While my deepest condolences go out to the unfortunate victims of the recent rain in Southeast Asia, my deepest resentments go out to the watery deluge of emails in my inbox soliciting donations to help them. Am I a selfish capitalist? A misanthropic Scrooge? Well, maybe, but that's not why I refuse to give my broken old shoes to a typhoon victim any time soon. The reason, in fact, is rather simple: Asia is on the other side of the world.
Since I just traveled over to that yonder land two months ago (link), I am fully qualified to tell you that a trans-Pacific airplane flight is, alas, not free. In fact, just to haul myself plus 60-odd pounds of luggage over to China cost me seven-hundred dollars each way. Since I weigh about 180 lb, the "shipping" rate works out to about $700/240lb, or roughly $3/lb.
Which is actually a really good deal, compared to international shipping. FedEx'ing a 100 pound package from here to Manila costs approximately $900 according to their website, or roughly $9/lb. Not only is that option more expensive, but the trip would also take two or three more days than a personal flight.
What about freight shipping, on a good old-fashioned boat? The price for that would be somewhere on the order of $700 per cubic meter of storage. Suppose you were shipping a giant cube of pure water at exactly 4 C, at a density of 1000 kilograms per cubic meter - it would still come out to $0.32/lb. I suppose you might consider that good, but then I suppose I should mention something else: transit time would take a month. And generally speaking, typhoons are emergencies.
Thus, even if we consider the completely unrealistic scenario of including your own body weight in a shipping-cost analysis as I have, the very vast majority of your donation would pay for moving stuff from here to there. And that's just ineffective and wasteful. Wiring them the money itself would be equally useless, for although everyone likes a bit of extra dough, cash is frankly not a very nutritious food. Nor good shelter.
Another icon of wasteful spending.
So don't start feeling good about yourself when you organize another fundraiser for typhoon victims or drop off your ugly Christmas sweaters at the nearest collection bin, because I can assure you that exactly 99.42% of whatever you contribute will never get there. If you really want to help, fly yourself over and build some houses for the locals. If you really have no other use for your ugly clothes, give them to me, and I'll drive them over to the Salvation Army where they might actually go to an inner-city kid. And if they don't, well, I'll still get a nice tax deduction.
Since I just traveled over to that yonder land two months ago (link), I am fully qualified to tell you that a trans-Pacific airplane flight is, alas, not free. In fact, just to haul myself plus 60-odd pounds of luggage over to China cost me seven-hundred dollars each way. Since I weigh about 180 lb, the "shipping" rate works out to about $700/240lb, or roughly $3/lb.
Which is actually a really good deal, compared to international shipping. FedEx'ing a 100 pound package from here to Manila costs approximately $900 according to their website, or roughly $9/lb. Not only is that option more expensive, but the trip would also take two or three more days than a personal flight.
What about freight shipping, on a good old-fashioned boat? The price for that would be somewhere on the order of $700 per cubic meter of storage. Suppose you were shipping a giant cube of pure water at exactly 4 C, at a density of 1000 kilograms per cubic meter - it would still come out to $0.32/lb. I suppose you might consider that good, but then I suppose I should mention something else: transit time would take a month. And generally speaking, typhoons are emergencies.
Thus, even if we consider the completely unrealistic scenario of including your own body weight in a shipping-cost analysis as I have, the very vast majority of your donation would pay for moving stuff from here to there. And that's just ineffective and wasteful. Wiring them the money itself would be equally useless, for although everyone likes a bit of extra dough, cash is frankly not a very nutritious food. Nor good shelter.
Another icon of wasteful spending.
So don't start feeling good about yourself when you organize another fundraiser for typhoon victims or drop off your ugly Christmas sweaters at the nearest collection bin, because I can assure you that exactly 99.42% of whatever you contribute will never get there. If you really want to help, fly yourself over and build some houses for the locals. If you really have no other use for your ugly clothes, give them to me, and I'll drive them over to the Salvation Army where they might actually go to an inner-city kid. And if they don't, well, I'll still get a nice tax deduction.
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