“I Asked Amy to Name the Stingiest People on Earth, and She Said, ‘The Americans’”

OP-ED BY FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER – I had a discussion with my daughter, Amy, the other day, and I asked her to name the stingiest people on earth. Without any hesitation, she said, “the Americans.”

Amy is right.  Even though the World Giving Index for 2011 shows that Americans are the most generous people on earth, and even though the people I love most, the Iranians, rank 92nd, this is an issue that should not be discussed by citing things like “facts”; feelings matter much more. Amy’s feeling, and mine, is that Americans are stingy.

Proof of this is found in the Occupy Movement. That Movement was relatively successful, even though no one knew what it stood for, its encampments bred sexual assault, and it didn’t accomplish anything. That aside, it captured the feeling of the nation that people with money are no good.

Every night before I go to bed, I gaze upon my Nobel Peace Prize and think to myself, “How awful the Americans are!”

My guess is that President Obama agrees with Amy and me. And remember, if you disagree with President Obama on this issue, or any other, you are a racist.