Stingy Uncle Sam?

-
Fair or not, the rich will always come under criticism for not being philanthropic enough. Bush's initial aid offer of $15 million for Tsunami relief efforts drew barbs from UN officials. To save face, the American aid package was quickly upped to $35 million, and then again to $350 million. Better late than never, I say.

Today's Times of India carried an "analysis" of America's spending priorities:
  • Cost of ongoing US war in Iraq: $228 million per day
  • Iraq reconstruction budget: $18 billion
  • Amount spent by Kerry and Bush campaigns: $400 million
  • Estimated costs of Bush's second innaugration and Ball: $40 million

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the Bus in Bangalore

-
There's nothing that quite compares to the experience of riding a city bus. And that too in India. Sure, there are the crowds, the filth, the dilapidated buses, and a host of other unpleasant things that come with the world of commuter buses. But tucked deep under the grime is a mysterious robustness, a delightful vibrance--all the trappings of an unforgettable experience. During college days, riding the bus was a matter of necessity, not choice. After all, blowing my meager allowance on an autorickshaw just didn't make any sense in those days. Specially, when you could go WT and save up for a nice Chinese dinner or a movie. The Bus was not just a people transporter, it was a revenue generator too! When it comes to comparing bus services, Chandigarh's CTC was not in the same league as Delhi's DTC buses. Those green and yellow monsters of rusted steel offered a brand new adventure each and every time. Always packed to the brim (overflowing, really), it was amazing tha...
Read more

Wedding Tax

-
Why can't there be strict laws on how much money people can spend on a wedding party? Sure, you can easily stick the different-folks-different-strokes logic in my face to debate this point, but seriously. The trouble is that these super-extravagant parties end up raising the bar for a society that is obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses. Social standing is a big deal anywhere, but infinitely more so among India's aspiring middle class. At a wedding party I attended recently, I was taken aback when I heard that the "per-plate" cost was Rs 4,000. It may not be a lot of money in US dollars but by Indian standards it is. To put things in perspective, India's per capita income is merely Rs. 7000 per month. This craze for big fat weddings is rampant in the northern states, with Delhi and Punjab easily leading the pack. What used to be agricultural fields before, have now been converted into party venues known as "marriage palaces" (or party plots in Guja...
Read more

Look Ma! No Wires

-
When I was packing my Linksys Wireless router to take to India, I wasn't sure if the added weight to my already bloated bags was even worth the trouble. I felt guilty dumping an extra bag of Ms. D's cereal in favor of the router, but I did it anyway. I knew going in that there was a major hurdle to cross: Touchtel had given me a USB modem but what I would need now is an ethernet modem. Why? The Linksys router does not accept a USB jack. A call to Touctel proved useful and an ethernet modem was delivered to our doorstep, complete with two techies to set things up. After setting the IP addresses and DNS servers, the ethernet modem was working. Now came the bigger challenge of making it work with the wireless router. It took a little tinkering but finally we succeeded in getting wireless connectivity on both laptops. The signal is just as strong as we had in California. The range is quite adequate too, but I haven't really pushed the envelope yet. So for many t...
Read more