy Pierre Berton didn't always get the facts 100% correct as it seems to me the the UK struggled for many years to satisfy the debt to the USA and were not overly contributed by the Marshall/Truman plan - and are invariably first to extend the hand of friendship - and their forces in the many efforts to overcome various dictatorships and alien political philosophies - and it must be said that many Americans also forget those facts. As it would appear that the present occupant of the White House has also forgotten the "special relationship" with the UK ! Otherwise old Gordon had it about right when we look at the major beneficiaries of that Marshall / Truman plan and their reluctance to help out - most of the time ! Cheers
This, then and now is a classic example of the "Tall Poppy" syndrome. Someone is always trying to cut them down however the same one's scream for help from them in time of crisis. We probably have Hitler's declaration of war on the US to blame or thank for it would have certainly been a much different world had the US not been able to participate in theatres other than the PTO. We need them, we need their economy (sick as it is) and for them to be the world policeman even though we do not agree with everything they do. Who else is going to do the job? Who else will "steer the ship"? Other countries assist in greater proportions than others however they will continue to lead the pack.
World Top Ten Foreign Aid Donor Countries Country-In Billion Dollars United States- 12.9 Japan- 9.2 Germany- 5.4 France- 5.2 United Kingdom- 4.8 Netherlands- 3.4 Italy- 2.3 Canada- 2.0 Sweden- 1.8 Norway- 1.8
The only meaningful measure of foreign aid (especially if you're trying to rank 'generosity') is as a percentage of GDP, and on that score both Japan and the United States are distinctly, erm, sub-prime. The most consistently generous nations are the Scandinavian and Benelux countries, though the UK also does pretty well too. France and Germany both slightly underperform. Best, Alan
More to this than just foreign monetory aid -and percentage of GDP - who is usually the first to offer the Americans aid in their policing of the world - the British - many others have to be cajoled such as we have seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and other events in the past 50 odd years ! Cheers
The only meaningful measure of foreign aid (especially if you're trying to rank 'generosity') is as a percentage of GDP, and on that score both Japan and the United States are distinctly, erm, sub-prime. The most consistently generous nations are the Scandinavian and Benelux countries, though the UK also does pretty well too. France and Germany both slightly underperform. Best, Alan 'Erm', so if a country has a GDP of $100 and donates $75 dollars of it to a country with billions of dollars of devastation, that is more 'meaningful' to the devastated country than millions of dollars of aid from another county? It indicates that the donating country is very generous per capita. It's doesn’t feed or aid the people in the devastated country a bit.
'Erm', so if a country has a GDP of $100 and donates $75 dollars of it to a country with billions of dollars of devastation, that is more 'meaningful' to the devastated country than millions of dollars of aid from another county? Well, it's certainly more meaningful if what you're interested in measuring is the munificence of the donating citizens - and that is, after all, what the whole thread's been about so far. Not that dollar aid is the only measure of national 'generosity.' I'm sympathetic to the view, for instance, that the western European states have only had the luxury of spending quite a high proportion of their GDP on aid because they've been relieved of a lot of their own defense responsibilities (and costs) by the umbrella presence of the US through NATO for the last sixty years. Best, Alan
'Erm', so if a country has a GDP of $100 and donates $75 dollars of it to a country with billions of dollars of devastation, that is more 'meaningful' to the devastated country than millions of dollars of aid from another county? It indicates that the donating country is very generous per capita. It's doesn’t feed or aid the people in the devastated country a bit. This sums up the U.S. attitude in so many things :- "We're the biggest, so we're the best". ...and still you wonder why half the world hates you and most of the rest wish that you'd show the maturity which your position demands.
This sums up the U.S. attitude in so many things :- "We're the biggest, so we're the best". ...and still you wonder why half the world hates you and most of the rest wish that you'd show the maturity which your position demands. I didn't say anything about the US. I said it is more meaningful to the starving kid with the distended stomach to get food by whatever means and it doesn’t matter how good the donating country feels about itself because it donated a large percentage of it GDP
What is the date for these figures? I'm surprised at #2. I thought they were more recent but it turns out they are from 2004.
This sums up the U.S. attitude in so many things :- "We're the biggest, so we're the best". ...and still you wonder why half the world hates you and most of the rest wish that you'd show the maturity which your position demands. Good point, but even if your statement was true, why are you upset? And judging by your tone, you seem to support Spidge's statement in post #6 earlier on this thread. We weren't the biggest, and we weren't the best judging from our critics. We did have a lot of help back then as well, and we are grateful for that. The Soviets and the Chicoms separately were much bigger that we were, and added together they could've made big trouble for everyone else on this planet who didn't suffer from "Finlandization" during those trying times from 1945 to 1990. Good thing they weren't the brash and immature cowboys as the US was back then. I really don't think that half the world hates us, maybe it's closer to about a third or so, give or take a couple hundred million. The Chicoms, the North Koreans, the Cubans and the Islamo-fascists are our biggest threats, and they hate us the most. There are others, but at least they don't bite the hand that feeds them just yet. And if we were so bad, then why do we have a immigration problem? If you don't like US, then you sure ain't gonna like who's coming next. I don't think that the Chinamen really like y'all and the rest of the capitalist free world very much either. And they are coming one day. Just as soon as they build a navy and a merchant marine, just you watch.
What I meant was it will probably be the other way around. Hopefully not, but that's the way things look to be heading in my opinion.
