Group items tagged

"the resilience and pervasiveness of giving in our culture,

The USA is only the world's biggest giver because it is rich.

most stingy and self-interested giver in the developed world:

USA is the

America is the world's most generous nation.

absolute figures are less significant than the proportion of gross domestic product (GDP, or national wealth) that a country devotes to foreign aid

long established the target of 0.7% GDP for development assistance

influenced by various international institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

Five-Year Plans came into existence,

Milton Friedman later criticized their policy which concentrates on capital and technology-intensive heavy industry as well as subsidizing manual, low-skill cottage industry at the same time. According to Friedman, it would waste capital and labor and would slow down the growth of small manufacturers.

easing restrictions on capacity expansion, reduced corporate taxes and removed price controls

domestic and foreign investment import and export trade controls tax structure public and financial activities

Aid may be given as a grant, with no repayment obligation, or a loan, and often comes with conditions that require that the recipient nation purchase goods or services with the aid from the donor nation.

In Recent Years

Although military aid continues to be provided

which finances the export of U.S. capital goods and agricultural products

Agency for International Development Agency for International Development (AID), federal agency created (Sept., 1961) to consolidate U.S. nonmilitary foreign aid programs. Originally an agency in the State Department, it has been a component part of the U.S...... Click the link for more information.  

Export-Import Bank

A large proportion of U.S. aid goes to Israel,

Egypt, and developing countries

The situation has grown so acute that 10 South Koreans -- mostly teenagers and people in their twenties -- died in 2005 from game addiction-related causes, up from only two known deaths from 2001 to 2004, according to government officials. Most of the deaths were attributed to a disruption in blood circulation caused by sitting in a single, cramped position for too long -- a problem known as "economy class syndrome," a reference to sitting in an airplane's smallest seats on long flights.

In one instance, a 28-year-old man died in the central city of Taegu last year after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks. He finally collapsed in a "PC baang " -- one of the tens of thousands of Internet game cafes that have become as common as convenience stores across South Korea. Users can pop in to these small, smoky dens -- with walls covered in gothic game posters -- for about $1 an hour, day or night.

"Game addiction has become one of our newest societal ills," said Son Yeongi, president of the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity, which offers government-funded counseling. "Gaming itself is not the problem. Like anything, this is about excessive use."

Experts are seeing more cases of game addiction in many industrialized nations -- particularly the United States and Japan. But sociologists and psychiatrists have identified South Korea as the epicenter of the problem.

That is in part because young people here suffer from acute stress as they face educational pressures said to far exceed those endured by their peers in other countries. It is not uncommon, for instance, for South Korean students to be forced by their parents into four to five hours of daily after-school tutoring. With drug abuse and teenage sex considered rare in the socially conservative country, escape through electronic games can be a hugely attractive outlet.

At the same time, South Korea boasts an unparalleled gaming culture. In 2000 in Seoul, the capital, South Koreans inaugurated the World Cyber Games -- a sort of gaming Olympics that now draws players from 67 nations. Professional South Korean gamers can earn more than $100,000 a year in domestic and international competitions.