Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exercises, ip infringement, and "job stealing".
The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
21–30 of 218 posts
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#22It's really weird to me how commonplace the attitude of "It is what it is" and "Government can't do anything". The air and water quality in the US is vastly better since the passage of laws that created and empowered the EPA (Created by the Republican President Nixon). The endangered species act has had many similar successes. I live on Maui. The waters are now filled with Green Sea Turtles and Humpback whales that w…
What are you referencing in regards to poverty? I would have guessed that the recent reduction in poverty is largely attributable to wealthy nations reducing efforts to centrally plan the economies of poor nations.
The conceit of the article -- borne out by economic history -- is exactly that: it's the reduction of efforts to centrally plan, and the rise of entrepreneurial, capitalistic efforts to advance, that has reduced poverty. [1] [2]
[1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/deirdre-mccloskey-... [2] https://ricochet.com/perhaps-the-most-powerful-defense-of-ma...
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#23Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
I'm a bit confused about that as well. What's worse is that the background papers that the world bank website references seem to all 404:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/...
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#24Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
I came here to ask the same thing.
Taking in consideration they use the US$1.25/day measurement since 1981 [1], today this value should be US$3.28/day [2] (based on US inflation between 1981 and 2015).
Given that, I'd love to know the real value. Maybe it is still a positive perspective, but I think it'd be more realistic (or, at least, accurate). :-)
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#25Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
Further, none of the cited sources seem to be past 2008...
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#26I think the average American is going to be shocked in the next couple of years when the rest of the world passes us by. The technological capability of developing nations has increased rapidly. Our rate of technological progress is slowing down. For example, Intel is having difficulty scaling down process technology past 14nm while the fabs in China are catching up at 28nm.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#27Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
I couldn't find any correlation to inflation. I put in $2.00 in the calculator, and the millions of people in poverty came close to doubling. Maybe I'm missing something?
When I put $2.00 into the calculator it only showed me 2011. Maybe I'm missing something? I wish they would elaborate on the calculations on the site
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#28Is there any inflationary effect to the $1.25/day figure that has been used since the 1980s? It's not clear from the article whether it's adjusted for inflation.
Apperently it started at $1, was raised to $1.25 in 2008 an now they are planning for $1.90 which'd likely skyrocket absolute poverty numbers.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#29Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exerci…
Perhaps American sentiment is based on China's hundreds of years of bad policy relegating those same millions of people to extreme poverty?
[edit: it might be more fair to say decades here, if you believe we can only attribute "policy" to the Communist Party]
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#30Yes, a vast number of the world's poorest population have been raised out of nominal abject poverty, this is true.
What Kristof doesn't state, however, are these facts:
1. Those people live almost entirely in China and India.
2. The rise in nominal wealth has come from a tremendous increase in energy consumption.
3. Both nations have extreme environmental problems, including the worst air pollution situations in the world, result of extreme amounts of coal consumption, water shortages, water pollution, and extensive land contamination from mining, industrial, municipal, and other waste.
4. Though overall efficiency in GDP output per unit energy has increased modestly, overall, increases in economic wealth require vast amounts of additional resource consumption.
The combination of factors 3 and 4 above means that the gains in economic output are being accomplished largely by both strip-mining resources and exhausting effluent dumps in China and India.
5. Much of the apparent "de-materialisation" of economies in the developed world outside China and India is actually, on closer examination, based on exporting raw material (and effluent) demands to those countries. See research out of CSIRO (Australia) and UCSB.
6. Outside of China and India (though yes, they're both huge countries), progress in the "developing" world has been far more modest. In cases, backsliding. Add to this economic regression through much of the Middle East and North Africa (much of the disturbances of the Arab Spring is attributable to economic circumstances), and even in OECD/European nations, particularly Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
And finally: the foundations of modern economic wealth, vast quantities of nonrenewable resources, tapped at uttelry unsustainable rates, are quite simply not sustainable. Without looking to this basis, effectively the fuel in the tank, observations of altitude or velocity tell little.