Why We Try

I heard, this morning, on my local NPR station, that America has about 15% of its children living at or below the poverty level. In comparison, in the average European nation , the number is about 5%-6%. This got me thinking about both poverty and our priorities all the rest of my day. Upon returning home I used this web of ours to unearth some data on the subject. I would share what I found in a very, very short time. I trust this depresses you as much as it did me:

 Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. source 1

 The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. source 2

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. source 3

 Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen. source 4

51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations. source 5

The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. source 6

The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. source 7

20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods. source 8

The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1%. source 9

 In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much. source 10

 An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about: · 3 to 1 in 1820 · 11 to 1 in 1913 · 35 to 1 in 1950 · 44 to 1 in 1973 · 72 to 1 in 1992 source 11

 â€œThe lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels” source 12

The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants. source 13

 A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people. source 14

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