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What can we do to make these three things as "cheap" as possible? The answer won't just help the developing countries. It will help everyone.
Back of the envelope calculations, grabbing some numbers off of Wikipedia: "In 2005, 43% of the world population (3.14 billion people) have an income of less than U.S. $2.5/day. 21.5% of the world population (1.4 billion people) have an income of less than US$1.25/day." So the bottom 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25/day. 1/4 of the $240 billion annual income cited is $60bn a year, spread amongst 1.4 billion…
Plus if you give everyone 18% more money, won't you just end up with 18% (or more) inflation as profiteering kicks in?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "Does 1 cake really matter"? All of these "100 richest people" probably give away more than 100x what you earn in a year already. Are you honestly going to call them selfish? If you are, then you are saying everyone should give away as much of their "cakes" as possible. Can you afford to give away an extra "cake"? Probably. Then you are selfish too, by your own logic.
> All of these "100 richest people" probably give away more than 100x what you earn in a year already. Are you honestly going to call them selfish? Yes. Charity is a feel-good hypocrisy (or worse, just a tax saving measure). Nobody made huge tons of money without other people's blood under it. And especially not the top 1%. Even a record artist that makes money from his songs (so he doesn't hurt anyone personally) is…
Overly dramatic sensationalism - ripped straight from a first year college pamphlet on how to be angry at the man - at its best.
And all it warrants is a simple: prove it. Such an extraordinary claim, you should do it the justice of demonstrating it as fact.
What a ridiculous assertion. So the implicit claim is that 60 billion (per year?) is all it takes to end extreme poverty. Does anyone actually think increasing aid by that amount would actually have that effect? Is it really as simple as writing a cheque?
I.e if you yourself are not an expert on the global poverty problem then it takes more than "they are wrong" to refute their conclusions. The report is downloadable so just check the numbers yourself.
The references makes it clear that the original figure is $175 billion spread out over two years and is produced by economist Jeff Sachs. His book "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" probably contains details on how it was calculated.
Oxfam GB also acts as a lobbyist in the UK, receives large amounts of funding from the government and has particularly close ties to the Labour party[4].
I realise that this is easy to construe an attack on Oxfam rather than the crux of the post, but my point here is that Oxfam have a vested interest in highlighting such things, regardless of whether or not there's anything tangible that can be done in order to raise funds. I would encourage anyone looking to donate to charity to do some basic due diligence on their charity of choice, and to preferably donate to a smaller local charity first.
[1] - http://capitalmind.in/2011/06/oxfam-india-spends-70-of-donat...
[2] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon...
[3] - http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/street_solicitations.ht...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, only 19 people have given more than $1bn to charity http://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2011/05/19/the-worlds... which leaves a lot of people not giving much away. The Russian oligarchs seem to like to spend money on football teams and mansions not alleviating poverty, while the Chinese rich do not seem to give much away either.
Well, running football teams and building mansions aren't necessarily wealth destroying activities. Football teams can be relatively big employers plus distribute lare amounts to players who then also buy expensive things putting more money back into the economy. Many Chinese rich would be very large employers. Also their culture of saving allows the US to continue spending outside of their means, for now.
The Chinese aren't buying any meaningful amount of our new debt these days. Mostly they just cycle existing debt, from long to short etc as it makes sense. Ditto the Japanese, who hold almost as much junk US debt as the Chinese.
So, shall we just arrest the richest 100 people, confiscate their wealth, and solve all the world's problems at once?
In the linked report, Oxfam suggests even more radical things, like closing tax havens and taxing the capital gains. [sarcasm]Sadly, they do not want to arrest or kill all those rich people.[/sarcasm]
Everyone commenting on here wants to believe that they will become one of the top 1%. No one here wants to contemplate what would happen if they fell to the bottom 1%.
I recently spent 2 days working on a renovation project at a local slum here in Hungary. The slum is a couple hundred gipsy families, living in unfinished/abandoned houses without water, gas/heating, they steal electricity off the grid. This was during the winter, so most houses just had one heated room, using wood. The houses didn't have bathrooms, everything smelled of urine, thrash was left all over the place, ins…
The discrimination against minorities like Roma and Jews in Hungary is severe. So it's not fair to blame all the problems on themselves.