From the BBC: US Announces 1 Billion In Aid To Georgia!
The Marshall Plan was about 13 Billion. Does anyone know how much this would be in todays dollars? Does anyone know what the population of Europe was around 1948. (Please leave a comment if you do know.)
You can see what I'm driving at: this is very, very significant sum... around $200/person...
Let's hope this will be well spent: (i.e. on infrastructure and the military - not on NGO consultants).
Update: The IMF also has pledged 750 Million. The EU has not yet announced it's figures, but based on the past it's not likely to be insignificant.
3 Comments:
not sure about well spent but, i will stick to Belgium as an example. Belgium and Luxembourg together received 777 million dollars. Based on inflation rate for 1948 as expressed in 2007 rate, that is 6.6 billion dollars. Population of Belgium in 1948 was estimated at 8.5 million (it's around 10 now). I am not sure about Luxembourg, but I am suspecting that it did not change much either - it's around 0.5 million. That gives us ~750 dollars per person.
According to the CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gg.html
Georgia's entire economy is about $10 billion dollars so U.S. taxpayers will be giving Georgians the equivalent of 1/10th of the entire economy. Also the Marshall Plan was over a period of years - the figure for Belgium was given over 4 years.
Let's hope Georgia uses the money to build a prosperous, open, economy, and not on an arms race which it cant possibly win.
Eurpoe population in 1948 is 4,924 billion (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan)
inflation calculator shows 1948 $1 is now $8.91 (http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm)
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