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Maths + Poverty + Wealth = Ignorance
Comments
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ruggedtoast wrote: »Britain's public sector workers are the best in the world. They provide world beating service for reasonable prices.
:rotfl::rotfl:ruggedtoast wrote: »I am unclear what benefit the Qatari royal family brings to anyone. Or our royal family to be honest.
Most Boomers that have worked in skilled jobs or the professions or for the Government are in the 1%.0 -
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ruggedtoast wrote: »I am delighted to hear it. Presumably they don't all need free bus passes and winter fuel allowances funded by people much poorer than they are then.
Well of course most of the people that are much poorer than them don't live in the UK.
That you own a computer or some sort of similar device will put you into about the top 20%. If you have a car you own outright and perhaps the start of a pension you're probably top 10%.
The bottom 50% basically own nothing between them.0 -
Global poverty is falling.
In the past few decades, substantial progress has been made in reducing global poverty. Between 1990 and 2011, the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved, to around one billion people, or 14.5 percent of the world’s population
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/measuringpoverty/publication/a-measured-approach-to-ending-poverty-and-boosting-shared-prosperity0 -
Well of course most of the people that are much poorer than them don't live in the UK.
That you own a computer or some sort of similar device will put you into about the top 20%. If you have a car you own outright and perhaps the start of a pension you're probably top 10%.
The bottom 50% basically own nothing between them.
http://www.100people.org/statistics_100stats.php?section=statistics0 -
Global poverty is falling.
In the past few decades, substantial progress has been made in reducing global poverty. Between 1990 and 2011, the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved, to around one billion people, or 14.5 percent of the world’s population
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/measuringpoverty/publication/a-measured-approach-to-ending-poverty-and-boosting-shared-prosperity
...and given that the population of the world was about 5,250,000,000 in 1990 and is now somewhere north of 7,000,000,000 we now have more people living out of extreme poverty than were alive 25 years ago!
As global trade increases and the numbers relying on scraping a living from a half acre of dusty land with little, if any, infrastructure reduce the better the life for billions of people can become.
If you ask most people in the poorest half of the world's population about what they want and need they'll tell you it's a secure supply of clean food, water, sewerage removal and electricity. Even basic healthcare (antibiotics, pain relief, clean bandages & rehydration) is a luxury for those guys.0 -
It doesn't take much to change the fortunes of the poor. Except that things then shift.
e.g. the Govt brought in tax credits to pay for childcare - and the childcare providers upped the rates because they knew there was more money around for it.
Enabling all poor people to have an extra £20/week makes a MASSIVE difference to them. £20/week to somebody on £100k/year wouldn't notice. Yet, if we assume that most poor people are renting, then you can rest assured that if you enable them to access an extra £20/week, their rents would creep up within a year so it was gobbled up there.
No matter how much money the poor have, those providing them with basic essentials will increase their charges.0 -
...and given that the population of the world was about 5,250,000,000 in 1990 and is now somewhere north of 7,000,000,000 we now have more people living out of extreme poverty than were alive 25 years ago!....
Most of it is down to China.
China saw a huge increase in income inequality — but even more growth. Between 1981 and 2010 it lifted a stunning 680m people out poverty — more than the entire current population of Latin America.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-no
That's Socialism with Chinese characteristics for you. More inequality. Less poverty.0 -
Most of it is down to China.
China saw a huge increase in income inequality — but even more growth. Between 1981 and 2010 it lifted a stunning 680m people out poverty — more than the entire current population of Latin America.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21578643-world-has-astonishing-chance-take-billion-people-out-extreme-poverty-2030-no
That's Socialism with Chinese characteristics for you. More inequality. Less poverty.
Hardly Socialism (apart from the rhetoric): China is close to being the ultimate capitalist society.
Most of China's progress in lifting people out of poverty was in the earlier part of the period mentioned. At a global scale, the most recent progress in reducing poverty has been in Latin America, and that really has been through the government re-distributing wealth in various ways...0 -
ruggedtoast wrote: »Poor people might reasonably think that with great wealth comes great responsibility. That is why it is controversial when all the general public sees of rich people is them behaving like nobs, gold plating their helicopters and spending more on a bottle of fizzy white wine than a nurse makes in a year.
I don't especially think that the uk has a duty to provide some kind of unquestioning safe have haven to these displays of nobbery. Or that the threat that "they will leave" is much of a threat at all. Although this kind of opinion would seem to label me as a raging leftist nowadays.
How do you imagine someone in India or Africa feels when the EPL credits are cut short and they see people spending a week's wage on a pint of lager?
If you want wealth to be spread evenly then I assume that is for all not just for self enrichment.0
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