Posted on 01/07/2014 3:02:50 PM PST by NYer
As a child of the 80s, I remember We Are the World. Yeah, the song is terrible, but it was nice to see rock stars care about charity. Back then poverty in Africa was in the news all the time. But things have been changing in Africa and in other “third-world” countries. More countries are opening up their markets. China, Russia, India, and Botswana are all much freer economies than they were in 1970.
But even I was shocked when I saw this graph:
Mark Perry, an economics professor at UM-Flint said it best:
Well, the chart above could perhaps qualify as the “chart of the century” because it illustrates one of the most remarkable achievements in human history: the 80% reduction in world poverty in only 36 years, from 26.8% of the world’s population living on $1 or less (in 1987 dollars) in 1970 to only 5.4% in 2006. (Source: The 2009 NBER working paper “Parametric Estimations of the World Distribution of Income,” by economists Maxim Pinkovskiy (MIT) and Xavier Sala-i-Martin (Columbia University).
Wow. An 80% drop in world poverty since 1970. Just astounding.
And if you have a few minutes, you really must watch this video… It explains why great data like we see up above is NOT enough to persuade people to move away from socialism and central planning. We need a moral argument for the free enterprise system.
As Arthur Brooks says: Don’t Eat Your Dog.
Don't Eat Your Dog: The Surprising Moral Case for Free Enterprise
FYI, ping!
And now compare that to US poverty..... then cry.
This truth is why the left ignores it because it believes that it is better to have communism where everyone except the ruling elite is poor.
Ping.
But the Marxist useful idiot Obama still wants to kill free market capitalism here in the USA.
Americans in “poverty” have a far different life than those in the Third World. It all depends on what the meaning of “poverty” is.
bkmk
It is wonderful.
But while the rest of the world is freeing their economies and bettering the lot of their people in the process the United States is hobbling the legs of our economy and real incomes of the citizens of this once great country are sliding backwards.
Thank you Obama and the Democrats!
Remember that pendulums swing. I am most fortunate to have experienced life in post WWII America when neighbors spoke with each other and doors were left unlocked. I witnessed the impact of communism on Russia and was privileged to see the Berlin wall fall, under an strong Conservative American president.
It's been all downhill since then, here in the US but look at Russia! They have rebounded, even to the point of outright banning advertisements for abortion! There was a time in my youth when prayers were offered up for those persecuted in Russia and now we see the fruit of those sacrifices. We need to do the same here and pray for our own country. Historically, once the libs have tested their failing approaches, the republicans (conservatives) are usually elected to clean up the mess.
Take heart! Pray for the US!
When they speak/write of ‘world poverty’ they mean $1-$1.25/day. I’m not sure anyone in the US lives on that. When an American hits that level (or even well above that level) various charities and/or the govt steps in to provide food/shelter, etc.
I haven’t lost heart believe me.
I am so angry and befuddled that this country that taught the free market and low taxes path to prosperity to the rest of the world is being led down the socialist road by these idiot Democrats.
How can anyone who was alive and conscious when Ireland went for being an economic basket case to being the Celtic Tiger just by lowering its corporate income tax rate have any illusions that high taxes are the path to economic growth?
So, this is because huge swaths of the world's population have gone from lesser to greater economic freedom? India, China, Russia, Botswana ---and greater globalization?
Does freedom lead to globalization, or vice-versa?
I think I don't understand how it works.
Well sure, we gave them our jobs.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regardless, under president Obama, Americans have become poorer, mainly because the economic growth is not keeping pace with population growth.
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