Re: Top 1% OWNS MORE THAN bottom 90%

Dear Nospam:

"Nospam" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4209216.xWnfrtsj5H@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Robert Kolker wrote:

Your arithmetic is as bad as your logic. There are
about six billion people. One percent of the six
billion is sixty million. Now take a look at the U.S.
The population is over 280,000,000 and of those
250,000,000 are living quite well (most are not
ueber rich, but they are comfortable). Then there
is Europe with a population of 400,000,000 and
of those 300,000,000 are living rather well. Japan
has a population of 120,000,000 of which
110,000,000 are living well. Throw in about
20,000,000 in Austrilia and New Zealand who live
comforably. Factor in another hundred million
doing well in India and China and you have over
a billion people who are living comforably (not
necessarily rich, but comfortable). That comes to
sixteen percent of the world's population
which are not living in ***. Now it is not well that
over half the world's population lives in want and
squalor. Africa is a basket case. Bangladesh is a
basket case. Haiti is a basket case. Large areas
of South America are poverty stricken. Large
parts of central America\, ditto. Much of the
Islamic world is impoverished although some of the
richest people in the world are found there.

A couple of points:

1. There are 2 components of wealth. An absolute
component and a relative component.
Absolute component --- you have what is required
to live (food, water, housing, clothing, heating).

So 84% of the world's population has the "absolute" component...
they are still alive?

Relative component --- you have what is required
to live decently based on the standards of living in
the society where you are located.

To understand the relative component it is enough
to consider that a minimum wage worker in US it
is poor since he can not afford medical care. But
with the same amount of money, he can live
almost like rich in Asia, quality medical care
included.

With one million $ you can buy crops from US
farmers to feed a year an African village.

But they will probably not be crops grown in the US. Most crops
consumed in the US are grown elsewhere. Farming does not pay
enough, and requires too much equipment to make a living in the
US.

With the same amount of money you can give
them a water system that allows them to grow
their food for a lifetime.

What limits their population now is *lack*, disease, and no
horizon.

2. A polarized society do create less wealth than an
more equalitarian society.

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/dragonomics/polarization1.pdf

3. There are things that can be done.

A village in Africa carry all day long water from a deep
source by hand to water the crops that barely keep
them from death by starvation. This happen year after
year for decades.

Now, if you give them a solar powered pump they will
be able to cultivate 4 times that surface. They can
double their food ratio and eat decently. The extra
food can be used to feed sheep and start a textile
manufacture to use the times left by not having to
carry in hands all that water.

The solar cells that power that pump require more in fossil fuels
than the cells will ever make in energy over their lifetime,
using current technology.

With the textiles produced they can be able to pay
back sometime in the future the pump, maybe not
to donors but making a donation to the next
village nearby.

"Pay it Forward".

What we all need is a horizon (or frontier). For many that could
simply be a good education.

David A. Smith


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