Charitable Giving, Ranked by Nation

Via Stones Cry Out we learn of the comments of noted liberal intellectual Bono regarding charitable giving in the United States:

[Bush needs to] clear up some confusion about America's basic beliefs. Americans are overtly devout. And yet Europeans, who inhabit a more secular world, give more per capita than Americans to what the Bible calls "the least of these" - the world's poor. The United States is in 22nd place, last in the class of donor nations. (Add private philanthropy and it's up to 15th.) Europeans see the discrepancy, and they smell hypocrisy.

Now if you are measuring charitable giving, then the only way to evaluate the generosity of nations is by charitable giving (i.e. not taxes). Only that which is freely given by private individuals and institutions without coercive measures can be defined as charitable giving. Otherwise, we'd be talking about charitable taking.

Well, according to The Economist, the U.S. is second only to Israel in charitable giving, ranked by percentage of GDP. As for Bono's numbers -- I can't find any documentation to support them.