For the first time ever, the number of poor people is declining everywhere

http://www.economist.com/node/21548963/

by gruseom • 14 years ago

156 143 14 years ago

ilaksh3• 14 years ago

This is a tiny change. Almost half of the world still lives for less than $2.00 per day.

Amazing that we can look at those statistics and think that there is significant progress or not be distressed by the inequality.

If you honestly assess this fact that almost half live for less than $2.00 per day versus the "first world" consumption then you will come to the conclusion, as I have, that civilization is a myth. This is incredibly unjust.

rglullis• 14 years ago

> Amazing that we can look at those statistics and think that there is significant progress or not be distressed by the inequality.

What is your time-scale? And what would constitute "significant progress"? For all the wars and all the Sudans that we still have left in the world, I still think we are in much better shape than the Romans. Or Feudal Japan. Or XVIII century France.

I remain optimistic.

apsec112• 14 years ago

"Almost half of the world still lives for less than $2.00 per day."

Simply untrue. http://rs.resalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/worldin...

"Amazing that we can look at those statistics and think that there is significant progress"

http://www.gapminder.org/world/ (hit "Play")

"This is incredibly unjust."

"To help clarify the matter, get rid of everyone else and put our worker on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit. If he's bad at it he'll work very hard and not end up with much food. Is this unfair? Who is being unfair to him?"

http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html

alexro15• 14 years ago

I like reading PG's essays but this one is a nonsense to me. What we (people) don't like about the rich is not their ability to make money, but their ability to corrupt the gvmt and screw the poor. All in the sake of more money.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

I agree that progress has been made. There is enough food to feed everyone; but there is still starvation happening, mostly in Asia.

Your jpeg link has a graph with an unlabled axis and no source for the data.

A commonly accepted figure for people living on less than $2 per day is between 2billion and 2.7billion.

But that ignores the people living very close to that, who are at risk of severe hardship if they have a failed harvest.

(http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/05/poor_econo...)

> "To help clarify the matter, get rid of everyone else and put our worker on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit. If he's bad at it he'll work very hard and not end up with much food. Is this unfair? Who is being unfair to him?"

Now introduce one other person, on a different island. This person alters the environment; more rain, less rain, hotter climate, different water temperatures and salinity etc. These all make it much harder for the first person to grow crop and catch food. Sometimes his home is destroyed in flooding. The second guy is okay, he's living comfortably. He's a bit annoyed about the cost of petrol. If he watches a lot of news he may see the first guy being flooded out of his home. Is this unfair?

nickik6• 14 years ago

The problem is that we don't have a real notion how to change it in a large scale, we allready pure tons of money into poor countries but it does not really help (alot of times it even hurts). Alot of people feel like you but nobody has an idea how to help. Do you?

ilaksh3• 14 years ago

I have a lot of ideas but to start, just the basic thing you are suggesting: 'pouring' 'tons' of money into poor countries.. this is just not the reality.

We won't be able to fix the problem if we can't see it. Most people are living in a false reality, a matrix reality created by the propaganda machine. The truth is that the first world exploits the second and third world and hogs the resources. These 'tons' of money are pittance. The US alone uses more oil than the next three or four countries combined. The second world barely even figures in.

Its very simple: the distribution of things is just quite unfair, deliberately so. Many countries are actively repressed. The World Bank provides loans as a mechanism of economic warfare or modern-day colonization. Again, a major problem is that many of the citizens of the first world aren't even aware of this.

So people in every country need accurate holistic information and to have an egalitarian perspective. The first part is not happening, as I mentioned. The second part is not the case either -- most everyone in the first world subscribe to a type of Social Darwinism which is just the latest rationale for brutal primitive classism.

ekianjo2• 14 years ago

The fact that there are almost 10 billions people alive on this Earth prove otherwise. The population would not flourish if everyone was poor and starving. It's pretty obvious that the world is getting richer and the poors are getting richer no matter what the gap between the poors and the richs is. Now "poor" people in the US have internet access and mobile phones. Come on !

kitsune_• 14 years ago

Last time I checked, the world population is at around 7 billion.

InclinedPlane6• 14 years ago

Your premise is faulty and following through on it could doom the poor of the world to continued poverty.

First world consumption isn't something that's done at the expense of the 3rd world, it's something that sends money and skilled jobs to the developing world to help them bootstrap their way to wealth. Look at china, south korea, taiwan, etc. these countries have climbed out of 3rd world poverty by being "exploited" by the 1st world and have become developed and increasingly affluent. South Korea, for example, is rapidly becoming a 1st world nation. Would that more countries followed those examples.

alexro15• 14 years ago

Don't be so optimistic. The globalization project hasn't ended yet. Who will control the world is to be seen. And whether the nations will be left with the wealth they had acquired is as clear as the Libyan's future at the moment.

jvrossb• 14 years ago

It comes down to this: if you think that economics is a zero-sum game, then yes, it is unjust. First world consumption comes at the expense of the poor elsewhere, the rich are leeches sucking money from the rest of the economy, and 35 hour work weeks create jobs.

Good news is all signs point to economics not being a zero-sum game, and thus most of the responses you are getting are likely correct - your premise is flawed.

A1kmm• 14 years ago

Claiming that anyone discussing inequality is implying economics is a zero-sum game is making a strawman argument.

There is a continuum between two extremes - at one extreme, you have a zero sum relationship, where the total output (as measured by some sensible metric) is capped and it gets divided up, through to a view where there are unlimited resources and no constraints on growth, and the activities of people are synergistic but not competitive.

Both ends of the continuum are easily shown to be fallacious, but your argument only holds if you assume the unlimited resource end of the continuum is true.

The reality is that there are finite resources, and physical, biological and sociological limits how fast and efficiently they can be sustainably exploited. That said, there is clearly a lot of room for improvement in how efficiently we use resources - as many Internet startups are doing - as well as how sustainably we use them.

DanBC5• 14 years ago

There is a problem with rich people consuming things that drive poor people into unacceptable employment to provide raw materials for those things.

Materials like gold, or minerals for tech, are often mined in ways that most people would find appalling.

People have a perception of "fairness" and a big tech company making millions, billions of dollars of profit while people are mining minerals in dangerous conditions for very little money is seen as unjust.

For someone getting $2 a small amount of money, just 50c, is a huge raise, and it would have little impact on the end price of the goods.

Quite small amounts of carefully targeted money could make a big difference to developing nations - better schools, clean water, better medicine, etc.

It would be really nice to see tech companies devoting a bit of time and smarts (and maybe even a bit of cash) to tackling those problems.

hsshah• 14 years ago

Indeed. Couple of optimistic talks at TED that shows that on an 'average' it IS getting better. http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violen... http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...

However, the 24/7 news cycle drums up everything that is negative and hence most of "feel" that it is getting worse.

tfb• 14 years ago

As much as I despise all of the negativity in the news, the optimistic part of me sees it as a way to shine light on the many things wrong with the world at present. While the news may be a bit of a downer, I believe the lasting effects of it are for the best.

When I learn of something terrible or even of a minor crime or injustice, the first thing that comes to my mind is along these lines: "There is obviously some ideal we're working towards, but the current system is inherently flawed; so what can I do to hack this system and make it better?"

Maybe someday we'll have the kinks worked out and will have managed to minimize the "bad" things happening throughout the world. And I believe the news will have ultimately played some role such improvements. The day we see more good news than bad will be a great day.

InclinedPlane6• 14 years ago

The problem is that a skewed sense of what's going on in the world can give you a skewed sense of how to improve the world. Case in point: many people imagine that the developed world buying cheap goods and labor from the developing world is a kind of exploitation rather than a form of enrichment.

It also tends to focus on exceptional events rather than on broad trends (positive or negative).

tomkin• 14 years ago

Part of me wants to accept this information, but I am worried that some kind of Freakonomics will come into play and we'll find that the reason why there appears to be less poor is because X is no longer being considered as Y.

antihero• 14 years ago

I wonder - is the amount adjusted base on cost of living and inflation? IE if $2 a day now gets the poor the same as $1.50 in the 90s, they haven't really gained anything.

gruseom• 14 years ago

the 24/7 news cycle drums up everything that is negative and hence most of "feel" that it is getting worse

Lewis Lapham said something brilliant and hilarious about this in a Google talk: people who wonder why the news is always so negative haven't noticed what the positive news is: it's the commercials! Crime, war, and terror, but Tide washes the dirt right out of your clothes!

thomasdavis4• 14 years ago

This is all bullshit, capitalism sucks, everyone needs to slow down and live a little.

thomasdavis4• 14 years ago

I find it disgusting that you could even try talk of capitalism in a good light. I'm sure citizens would also find it absolutely degrading.

ars• 14 years ago

Are you trolling or joking? Your profile indicates you are making good use of capitalism.

And, supposing you are serious, what would you replace it with?

ngokevin• 14 years ago

modern society, materialism, capitalism, fast-paced, greed, today.

Whip these together and you've just made yourself a mediocre high school essay thesis statement.

thomasdavis4• 14 years ago

I would rather read the un-educated essay than your over-educated pseudo-intellectual nonsensical dribble.

chmike• 14 years ago

All depends on the criteria of poverty. It is not just a question of money. It is a question of having access to food, water, safe shelter, security, medical assistance, ... Food and energy price is raising. Are the poor people catching on on these ? I doubt it.

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

> I doubt it.

Why exactly? We might not be anywhere near "good enough", but it seems dismissive to ignore it couldn't have been even worse before.

padolsey• 14 years ago

Almost entirely due to China.

nakkiel2• 14 years ago

Their point is moot and I don't get their intention.

They use figures from 2005 and 2008 so they can't legitimately try to relate the economic downturn to improvements in worldwide poverty.

mcnees287• 14 years ago

They have good points. You must have missed econ 101.

nakkiel2• 14 years ago

They have no points at all and you must have missed English 101.

First sentence:

"THE past four years have seen the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and the biggest food-price increases since the 1970s. That must surely have swollen the ranks of the poor."

I'd expect them to at least address the point they are trying to make but nothing in the article supports it. The source of the article (the data) ends in 2008 so that's way too short to make any conclusion on the impact of the economic downturn.

Economies have some level of inertia and I'd say that it's inversely proportional to the said economy's dynamism.

They admit it themselves:

"This implies that the long-term rate of poverty reduction—slightly over one percentage point a year—continued unabated in 2008-10, despite the dual crisis."

Same for 2011, I'd say poor countries have seen very little investment coming from Europe in late 2011 as most economic resources were shed in the debt crisis and protection plan.

"A lot of the credit goes to China"

Absolutely true. Outside China, I have personally witnessed huge changes happening thanks to China and its economic power and fearless investments. They literally blow in Laos' economies and are largely responsible for Myanmar current boom, spending money where their mouth is.

In the end, the article does a great job at showing one of China's good side but they certainly aren't proving their initial claim.

For people with short memories, China is doing what Europe and the North America was doing during the post-WWII era. I bet they are going to make the same mistakes and it's already common knowledge they have started (they bribe foreign officials easily and generously).

lwhi9• 14 years ago

I am not an economist, but thinking about this briefly .. could it be, the west needs to suffer economically for developing parts of the world to prosper? Are finite economics still relevant in the 21st century?

davidw5• 14 years ago

No. The economy is, by and large, not a zero sum game.

Otherwise, why are N billion people by and large better off than however many people there were 200 years ago?

lwhi9• 14 years ago

I see your point, but then isn't wealth always relative? If scarcity isn't used as a yard stick for money creation how can inflation be avoided?

_delirium2• 14 years ago

There appear to be some non-infinite limits on some components of standard of living, though. For example, if you extrapolate the resources Americans and Western Europeans use per capita (water, electricity, oil, etc.) to the entire world's population, you at the very least have some serious technological challenges to avoid hitting limits. If technology isn't able to keep up fast enough, it could introduce a bit of a zero-sum element, where a wealthier developing world would put downward pressure on the developed world's standard of living, in that the amount of resources available to an average American might decrease faster than can be offset by technological improvements.

That's some of the current worry with oil, that increased consumption by China et al will mean that oil is more expensive in real terms, and alternatives won't appear fast enough, meaning that Americans' overall standard of living will decrease, as they're forced to either make do with less oil (and stuff oil is an input to), or forego other luxuries to pay for the oil (and indirect-oil).

Past poverty levels, "wealth" becomes much more relative in that it involves wages, imo: a measure of whether you're "well off" is whether you can afford to pay people to do things for you, whether it's clean your house, serve you in a restaurant, tend to your cruise ship, design your website, or work for your company. That definitely depends on relative rather than absolute numbers, with a bigger differential meaning that you can buy more hours of other people's time.

kamaal3• 14 years ago

Well England wasn't a very rich country before 'Sun never sets on the British empire' era.

And they aren't a very rich country now, after they lost all their colonies.

I don't wish to be harsh here, but how much of west's wealth is their own hard earned through their sweat is a question to ask.

Lazare3• 14 years ago

You realize you're talking about the 20th wealthiest country in the world? And most of the countries above them are either tiny, have oil, or both?

weavejester2• 14 years ago

In terms of GDP, the United Kingdom is still the 6th or 7th richest in the world. That's still pretty rich.

There are also a lot of wealthy European countries that had a minimal presence abroad in the 19th century. There doesn't appear to any correlation between the modern wealth of western countries and their past colonialist ambitions.

patrickk• 14 years ago

Several former British colonies are now wealthy, first-world nations e.g. Ireland, Australia and America. Being an empire at one period in history would explain why a country was much wealthier than others, but not anymore - now it's trade. Just look at the rise of China.

(Some might argue that America is a de facto empire today, but even then most of its wealth is due to trade).

scythe• 14 years ago

>could it be, the west needs to suffer economically for developing parts of the world to prosper?

Very, very unlikely. The most relevant example of a modern fall from economic grace is the descent of Argentina, from the seventh-richest country in the world in 1900 to somewhere around 50th today. However, if anything, this had a large negative effect on the economy of South America (which stagnated as Argentina fell), and the modern economic rise of Chile and Brazil seems to be helping the countries surrounding them, or, in essence, prosperity is contagious, rather than conserved.

ma2rten4• 14 years ago

I have been to Uganda a few years ago to work on a voluntary project. If you see numbers like the number of people living under $1 per day and you see the images on TV you come to think of people in Africa just as pitiful. However, I got the feeling that the people in Uganda are actually more happy than the people in Northern Europe. Maybe wealth is actually inversely correlated with happiness?

ticks• 14 years ago

It's probably got more to do with choice. If those TED talks are to be believed, then choice is bad for mental health. If you are wealthy or live in a wealthy country then you have lots of choice. It's somewhat ironic because politicians that operate within wealthy countries will often emphasize choice as a reason for privatising public services etc.

mseebach• 14 years ago

The problem with choice is that even knowing that it's bad for mental health, that doesn't translate into a moral prerogative to forcefully limit the choice of other people.

But yeah, choice, and its cousin perspective: If a bad day involves not eating or your brother dying from preventable disease, it's not hard to see how a meal every day of the week and good health can translate into happiness.

yummyfajitas• 14 years ago

The paradox of choice is not very robust in practice. The experiments are often difficult to replicate and small variations in experiment design make the paradox of choice vanish.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9cebd444-cd9c-11de-8162-00144feabd...

haukur• 14 years ago

I went to Uganda three years ago and I was amazed at their amiability and apparent happiness, especially considering their situation. I was greeted with smiles everywhere I went. I'm from Iceland and in comparison Icelanders are very cold. Perhaps the climate is a factor?

pinaceae• 14 years ago

because you were a foreigner, a guest, an attraction.

i went to iceland and only found nice, cheerful people. i am from austria, so did blend in a bit. if you're nordic and visiting uganda your appearance alone makes you something special and easily recognized (and potentially wealthy, so treating you nice might pay off).

that's why being a short-term visitor teaches you practically nothing about a culture. you need to live and work there to actually see the true nature of everyday people, you're novelty needs to wear off.

exceptions to this exist, some cultures simply treat foreigners/tourists badly. classic viennese coffee houses have some of the most irritating waiters on earth, embodying the anti-thesis to the US-services-smile. try getting a cheque in under 5min, i dare you :)

roel_v15• 14 years ago

There is vast scientific evidence that 'happiness' is positively correlated with 'wealth' (both in quotes to indicate that they're broad concepts, I'm not interested in discussing specific definitions). The scientific history is broadly that in the 1970's, it was thought there was little correlation (the 'Easterlin paradox'), in the 1980's and 1990's it was thought there was correlation up to some point of wealth (e.g., income of 15k USD) and after that there was little to none, but in the last decade (with better data and more thought into the subject) even that doesn't seem to hold any more. (yes marginal utility decreases but aside from that).

So, in general, the empirical evidence points to 'more money = more happiness'.

The literature on this spans decades, a 'popular' paper of the last few years that references much of the historical papers and as such can serve as a starting point is [Stevenson & Wolfers, 2008] (http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Happiness.pdf).

(a quote in the 'community' on this topic nowadays is (although I haven't been able to verify a source for it): "the average Togolese man would be hospitalised for depression in Denmark.").

ma2rten4• 14 years ago

Actually, I had though about this issue some more and I looked up this type of research. So my actual point of view is a little bit more nuanced then what I wrote in the parent post. However, I though it would be helpful to start with a proactive thesis to get people thinking about this issue.

Often people in the West just see people in Africa as victims, based on what they see in the media. Start seeing them as humans.

The average Togolese man would be hospitalised for depression in Denmark.

That sounds a bit odd to me, though. How come the suicide rate in Africa is much lower (close to zero) than in Europe?

robrenaud• 14 years ago

Since you seem like you know a lot about this issue, is this consistent with other research that happiness plateaus for people who make 75k/year?

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-fo...

kamaal3• 14 years ago

>>Maybe wealth is actually inversely correlated with happiness?

No, Its probably Ignorance is bliss. Just take them around a trip across Europe and you will see that their happiness will vanish.

Peer comparisons are a major reason why many people loose their happiness.

VMG• 14 years ago

Wouldn't watching TV have the same effect as a Europe trip?

DanBC5• 14 years ago

There are a few things that you miss.

The life expectancy at birth for someone in the Republic of Uganda is about 53 years. Only 2% of their population is over 65. (US: 78 years & 13%) So you're missing a bunch of old people who would be depressed, if they weren't dead.

Stigma means that you just don't see people with psychotic illness. People with mood disorders tend to self-isolate, so they're hidden too.

And mental illness isn't always recognised nor treated in Uganda.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/katine/2010/may/19/mental-health-u...)

> Mental illness does not receive the same attention as HIV/Aids or malaria, but is just as serious. A consultant psychiatrist at Butabika hospital, Uganda's national referral mental hospital, recently told The New Vision newspaper that 35% of Ugandans – about 11.5 million people – suffer from some form of mental illness, with depression being one of the most common. But barely half of these people seek medical attention from health centres in a country where people only associate mental illness with advanced and manic psychosis.

(I'm not sure that mental illness is as serious as HIV / AIDS. It is serious.)

But Uganda has made lots of good changes to their mental health treatment systems.

(http://www.ijmhs.com/content/4/1/1)

And there's a big "service user" group.

(http://www.mentalhealthuganda.org/)

This wikipedia list shows mixed results for developing world nations for rates of suicide. Suicide isn't a great indicator for rates of poor mental health, but it gives an indication.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...)

molsongolden• 14 years ago

I had this same feeling while living in Nepal. Nepal is about on par with Uganda according to the HDI but the people there seem much happier in their day to day lives.

alan_cx• 14 years ago

Isn't this just a capitalist supporting publication trying to justify that which it supports? Poverty groups would, rightly, do the same thing. No criticism, but, well, they would wouldn't they? That's the way it is. Don't we all "big up" that which we believe in?

Trouble is, every one has an agenda and its really hard to ever know the truth. I have no idea if this is self serving fantasy or reality.

alexro15• 14 years ago

There are two sides of reality: the poor and the rich. This fantasy makes the richer side feel better about the poor. Don't go asking the other way around.

roel_v15• 14 years ago

Instead of ad hominem attacks, why don't you come with some data to support your accusations? The Economist is one of the last publications with a rigorous policy of publishing original data sources, in this case the World Bank, hardly the obscure special interest group you make it out to be.

If you want to offer alternative interpretations of the data, or point out specific methodological flaws, or whatever, by all means do so - but now you're just saying 'meh I don't like this guy's ideas, he must be a shill, but I guess we'll never know because nobody can know these things anyway' - the most toxic nihilistic and intellectually dishonest 'reasoning' imaginable.

alexro15• 14 years ago

Why, on the other hand, you take your Economist and go show it to the folks mentioned? Alone in the evening. Scared?

calibraxis• 14 years ago

I think cynicism is understandable. It is indeed an "ad-hominem" argument, but it's universal — for example, few in the West took what Pravda had to say at face value, when the Soviet Union existed. When institutions have a record of bias, their claims come under more scrutiny. It's just plain institutional analysis, which everyone uses to some extent.

(The World Bank is hardly a neutral figure. Otherwise, how could the Bush administration move the neoconservative Wolfowitz from the Pentagon to head the World Bank? Did the world's population directly vote him in? It most certainly is a "special interest group", in the sense that it acts in the interests of a tiny minority.)

That said, in-depth dissections of the claims themselves are certainly good, like this critique: (http://www.stwr.org/globalization/world-bank-poverty-figures...)

aquateen3• 14 years ago

That was not an ad hominem. I really hate that phrase thrown about.

Seems full of questions rather than accusations, and I didn't see obscure mentioned anywhere.

washedup2• 14 years ago

I think it's called inflation

roel_v15• 14 years ago

You should call them and let them know that you cracked the case, because 1000's of economists and development workers worldwide who have dedicated their lives to studying these issues cannot hold a candle to the kind of brilliant insights you can bring forth after just 10 seconds of pondering them /sarcasm .

washedup2• 14 years ago

I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I really think that inflation is a big part of it, and that the way we currently measure inflation can be misleading, especially since CPI is measured sans energy/food costs. A large part of the Arab Spring had to do with climbing food prices. It's true that conditions around the world are getting better as people gain more access to clean water, energy, education, etc, but using a benchmark "$1.25" to measure poverty misses the point. I should have explained my comment with more depth.

givan• 14 years ago

This combined with population growth will have a big pressure against nature, can earth provide the resources for all of us to be wealthy?

nickik6• 14 years ago

Yes I think its is possible. There is enougth energie we just have to collect it. If there is a not enougth of one thing it will get more expensive and alternatives will become more attractive and if something is expensive enougth recycling it will be worth it.

I truest in the basic market mechanism (people trie to make there own lifes better by joining the market) this has worked well for a long time.

nmridul2• 14 years ago

I am genuinely curious why the poverty calculation is done with respect to some dollar threshold ( earning below $1.25 is poor ??).

In some part of the world $1.25 (after converting to local currency) per day can buy generous meals 3 times a day and still be left with amount to pay for transport, clothing and housing. But in some part even $10 per day would make you poor.

Also, a person earning more than $1.25 now compared to last year doesn't mean he crossed the poverty barrier. The ever increasing inflation would have reduced him to a worse than poverty condition.

The calculation should be based on some quantity of food (amount of rice / starch he can buy with his earnings) etc.

InclinedPlane6• 14 years ago

Those aren't currency exchange rate dollars, they are "purchasing power parity" dollar equivalents, which take into account everything you've mentioned.

alexro15• 14 years ago

It isn't true. The calculations are done for some "average" group. And the group is selected based on the research goals, can have nothing in common with say your family.

Lazare3• 14 years ago

You're absolutely right, which is why that's exactly how poverty is measured. :) The World Bank actually uses a PPP measure of $1.25 per day in 2005 dollars for "extreme poverty". Let's break that down:

First, as I said, the World Bank uses a PPP measure of $1.25 per day. PPP stands for Purchasing Power Parity, which means that this is measure doesn't mean "has US $1.25 of local currency at current exchange rates", but instead means "has enough local currency to buy a basket of goods and services which could be purchased for $1.25 in the US". Or in more concrete terms, the World Bank is defining it as "can buy as much rice or flour as would cost $1.25 in the US", not "can buy $1.25 of rice or flour at local prices".

Second, the measure is in constant 2005 dollars, which means that it is indeed indexed for inflation.

And now you know. :) (Other poverty measures do focus directly on calories or food, but food isn't the only good or service the very poor need to purchase. That's why the World Bank uses a basket containing a mix of goods and services. Nothing's perfect, but the Bank's measure is pretty good at accurately tracking the condition of the poor both over time and between countries.)

nmridul2• 14 years ago

Thank you for explaining it in detail. Now it all makes sense.

Edit - Without the internet, the forums and the good people, i would have remained as ignorant as I was before.

csomar• 14 years ago

Poverty before revolution in Tunisia was stable at 15%. Just after the revolution, it's predicted to be, actually, more than 35%. Can we really trust the information provided since many of the poor countries (if not all) are living under authoritarian regimes?

alexro15• 14 years ago

That's it. And even if the poverty was still the same or better, what we as a whole get after such interventions is excess amounts of hate. Better let the countries alone, you Barak

lwinkler• 14 years ago

I don't quite get your point. America did not make an intervention in Tunisia. However you are right, better leave the country choose their own way.

ma2rten4• 14 years ago

The short answer is yes. Generally speaking poor countries get aid based on how poor they are. So the incentive is to make yourself poorer than you actually are and not richer. However, foreign aid organizations, like the World Bank, where the numbers come from in this case, are not stupid and they are thinking about this issue.

PaulMcCartney• 14 years ago

This is good news. However, I believe the reason we think poverty is bad is because we associate it with a poor quality of life. In this vein, poverty is only one slice of the pie. Other factors must still be considered such as, do these people have sufficient medical resources available to them and are they living in middle of a war? What goods are they deprived of and what evils are they plagued by?

mgunes• 14 years ago

If cited in support of the merits of the capitalist mode of production and growth, the absolute number of people below the threshold of hunger (not universally identifiable as "poverty") as calculated via the parity of a centrally controlled currency declining for the first time ever is absolutely embarrassing. I'd expect producers of post-crisis feel-good statistical acrobatics to set their standards much higher.

roel_v15• 14 years ago

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that absolute numbers give off the wrong impression because the population overall is declining? If so, you're flat out wrong, because global overall population trends are still pointing up, more pronounced so in the areas where there is the most poverty. Or are you hinting at issues with using PPP as the metric? If so, what's your problem with it?

thomasdavis4• 14 years ago

Great post aha good to see other Marxist on here. sigh

For the first time ever, the number of poor people is declining everywhere

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