i've no clue of the formatting techniques for this site, so bear with me...
"Puppy Love, at a Price
Affluent Owners Find More Ways to Pamper Their Pets
By Jenalia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 11, 2005; Page D01
Last year, pet owners across the country spent plenty of pennies -- $34.4 billion -- caring for their pets, more than double the $17 billion a year spent a decade earlier..."
j'extrapolate on de flipside...
What Ms. Moreno fails to mention is the potential negative impact on international opinion which the numbers she exposes could have with just five minutes of math. According to her article, Americans spent a total of $34.4 billion dollars last year pampering their pets. Based on current data from the American Vetrinary Association, there exist approximately 0.8 pets per household (this encompasses only the most popular large types - dogs, cats, birds and horses). According to U.S. census projections, the nation contains approximately 108.8 million households. Crunch the numbers a bit and we discover that the amount spent per animal is $317.18.
Conversely, the amount spent by the U.S. on foreign aid last year (the bulk of which comes in the hard currency of weapons and military surplus) was $19 billion dollars. Even if we don't discount the weapons systems, and if we conservatively estimate the number of the world's poor as half the earth's population (3 billion of 6 billion persons), then the amount spent by the world's richest country to help each individual citizen of its poorest is $6.30.
If we are to believe today's U.S. Census Bureau's population clock, the current U.S. population is 296,589,689. A little more crunching and we see that Americans spent $115.99 per person pampering pets (to continue Ms. Moreno's alliteration), while just $64 on foreign aid.
To sum up:
Amount spent by Americans, on each American pet, per pet: $317.18
Amount spent (including weapons systems), by Americans, on the world's poor, per poor person: $6.30
Amount spent, per American, pampering pets: $115.99
Amount spent (including weapons systems), per American, on foreign aid: $64
"But really," you ask, "why do they hate us?"
sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071001009.html
http://www.avma.org/membshp/marketstats/formulas.asp#pets1
http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p25-1129.pdf
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#ForeignAidNumbersinChartsandGraphs
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html