Sunday, 31 August 2025

Paying For The United Nations

The United Nations always seems to be in the News and will be again soon as it celebrates its 80th year in business but i always thought it was one of those things which is a great idea, but the way they run it is awful with the UK, US, Russia, China and France holding a veto which can put the kibosh up anything the other 188 decide which has seen some truly evil regimes 'protected' by their veto holding friends.   
How the United Nations is funded is worked out by some complicated formula which takes into account gross national income, population size and external debt, conversion rates based on market exchange rates and a debt-burden assessment to work out who pays what which obviously doesn't work very weel because it is saying that it is facing a major budget shortfall.
As the world’s largest economy, the biggest bill which comes with the United Nations titled paper is handed to the U.S. who are expected to pay £607 million and then China who pay the next-largest share with £502 million then Japan third £173 million.
Germany's £142 million and the United Kingdom's £99 million make up the top five contributors but this is adjusted every 2 years to take account how much of a mess or a success each nation is making of their economy so for example China's contribution has been increasing since 2000 while Britain's has gone down since 2016 because for some reason (coughcoughBREXITcough) our economy has struggled since then.  
Before Americans start shooting guns in the air in frustration at paying the most for the United Nations, you may be exected to pay the most but you are actually the largest defaulter and owe £1.5 billion, then China £587 million, Russia £123 million, Saudi Arabia £42 million, Mexico £38 million and Venezuela £38 million have the largest outstanding budget balances.
So Happy Birthday United Nations, a great idea but oh so poorly executed.

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