RE: FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada

From: matus (matus@matus1976.com)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 20:15:40 MDT

  • Next message: Spike: "RE: How do you calm down the hot-heads?"

    >Let's see your legitimate "poverty is in decline" source.

    "Study finds that globalization cures poverty"

    "While acknowledging the number of poor people in the world remains
    "disturbingly high," the study says that in 1950 about 55% of the
    world's
    population lived on less than US$1 a day (in constant,
    inflation-adjusted
    dollars). By 1992, only 24% of the world's population had to make do
    with
    that tiny amount."

    "The proportion of the world's population living in absolute poverty is
    lower now than it has ever been," the report says."

    From -
    http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=7D0DFAD8-D129-40D8-A94C-D
    5D2FD9E0CC2

    Apparently, National post limits the time it archives files. You can
    find the article mirrored on my site...

    From -
    http://matus1976.com/mfdlist/mfdlist_globalizationcurespoverty1.htm

    I am sure you can find the original study if so inclined. Do you have a
    study suggesting that poverty is higher than it has ever been before as
    a percentage of the population?

    >
    >Poverty is NOT less than 20% - even in the United States.

    "poverty" is, of course, relative. Define what you mean by it. As of
    1992, per this study, the global figure was at 24%, defined as $1 US
    dollar per day.

    >> ### You know I am a staunch opponent of coercion. I will benefit only
    >> from
    >> people working for their own gain, freely, such as the Nike
    >workers in
    >> wherever they are.
    >
    >So are you just ignorant of the political repression in Burma that
    >causes them to be subject to abject poverty and willing to take shitty
    >jobs?
    >

    Burma? From the CIA world fact book

    http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bm.html

    "Burma is a resource-rich country that suffers from abject rural
    poverty. The military regime took steps in the early 1990s to liberalize
    the economy after decades of failure under the "Burmese Way to
    Socialism", but those efforts have since stalled. Burma has been unable
    to achieve monetary or fiscal stability, resulting in an economy that
    suffers from serious macroeconomic imbalances - including a steep
    inflation rate and an official exchange rate that overvalues the Burmese
    kyat by more than 100 times the market rate. In addition, most overseas
    development assistance ceased after the junta suppressed the democracy
    movement in 1988 and subsequently ignored the results of the 1990
    election. Burma is data poor, and official statistics are often dated
    and inaccurate. Published estimates of Burma's foreign trade are greatly
    understated because of the size of the black market and border trade -
    often estimated to be one to two times the official economy."

    You act as if their choice appears to be a shitty job as a factory
    worker or a non-shitty job as something other than a factory worker. It
    in fact appears their choices are shitty job as a factory work or
    starving to death. I know little of Burma, but this seems typical of
    oppressive closed societies, do you have knowledge suggesting the
    poverty in burma is FROM the multinational conglomerates?

    Population below poverty line = 25%

    No doubt the perpetuation of poverty is a complex issue, but lets not
    forget that at the very least before agriculture and civilization
    *everyone* was below poverty level, perpetually on the verge of
    starvation. I have read suggestions that at one point some 10's of
    thousands of years ago the entire adult breeding population was as low
    as 1,000 people.

    Regards,

    Michael Dickey



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