context

Juan Cole looks at the importance of context:

As of 1/1, Reuters was reporting these responses to the tsunami from Middle Eastern countries: --Qatar, $25 million --Saudi Arabia, $10 million --Kuwait, $2.1 million --Algeria, $2 million --Libya, $2 million --UAE, $2 million --Turkey, $1.25 million I have suggested before that if you want to compare the donations, you can't do it in terms of absolute numbers. You have to look at the population of the country and at its per capita income. The announced Saudi contribution of $10 million is probably about $0.66 cents a citizen on a per capita basis (I don't think the Saudi citizen population can possibly be over 15 million no matter what Riyadh says). The initial US offer of $35 million was about $0.09 per person. Since US per capita income is approximately 4.5 times that of Saudi Arabia ($8500 Atlas method), however, the Saudi contribution should be seen as about $3.00 per citizen on a US scale, with regard to the real per capita burden. So the Saudi was a generous initial offer in comparison to that of the US. The USG is now pledging about $0.90 cents per person ($350 million). The Qatar offer of $25 million is about $250 per citizen. The Kuwait offer of $2 million is $2.00 per citizen or $1.00 per person if guest workers are counted. Either way, it is comparable to the US offer on a per capita basis, and Kuwaiti per capita income is about half that of Americans. So any way you cut it, the Kuwaitis are not being chintzy unless you want to say Americans are moreso. The Libyans are giving about $0.36 per person, and their per capita income (purchasing power parity method) is a little over $6,000. That is about 1/7 of the US per capita income, so their contribution burdens the Libyans the same way a roughly $2.50 per person contribution would burden Americans. Remember, the USG is currently giving ninety cents a person. The Turks have offered 18 cents a person. But their per capita income is only about $3000 per year, or a tenth that of an average American, so this plege is equivalent to an American one of $1.80. That is, the Turks are giving twice what Americans are if everything is taken into account. The Australian pledge of $28 million is about $1.35 per person. It is obvious that if we take their populations and actual per capita income into account, the offers made by these governments are generally more generous than that of the United States. A lot of Middle Eastern countries have small populations, so even if they gave a lot per capita, it would look small in absolute numbers. Apparently US pundits don't know things like the citizen population of Kuwait or the per capita income of Libya, and can't be bothered to look them up.

Added 1/6: Juan Cole has more:

Saudi Arabia Television held a fundraising drive for the victims of the tsunami and raised a little over $30 million on the first day. Saudi Arabia's per capita income is about $8500 per year according to the Atlas method, and there are about 15 million Saudi citizens. The one-day donation total equals $2 per citizen in absolute terms. Given the difference in per capita income and population, it is as though private US donors gave over $3 billion in a single day.

Added 1/28: Similarly:

An article published January 16th by the Observer on Sunday ("West's tsunami pledges $200m short: Oxfam") compared the donations made by private individuals of 12 countries to the victims of the Asian tsunami, in the first 15 days following that natural disaster. The Observer's article reported the donations in absolute terms, showing that Norwegians donated the most per head of population ($13.20) followed by the Swedes ($12.04), the Dutch ($9.16) the Australians ($5.23) and so on, down to the Americans with a donation of $1.08 per head, and the French, whose per head donation amounted to 80 U.S. cents. The Observer table places Saudi Arabs in the middle of the pack, at number 6 with a donation of $4 per head, but still outranking Canadians, Austrians, Brits, Greeks, Americans and French in their generosity. Ranking people's generosity in absolute terms however is not very instructive. A more informative approach would compare donations as a percentage of per- capita income, the average amount of money each head of population is theoretically supposed to earn. Thus, if two people donate $1,000 each to a charity, but one makes $50,000 per year while the other earns $100,000, the former has of course proven to be twice as generous as the latter. This more accurate measure of generosity reveals private Saudi individuals as the most generous amongst the people of the 12 countries mentioned in the Observer article, followed in descending order by the Swedes, Dutch, Norwegians, Australians, Germans, Canadians, Greeks, Austrians, Brits, French, and in 12th and final place, Americans. In terms of percentage of donations relative to their per capita income, the Saudis are revealed to be extremely generous indeed: 112% more generous than second place Swedes, 134% more than 3rd place Dutch, 154% more than fourth place Norwegians, 194% more generous than 5th place Australians, and so on to a staggering 1,421% more generous than 11th place French, and 1,617% more than 12th place Americans. What do the above numbers tell us?