Charitable Giving

I just read an article by philosopher Peter Singer, which can be found here. The article, published in 2006, discusses how much a billionaire should be expected to give to charity. Towards the end of the article, Singer discusses the UN Millenium Development Goals.
These goals, set in 2000, include:
Reducing by half the proportion of the world’s people in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than the purchasing-power equivalent of one U.S. dollar per day).
Reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Ensuring that children everywhere are able to take a full course of primary schooling.
Ending sex disparity in education.
Reducing by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under 5.
Reducing by three-quarters the rate of maternal mortality.
Halting and beginning to reverse the spread of H.I.V./AIDS and halting and beginning to reduce the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
It has been estimated that achieving these goals would cost $121bn in 2006, rising to $189bn by 2015. To illustrate how much America's rich can help to acheive these goals, Singer then goes on to suggest brackets by which the top 10% of American earners could give, and still live comfortably. The top 0.01% of taxpayers earn a minimum of >$5m, with the average wage of $12.75m. Singer suggests that if each of these people, 14,400 in total, gave a third of their salary, they would donate an average of $4.3m each, with total givings of around $61bn for that group. Each person would still have an average annual income of $3.3m. The next group, the remainder of the top 0.1% of earners, makes a minimum of $1.1m per year and has an average salary of $2m. Each person in this group, comprising 129,600 people, could give 25% of their income, with total givings equaling around $65bn, and each person still having an average of $864k per year to live on.
The next group consists of 575,900 people, the remainder of the top 0.5% of earners. The average wage for this group is $623k, with a minimum income of $407k. If each person in this group gave 20% of their income, they would give a total of $72bn, an still have an average salary of $325k. The remainder of the top 1% have an average income of $327k and a minimum salary of $276k. If each of these 719,000 people gave 15% of their annual income, they would give a total of $35bn and be left with a total average wage of $234k. Finally, the remainder of the top 10% of taxpayers have an average wage of $132k and a minimum of $92k. If each of thse 13m families gave 10% of their income, they would give a total of around $171bn, leaving each with a total of at least $83,000 to live on.
Put together, these givings amount to a total of $404bn. The fact that everyone in these groups could give so much and still live so comfortably should make every one of us think seriously about how much we do for those less fortunate than us.

I really will try to update this blog more...

It may not have escaped your attention that I've been awol recently. In hindsight, I should have checked when my last blog was posted before I began this one. But I didn't. I think it was around May. So about 5 months ago. Various things have happened since then, mostly A-levels and moving into Uni. But I've also had a pretty quiet summer, and from around the start of July to the end of September, I had basically nothing to do. So no excuses for not 'blogging' (is that the word?) in that period. But now I'm back, and will (probably, hopefully, maybe...) try to update this blog more. Mostly philosophical stuff (I hope) but also some 'this is what's going on in my head' stuff. Also some political stuff. Oh, and in a week I'll be going to watch Stephen Law debate William Lane Craig on the existence of God. Two heavyweights on either side of the God debate. So that should be good, and I'll (almost certainly) blog about that. But until then, I may or may not continue with one or two updates, and after that I'll do my best to write regular blogs (hopefully ones with a few less brackets used).
On a more serious note, I swallowed a particularly sharp piece of crisp and it got lodged in my throat. It hurts. This isn't relevant, it's just difficult to think about anything else just now.