I hope some of you find this interesting. I stumbled upon some economic figures indicating the world per capita yearly income average was $5,500 in 2003. I multiplied that by 6.5 billion (estimated number of people alive in 2003) and the total earned by the world in 2003 was: $35.7 trillion dollars. I did some further calculations. If you earn $150,000 per year, you are only earning a 238 millionth of a portion of the world's income pie. so basically what i'm trying to say is there is a huge pie out there.
I'm all about trying to help and find solutions for the world's poor, but every time I read about this stuff, I wonder how it's possible to earn a lot of money in this world when there are so many people living in poverty. well, these calculations prove that the pie is still pretty damn huge!!!
And that's even with the many billions of dollars of aid directed towards Africa each year. You'd think having some of the largest rivers in the world and enormous areas of pristine farmland would allow people to water and feed themselves...
I think that figure is a little bit off. The U.S. GDP for 2003 was around 43 trillion dollars was it not? I realize that's not all kicked out in wages, but I would think people all around the world are earning more than the U.S. GDP all by itself.
That is a debatable point. Some economists argue that with growth comes inflation, taxation, and other wealth distribution issues. Granted, these guys are in the minority. Anyway lets not hijack the thread.
Yep that's a big a pie. But my first reaction was the same as Will's. Creating wealth often means creating new goods and services. There are more (and more kinds of) property, goods and services now than 200 years ago. Creating more wealth doesn't neccessarily mean you took more of the pie that could have gone to africa. In fact it may mean you helped make the pie bigger and the quality of goods and services in africa will increase. (for example) Also I will be charitable as I create more wealth. In fact, if my belly is any indicator, all pies get bigger. From now on only oatmeal with my morning coffee.
LOL...I'm guessing you've never been to Africa then? Its a damn big continent which has been raped for its resources (people and minerals) for hundreds of years, has every kind of government from dictatorships to democracies and much of it is a hostile environment for people to live in (which is why most of us choose to live in a more moderate climate). It does not resemble the rolling green fields of England. Fascinating place though and the people deserve a better deal from the west and better governments looking over them Cheers BP
Well, most of that is in Nature Reserves, and the forests/jungles are being raped by western logging firms, but the biggest change that needs to take place is that almost all the people need a paradigm shift from subsistance farming to commercial farming, and from single-leader governments (eg, chiefs, etc) to more 'group' based eg democracy.
reading that article with all the NRA ads around it kind of made me wonder. Tell that to Nigerian mothers boiling rocks to flavour the water/soup for dinner. The Nigerian president doesn't even admit they have a poverty problem. I think the problem lies with badly managed funding as that article points out. But to say we can't help them is bullshit. Sponsor a child / family or medicos sin frontera. It costs very little...probably a couple of adsense hours worth of earnings for some.
The scarey thing is that it's mostly true. Kim did exaggerate a few things, but the fact that almost every African government is hidiously corrupt cannot be denied. South Africa is probably one of the most stable governments in the continent, and is considered the "United States' of Africa by all the refugees, and yet our government is so dodgy they make Bush look absolutely spotless by comparison. That's why I said they need a massive paradigm shift. Also, the western countries need a smack in the head. They all know how corrupt Africa's governments are, so why give the aid directly to them when they know it's going to stolen by the criminals in office? Lol, if you take it into context you'll understand. Kim du Toit hails from South Africa, a country the UN considers one of dangerous places to live outside of a warzone. White people here are paranoid about security, and seeing how gun ownership is tightly controlled here (if you try and do it the legal way, that is), it's no wonder that she'd go gun-crazy in the States with the easy access to guns, especially if she lived in Johannesburg