Matters of Scale - Aid and Comfort
Official U.S. aid pledged for tsunami relief as of late December 2004 | $35 million |
Official U.S. aid pledged as of mid-January 2005 | $350 million |
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Estimated funds (mostly private) budgeted for Bush inauguration | $30–50 million |
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Japan official tsunami aid pledge | $500 million |
Japan aid pledge per capita | $3.93 |
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Sweden official tsunami aid pledge
| $75 million |
Sweden tsunami aid pledge per capita | $8.33 |
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U.S. aid pledge per capita | $1.19 |
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Sweden total foreign aid, 2003 | $2.1 billion |
As share of GDP | 0.7 percent |
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Japan total foreign aid, 2003 | $8.9 billion |
As share of GDP | 0.2 percent |
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U.S. total foreign aid, 2003 | $15.8 billion |
As share of GDP | 0.14 percent |
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U.S. estimated sales of Botox (to eliminate facial wrinkles), 2003 | $540 million |
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U.S. spending on all cosmetic procedures, 2002 | $7.7 billion |
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U.S. sales of pet food and supplies, 2003 | $18.9 billion |
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U.S. sales of Prozac-type antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sexual dysfunction drugs (e.g., Viagra), 2003 | $20.3 billion |
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U.S. spending on potato chips and other salty snacks, 2002 | $22 billion |
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Sources: U.S., Japanese, and Swedish tsunami aid pledges: various news sources. Estimated Bush inaugural spending: CNN.com.
Per-capita aid pledges: calculated with population data from CIA World Factbook and U.S.
Bureau of the Census. Foreign aid totals and GDP shares: Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development. Spending data: www.emptytomb.org/lifestylestat.php, except drug sales
from www.imshealth.com and pet food/supplies data from www.mindbranch.com.