Gifts from rich highlight plight of world's poor

Yahoo! News ^ | 11/30/06 | Ana Nicolaci da Costa

[goldstategop]

To the Left, every one except them ought to live in a state of shared misery. If you're well off, you should feel guilty about not have to struggle for a living. Its your fault you're living in affluence. You don't deserve to be happy. Notice these people are NOT working on the assumption the poor deserve to leave poverty behind and become part of the well-off. Where would the Left be without victims?

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[LurkedLongEnough]

the richest 50 individuals in the world have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million

Let's play "liberal hypotheticals" with this wild pronouncement.

Our society recognizes both intelligence and "emotional" intelligence, right? What would happen to the calculations of wealth if we figure "emotional" wealth in the equation?

Liberal minds want to know in order to be proud of their own emotional generosity.

[3AngelaD]

The Mexican land reforms began shortly after Diaz retired at the beginning of the 20th century, and have continued ever since. There was a big outbreak of land reform under Cardenas in the '30s, as well. They take it away from productive landowners and turn it over to marginally productive campesinos. The campesinos eventually sell it back to the productive landowners, the campesinos complain about the patron, and the whole thing starts again. They have been doing this for 100 years and it hasn't worked yet. Only in areas where they have managed to institute guaranteed property rights is agriculture in Mexico a paying proposition.

[ctdonath2]

world economic output doubled in the last 10 years.

...and did so precisely because there was the incentive of profit.

[from occupied ga]

According to the left, all wealth is earned collectively by our society as a whole, at least that is how they view it. It is of course totally wrong.

This viewpoint made Cuba the economic powerhouse it is today and was the reason the the Russians were able to outproduce the US thus ending the cold war in favor of communism and why communism is the ... Oh wait, Cuba is an economic shambles and Russia didn't outproduce the USA and still communism is touted by retards like the one who wrote this article. Go figure.

[GovernmentShrinker]

But the size of the gift also highlights growing inequality in the distribution of wealth

Better there should be huge concentrations of wealth in the hands of individuals than in the hands of government, and the latter is the only alternative.

[dfwgator]

Should we all just become communists then? Not sure where they are coming from here, or what exactly the complaint is.

Then only the high-ranking party officials will be rich. Fidel Castro is one of the richest men in the world.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Socialism is not the answer, though.

[Hendrix]

It is all part of the left's philosophy. That is why you hear Hillary Clinton talk about "were are going to take things away from people for the good of society" and "it takes a neighborhood to raise a child", etc. Your money belongs to socieity--not you. Of course, all of this is horse crap and has been proven wrong by history time and time again as you point out. But the left does not want to hear about its failures because it is married to Marx's ideas.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Social Darwinist, eh? Yet another sign of the bad fruit of Darwinism.

And don't bring God into this, especially as culling some herd.

[tx_eggman]

Libs just don't seem to realize that if everyone in the world were to suddenly achieve the lifestyle the average American enjoys, the world's resources would quickly evaporate and there would be choking pollution.

Two points ..

They don't want everyone to achieve the average American lifestyle. They want the average American lifestyle to disappear.

If all the wealth was magically divided equally across the globe ... in a generation the "gross inequalities" would be right back in place.

"The poor you will always have with you" .. Jesus

[ctdonath2]

Advanced economies too are plagued by inequalities which make parts of their population vulnerable to external shocks and natural disasters, as shown by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

No, it's the advanced economy which enables parts of their population to be vulnerable to external shocks and natural disasters - and survive!

Old maps of New Orleans showed nobody living in the flood zone - precisely because it would flood and destroy homes (surely found out the hard way). It was the advanced economy which built levees between the river/ocean and the flood zone, allowing the disadvantaged access to cheap, previously-unused, and wealth-enabling land. It was the advanced economy which was able to evacuate most of the city in time, and provided food & shelter to those who would/could not care for themselves. It is also the advanced economy (gov't flood insurance) which, upon devestating failure of those levees and destruction of homes in that flood zone, will rebuild those homes at little/no cost to owners & occupants.

The bottom "inequals" of an advanced economy are, on the whole, better off than the bottom "equals" of a less-advanced economy.

BTW: It was also an advanced economy which sent a floating city to Indonesia to help the less-advanced economy deal with the pervasive devestation of a huge tsunami.

Would the author prefer a less-advanced economy? The bottom is fixed; the top is boundless. Lowering the top does not raise the bottom.

[3AngelaD]

I find it extremely interesting that Reuters has an economics reporter in London, supposedly writing "objective" news stories, who is an avowed Marxist.

[colorado tanker]

Hobbs accurately described the lives of ordinary people before the industrial revolution as "nasty, brutish and short." Yet we still have these pseudo-intellectual fools who continue to decry the economic forces that are giving more and more people around the world unprecedented health and lifespans and relatively comfortable lives.

He ought to ask some farmers in India or Indonesia if they'd rather continue in grinding rural poverty or make twice the wage in a Nike "sweatshop." Nike wins every time.

[JmyBryan]

Seems the "corrupt governments" thing that shows up in all of these stories makes the socialist wealth stealing outcries a bit foolish, don't it?

[Wormwood]

He ought to ask some farmers in India or Indonesia if they'd rather continue in grinding rural poverty or make twice the wage in a Nike "sweatshop." Nike wins every time.

Now ask those same factory workers if they would prefer the current system or one where they can organize for greater benefits and standards of living.

If it was good enough for us, after all, it is good enough for them.

[rabscuttle385]

It's okay. With the 'Rats in charge, we'll all be equally poor!

[50sDad]

Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful. Never grateful.

[griswold3]

You must have watched the Barney Frank and Bill O debate last night too.
Bill was stuck on 'income' redistribution and didn't get Franks "wealth" redistribution.

I agree with everyone's assessment about the 'rich' knowing how to acquire wealth and know what to do with it when they have it. Those that don't will ALWAYS be poor.

[colorado tanker]

I think the right to organize in labor unions is fundamental. But it's a decision for each country to make for itself, not be imposed by us. It wasn't until the 1930's that labor rights became established in the U.S., after a century of industrialization.