it turns out we are stingy.

"The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.
But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea ( 140,000).
We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries (the average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily). Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).
It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/05/opinion/05kris.html

Why is there so much attention and concern devoted to this tragedy when there are millions of poor people living in unsanitary conditions without proper food or medical care every day?!