In his famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus said “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. It’s a slightly more elegant way of telling us to put our money where our mouth is. We may talk a good game, but the way we spend our money shows what we really value.
In this case, politicians are lining up to say how much they care about the poor, and how committed they are to fighting climate change. Those claims may be partly true, but our concern for the poor and for the planet is dwarfed by our concern for our own wealth. The West has been dragging its heels for decades looking for a solution to third world poverty, scraping together a billion here, a billion there. See how they run when it’s the rich who find themselves in trouble.
Consider some of these numbers, and next time you hear a politician talking about poverty or climate change, ask them that one question: where’s your treasure?
Total aid for development from US and Europe:$90.7 billion
Bailout offered to insurance company AIG: $152.5 billion
AIG spend on a luxury corporate retreat the same week as the bailout: $440,000
US food aid to Lebanon: $440,000
Total US spending on financial bailout: $1.3 trillion
US contribution to climate change adaptation in developing countries: $0
- Figures and graph taken from Institute for Policy Studies‘ excellent report Skewed Priorities (pdf)
The Earthbound Report 
Hey, I just want to say that I agree with your blog and your positions about the environment and where the world, especially my dear country the US, should spend its money on.
Seeing fat cats in Wall Street getting bailed out is, although necessary to prevent a worldwide economic depression, nonetheless outrageous. The fat cats recklessly and greedily spend money as if it grows on trees and getting their golden parachutes while the rank-and-file workers gets screwed. That is absolutely despicable.
Imagine just how much of the world’s problems would disappear almost overnight if we use that $700 billion to bail out the poor, sick and suffering in Africa, Latin America, or any other Third World country where the contrasts between the filthy rich and dirt-poor is so stark. Alas, we live in a global society that values greed, competition, and plunder over cooperation, sharing, preservation, and helping out the disadvantage and disabled.
Anyway, don’t mean to rant here, but I’ll be adding you to my blogroll on my blog I’ll probably be talking about my country’s disproportionate spending on its military over social welfare programs, which you have already discussed a few months ago, and what programs could be better spent on.