Who are we to believe?
According to a columnist in the NYT, Americans are among the "stingiest" of people when it comes to donating to good causes.
In my capacity as a professional translator, I am in the process of translating a survey on the attitudes of different nationalities towards such things as charity. It emerges from this survey that Americans are the most generous in this respect.
Isn't this absurd! It just bears out my contention that you can get away with just about any assertion nowadays as long as you buttress it with figures.