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Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

economist.com

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Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#101

Post by gruez »

sorushn wrote: post #48
ksynwa wrote: post #5

I don't understand the significant of metrics like the international poverty line. Seems like the only point of its existence is to create a sense of progress or maybe exaggerate it. They never account for basic stuff like how many calories people get to eat, let alone the quality of nutrition. Last year I read an article saying like 30% of children in India are stunted.

It is used to justify and excuse WEF-imposed restructuring which in reality comes at tremendous human cost.

>WEF-imposed restructuring

The WEF is a talk shop that has no power to impose any sort of restructuring. Are you talking about the IMF?

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#102

Post by Retric »

gruez wrote: post #100
numpad0 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like bit of column one and column two. On one hand, poverty by income in USD must assume that the world's economy had globalized enough, such that, there can be no such locations on Earth as where $0.01 pays Michelin star lunch for dozen healthy adults. That's going to completely break premises of this metric. On the other hand, it's probably useful enough for now. Maybe there are 100x differences between…

>This sounds like bit of column one and column two. On one hand, poverty by income in USD must assume that the world's economy had globalized enough, such that, there can be no such locations on Earth as where $0.01 pays Michelin star lunch for dozen healthy adults. That's going to completely break premises of this metric. Poverty levels are measured with PPP dollars, so that's already factored in.

Somewhat, nationwide PPP dollars suggest incomes in San Francisco and Boise Idaho are equivalent.

India and China have similar regional differences.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#104

Post by lars512 »

ksynwa wrote: post #5

I don't understand the significant of metrics like the international poverty line. Seems like the only point of its existence is to create a sense of progress or maybe exaggerate it. They never account for basic stuff like how many calories people get to eat, let alone the quality of nutrition. Last year I read an article saying like 30% of children in India are stunted.

You can check out a range of important development statistics on India here: https://lars.yencken.org/projects/country-explorer/india

The one we're talking about today is "extreme poverty", which is the $2.15 purchasing-power-adjusted line. It's fantastic news that most Indians have surpassed this line, but it's also helpful to think of this line as just one rung in a ladder out of poverty. Life just above this line is still not great.

This chart, which shows how much of the population lives in different poverty lines for India, gives you a sense for the population as a whole. You can compare it to other countries to see their distribution, and China is probably a good comparison to make.

India: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio...

China: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio...

Despite progress on extreme poverty, you're right that there are still some 3 billion people in the world who cannot afford a nutritious diet, and likewise 3 billion people who live in energy poverty, meaning they have to cook indoors with solid fuels (wood, coal, dung) that damage their health and shorten their lives. It's important that we make progress on all these things in the coming decades. We absolutely have the power to.

The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better!

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#105

Post by gruez »

Retric wrote: post #102
gruez wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This sounds like bit of column one and column two. On one hand, poverty by income in USD must assume that the world's economy had globalized enough, such that, there can be no such locations on Earth as where $0.01 pays Michelin star lunch for dozen healthy adults. That's going to completely break premises of this metric. Poverty levels are measured with PPP dollars, so that's already factored in.

Somewhat, nationwide PPP dollars suggest incomes in San Francisco and Boise Idaho are equivalent. India and China have similar regional differences.

That's only an issue if you use nationwide metrics to make local comparisons (eg. are new yorkers richer than people in Kolkata?), but if you're comparing the entire country it's fine.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#106

Post by gruez »

ksynwa wrote: post #16
jso33 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is measured and there are targets - https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/

That's correct but my point is what kind of poverty is the poverty line measuring if it does not take into account how much people are getting to eat. This access to PPP adjusted dollar amount is clearly not a good heuristic for it because somehow extreme poverty has been alleviated while having a hunger index worse than North Korea.

>while having a hunger index worse than North Korea.

Relying on North Korean statistics to make your point is... questionable

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#107

Post by gruez »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #99
ann_ip wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I was thinking. With population not slowing down anytime soon, what are the next steps?

> what are the next steps? I'd say huge investments in improving things like infrastructure (roads, water, sewage, electricity), quality of housing, etc. China has a lot of experience in this regard with huge, admittedly failed projects of building entire cities from scratch (failed because nobody actually lives there).

>China has a lot of experience in this regard with huge, admittedly failed projects of building entire cities from scratch (failed because nobody actually lives there).

Build it and they will come.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underoccupied_developments_i...

>Although a feature of discourse on the Chinese economy and urbanization in China in the 2010s, many developments that were initially criticized as "ghost cities" in China have since become occupied and are now functioning cities.[5][6][7][8]

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#108

Post by gruez »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #26
forgotoldacc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key point. We can look back on people who were royalty in their time, but by modern standards, they would've been living a poor life. No AC in the summer, no proper medical care and the possibility of dying from a mild tooth problem, only having access to food that's in-season, zero running water, needing to have your poop hauled away in buckets, needing to spend all day just to travel 15 km, being blamed…

> No AC in the summer, no proper medical care and the possibility of dying from a mild tooth problem, only having access to food that's in-season, zero running water, needing to have your poop hauled away in buckets, needing to spend all day just to travel 15 km, being blamed for a random crime and executed days later with no real evidence. I think this is greatly exaggerated. Actual royalty had access to vast amount…

>No medical care? You could have a surgeon invent an implement to pull an arrow out of your skull and save your life, just because you are important enough for that.

...and die 2 weeks later from an infection because antibiotics haven't been discovered yet

>Only food in season? You could pay people to bring you food from other places far away lands no one has ever seen in such seasons.

The lack of air freight means even if you can send some guy to get it, by the time it arrives it'll be rotten.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#109

Post by gadders »

pavlov wrote: post #74
gadders wrote: post #69

[flagged]

Now that USAID has been thrown under the bus, it’s actually a golden opportunity for Europe to both rethink and boost aid programs. India is a crucial counterbalance to China. Now that the USA is retreating into internal bickering and giving up its global leadership, Europe should continue building ties with India and helping them lift people out of poverty.

I'd rather taxes were spent on people in the home nations, rather than ex-colonies or other 3rd world countries.

I also don't think countries should be spending on a space programme if they are still accepting aid.

Re: Extreme poverty in India has dropped to negligible levels

#110

Post by okr »

HPsquared wrote: post #95
juujian wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always had to think of my grandparents when discussing GDP. Aside from being very much part of the regular economy, they were also quite self sufficient. When my grandmother died, we found rows and rows of bottled jam. Some decades old according to the labels. My aunt did the taste test, and according to that at least, they were still very much edible and yummy actually. To the GDP that whole side of life is invisi…

Also: anything relating to home cooking, exercise, self-care, relationships and caring for children and other relatives. Only "paid professional" services are counted which are often much worse quality than the organic untaxed real thing.

Interesting. So you would say, if someone has a talent for cooking, specializes himself, becomes a professional, paid by people who enjoy the food, you would be at least sceptical, when it comes to quality?

I see paint jobs by people done by themselves. And compare it with paid professional servers. The pendulum always swings to professional. :)

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