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

economist.com

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

#81

Post by kamaal »

lwinkler wrote: post #67
alexro wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

But America/NATO did Intervene in Iraq and Libya and conditions there are miserable now.

Iraq is in far worst condition after US invasion and occupation than it was before.

In fact I believe things were far better under Saddam then they are now.

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

#82

Post by kamaal »

lwhi wrote: post #24

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?

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.

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

#83

Post by nickik »

givan wrote: post #52

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

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.

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

#84

Post by zorked »

ma2rten wrote: post #71
roel_v wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

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 huma…

I read somewhere that suicide is correlated with post-traumatic stress disorder. People who live in a constant state of trauma are unlikely to suicide, which is also why suicide rates are believed to go down during wars. That doesn't mean that people are happy, just that they are not killing themselves.

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

#85

Post by sek »

ig1 wrote: post #80
[deleted] wrote: post #74

[deleted]

Inflation figures aren't very complicated, typically they're just a weighted collection of product prices, if you don't believe the official figures you can just calculate your own. Just create a list of items that you purchase on a regular basis, and calculate a weighted average cost for each year to give you a basket price and then compare the basket price between years to give you a measure of your personal inflat…

I was talking about journalists who ignore exactly that.

I wasn't just talking about individual inflation. For example, when a company that makes international sales reports record earnings in dollar, while the dollar sunk compared to almost every other currency, is this just misleading. Compare the revenue increase of the biggest companies with exchange rates, they are probably not as healthy as they appear on first sight. Maybe they are not growing at all and just the dollar inflated again.

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

#86

Post by Lazare »

kamaal wrote: post #82
lwhi wrote: post #24

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?

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.

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?

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

#87

Post by hythloday »

ekianjo wrote: post #30
kitsune_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, we'll reach 10 billions in no time at the rate the world population is growing.

The rate of population growth has been slowing[0] since 1963, and monotonically so since 1991. The UN's "medium" projection suggests that the total population peak is just over 10 billion, and the low peak is just over 8 billion[1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_growth_ra... [1] http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm

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

#88

Post by calibraxis »

roel_v wrote: post #50
alan_cx wrote: post #40

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.

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…

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...)

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

#89

Post by berntb »

Lazare wrote: post #86
kamaal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

It seems to me the GP didn't talk about the relative wealth of e.g. Britain, he was expressing a conspiracy theory that everything Britain had was stolen?

It took me a bit to realise that you did answer the GP's "point".

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

#90

Post by yummyfajitas »

ticks wrote: post #35
ma2rten wrote: post #29

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?

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.

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...

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