Re: America: The Good Neighbor
We will pay them when they pay us back for the billions in military aid we alone offer.
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I would say you get quite good value for money as you get to veto any thing you don`t agree with, and it seems the income generated by U.N in the U.S is not that bad either.
here are some numbers:
The USA's share of the UN's regular budget for 1999 is $298 million -- the equivalent of $1.11 per American. Tiny San Marino, by comparison, pays $4.26 per citizen to the UN.
The total cost of all UN peacekeeping operations in 1998 was some $907 million -- the equivalent of less than .5 per cent of the US military budget, and less than 0.2 per cent of global military spending.
The top seven contributors to the UN are the USA (25%); Japan (17.98%); Germany (9.63%); France (6.49%); Italy (5.39%); the United Kingdom (5.07%); and Russia (2.87%). Collectively, they account for more than 72% of the regular UN budget.
The United States -- whose citizens hold more UN Secretariat jobs than any other Member State, as well as the top posts at UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Food Programme, the International Court of Justice and the Universal Postal Union -- owes more in unpaid assessments, both past and current, than any other Member State: $1.6 billion.
Of the $318 million in procurements approved by the UN Secretariat in New York in 1998, American companies got 31 per cent of the business, or $98.8 million. Of the $2.9 billion in goods and services purchased by the entire UN system in 1997, US companies received $404 million, or 14 per cent, of the business, nearly three times as much as any other country.
The UN, its agencies and the diplomatic and consular corps contribute $3.2 billion a year to the economy of the New York City area alone, according to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. That has generated 30,600 jobs, yielding $1.2 billion in annual earnings.
and this is interesting news:
U.S.: Washington Expected To Pay U.N. Dues After Attacks; More
Following Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the United States, U.S. Representative Tom DeLay yesterday dropped his opposition to a $582 million U.S. payment of back dues to the United Nations. DeLay, the House of Representatives' Republican whip, said he "is not going to be obstructionist" to President George W. Bush as Bush seeks foreign support after the attacks, adding that the payment question will be "taken care of next week."
Regards
Eivind Lunde
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