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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

#91

Post by weavejester »

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.

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.

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

#92

Post by roel_v »

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…

"However, I though it would be helpful to start with a proactive thesis to get people thinking about this issue."

Well sorry to sound like a grumpy grandpa, but if anything, this site needs less posts of higher quality, not more empty posts with the explicit goal of provoking replies.

"How come the suicide rate in Africa is much lower (close to zero) than in Europe?"

First, correlation between depression and suicide is not linear as you seem to imply. While I don't have the expertise to have an authoritative opinion on this matter, depression is much more complex than 'my life sucks'. It's just as much (more?) about 'I feel my life sucks'. Japan has a very high suicide rate, yet ranks high in various happiness indexes, and has first world GDP.

Secondly, your claim that suicide rates in Africa are close to zero is flat out wrong, as even a cursory google search would have revealed to you. To start there is the objective problem with getting data - many African countries keep little to no statistics on this. Then there is a cultural issue, which incentivises all involved actors to mask or under-report actual causes of death (this is Greenspan talk for: families report suicides as accidents to avoid the social stigma). Furthermore, even the data that is available and at least somewhat reliable, points to African suicide rates that are not substantially different from countries worldwide. For example, the only African country on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra... (Zimbabwe) is somewhere in the middle, just above (meaning: slightly worse than) Luxemburg, the most prosperous country in the EU. While Wikipedia isn't the end and all of data, I found that WHO data paints a similar picture when I looked into it a while ago when I had the same discussion, but that data is a lot harder to distill and I don't have time right now to do so.

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

#93

Post by DanBC »

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?

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...)

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

#94

Post by roel_v »

washedup wrote: post #45

I think it's called inflation

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 .

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

#95

Post by roel_v »

sek wrote: post #85
ig1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you even know what inflation means? You keep using it in contexts that suggest you have an entirely wrong idea of it.

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

#96

Post by patrickk »

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.

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).

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

#97

Post by huxley »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #60
tfb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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).

I think one would most reasonably hold that it is both a form of exploitation and a form of enrichment.

The interesting part of the article is that the biggest benefit has been to those in abject poverty: "Most of the progress has been concentrated among the poorest of the poor—those who make less than $1.25 a day. The bank’s figures show only a small drop in the number of those who make less than $2 a day."

One interesting bit buried in the lede was that the article also highlights the benefits of counter-cyclical fiscal expansions among governments. Those that expanded government programmes held down the damage caused by the recession. I would be interested in seeing if those that tried austerity measures suffered more.

Update: changed last sentences to better reflect the point I wanted to make.

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

#98

Post by alexro »

derleth wrote: post #70
alexro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe they did just fell down, one after another, starting with Tunisia? I envy your good spirit.

OK, I have a question: What evidence would persuade you that your current idea about this is wrong?

Is it the HN version of "go kill yourself" that intelligent people should use?

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

#99

Post by molsongolden »

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?

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.

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

#100

Post by sek »

roel_v wrote: post #95
sek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you even know what inflation means? You keep using it in contexts that suggest you have an entirely wrong idea of it.

I talk about the value of the dollar, when the author takes the metric 2.00$ this is relevant. The official inflation rate is in almost all cases totally wrong, because it takes way too few factors into account. This is a separate topic, how the inflation should be calculated. I think just that currency exchange rates are a better way to predict inflation trends.
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