Relief Efforts For Japan

[Carl Beck]

Is it just me - but does this strike anyone as being more than a little out of whack????

One Million Dollars - REALLY???? {see .jpg below}

If Carlos gets $9,500,000.00 per year, we can guess that his top say 6 executives receive per year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/23/us-nissan-ghosn-compensation-idUSTRE65M0AS20100623

So NISSAN is contributing $500,000.00 to the Red Cross for the Japanese Relief Effort - and asking employees, owners and fan's to kick in a matching $500,000.00 - - So NISSAN can meet its pledge of ONE Million Dollars.

I should think that Carlos and his gang alone would contribute at least $5,000,000.00, and NISSAN USA Corporate could kick in at least $40,000,000.00. NISSAN's Advertising budget in the U.S. alone was around

$1,190,000,000.00 {YES $1.19 Billion Dollars}.

What Are These People Thinking???? ONE MILLION DOLLARS???

FWIW,

Carl B.

Edited March 18, 2011 by Carl Beck

[cygnusx1]

They probably don't get the same tax breaks for donations as we do here.

[FastWoman]

Honestly the best help can't be gotten by throwing money at the problem. It takes people on the ground (or in the air). Our military will hopefully be a great help. It will also take lots of potassium iodide tablets, and people throughout the world are hoarding those right now.

I remember when the earthquake hit Haiti. I sent money to the American Red Cross and was disappointed to learn later that very little of donated funds were actually used -- by any relief charity. As I understand it, the logistic problems are generally the bottleneck in delivering aid.

[Bruce Palmer]

They probably don't get the same tax breaks for donations as we do here.

Why does doing the right thing always have to have this tax break can tied to it? Can't do the right thing to help unless I catch a major financial break.

[Carl Beck]

Honestly the best help can't be gotten by throwing money at the problem. It takes people on the ground (or in the air). Our military will hopefully be a great help.

To get food and water to tens of thousands of people in dire need - it takes a lot of MONEY. There are economies of scale in these situations as well.

We usually use "Samaritan's Purse" for relief contributions. An organization that the church my wife attends/volunteers at supports.

90% of the funds go to the specific relief effort with about 5% for administration and 5% for further fund raising.

http://www.samaritanspurse.com

They assure that all funds donated to a specific relief effort - go to that effort. If the needs of that relief effort are fully satisfied - the remain funds go to the next relief effort. They do not accumulate nor hold funds donated from relief efforts, like the Red Cross. Samaritan's Purse have built a strong reputation for being effective with well organized logistics.

They have already shipped 93 Tons of food/water from the U.S. via a 747 direct to the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. The USAF will air lift it to the effected area's in Northern Japan, where volunteers from "Samaritan's Purse" will distribute it to local shelters.

FWIW,

Carl B.

[Carl Beck]

From:

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2011/03/donations-for-japan-continue-fiat.html

---- Quote - -- -

The donations for Japan keep coming in, with Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler announcing today that it will provide €2 million (about US$2.8 million at today’s exchange rates) as immediate aid for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in the Asian country. Daimler said it has approximately 13,000 employees in Japan through its subsidiaries Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, Mercedes-Benz Japan, as well as Daimler Financial Services.

The Fiat Group, which includes Alfa Romeo, Lancia, the Fiat brand, Abarth, Maserati and Ferrari, also announced a donation for relief efforts in Japan, albeit a much smaller amount at €100,000 (about $US140,000).

While we’re not saying that this is a competition as all donations are welcome, we can’t but think that Fiat’s contribution, which equates to roughly half the price of a new Ferrari model or around 0.8% of the total compensation Ferrari boss Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne received in 2010, is somewhat embarrassing for the size of the Italian company.

- - - - - - - - End Quote - - - - -

"somewhat embarrassing"??.... indeed.

Also note the difference in wording between M/B's contribution "as immediate aid" and FIAT's contribution for "relief efforts". M/B's wording would seem to indicate that they will be contributing even more past the immediate period. Still these are very small numbers in my opinion.

FWIW,

Carl B.

Edited March 19, 2011 by Carl Beck

[JohnnyO]

What gets me is something I saw on CNN earlier this week. It goes something like this:

"After 4 days Japan relief aid totals $12 million; After 4 days Haiti relief aid totals 100 Million....."

Somethings not right.

[jmortensen]

Like it or not, Japan pissed a lot of people off in the 20th century. I saw news reports of large numbers of Chinese people saying something like "Warm welcome to the Japanese tsunami" on the internet, and really if you look what happened between those two countries it doesn't surprise me at all. I'm guessing the number of Filipinos donating is probably pretty slim as well. They pretty well ran over all of Southeast Asia, so I would guess that this feeling is pretty widespread in the region.

As to the dollars spent to help Haiti vs Japan, Haiti is a dirt poor 3rd world shithole, Japan is a technological leader. I think their debt situation may bite them in the arse here, but they are certainly in a better position than Haiti to deal with what comes their way. Also consider the death tolls. Haiti, maybe 300K, Japan, maybe 20K dead.

[cygnusx1]

Why does doing the right thing always have to have this tax break can tied to it? Can't do the right thing to help unless I catch a major financial break.

Yes, I was being sarcastic when I posted that. It's a shame when those billion dollar resources don't step up.

[DougN]

So Sandra Bullock contributed as much ($1M) to Japan as Nissan...

[HS30-H]

Is it some kind of competition?

I find this thread crass in the extreme, given the circumstances.

[FastWoman]

Carl, what I mean by a logistics bottleneck is that the aid rarely provides more firsthand responders. Donated funds don't tend to hire more people to dig through rubble, looking for survivors. Donated funds also don't manage to find and distribute items that are being hoarded, like potassium iodide tablets.

I remember when Hurricane Isabelle turned our area upside down. There were no national guard troops, and FEMA was MIA for a couple of weeks, until one of our neighbors committed suicide. The American Red Cross was there, and I admit it brought a tear to my eye just to see SOMEONE on the scene. However, they were there simply handing out hotdogs in the parking lot of our local country store. I don't want to diminish that they WERE there and that they were the only organization we saw. However, what we really needed was ice, emergency generators (on loan), chainsaws (on loan), wet vacs (on loan), transportation, clean laundry, strong young hands, and people going door to door to check on the elderly. Some of us whose homes were destroyed also needed trailers, but FEMA wasn't there to provide any. We provided all of these items ourselves, between neighbors, and we did a pretty bad job of it. The hot dogs would have never made it to our neighbor who committed suicide or to our elderly neighbors who were house-bound and without transportation. Those few people with working vehicles couldn't get past the fallen trees and power lines. And although the ARC hotdog stand did cheer us up, none of us were lacking for food. We were grilling the contents of our freezers as fast as we could.

Isabelle was actually a pretty simple relief situation. It was a small hurricane that impacted a fairly small area. We had basic road access within several days, and we even had power restored within a couple of weeks. In Japan the issue is access. We can drop tons and tons of food at the airports, but getting it to people beyond miles and miles of rubble is the logistic problem I'm talking about. Also money won't hire people to clear rubble. Every able-bodied person who might clear rubble is already doing so, and money would make no difference. Money will not buy relief helecopters, as those are too expensive. Only the military has those, and they're already using them in the relief effort.

As far as I'm aware, Japan has more help available from foreign militaries, just for the asking. We and other countries have offered, and they have but to accept. However, I think it becomes difficult, somehow, to coordinate too much relief. Japan has already accepted whatever relief they can coordinate. Perhaps they should be able to coordinate better, but this never seems to be the case in any country -- e.g. the US with Katrina.

Edited March 21, 2011 by FastWoman