The ”very poor” are those who live on less than a dollar a day. The benchmark - a rare piece of brilliant marketing from the World Bank - is both more generous and more frugal than it seems. Generous, because the benchmark dates from 1985 and has been adjusted since to take account of inflation in each country and is generally now more than a dollar a day. But frugal because the dollar is adjusted for purchasing power. In other words, a Kenyan farmer might have 50 cents a day to spend but still not count as ”very poor” because 50 cents in Kenya buys more than a dollar would in the US. However you look at it, a dollar a day is a tiny income.Ok so "A dollar a day" goes down in the category of statements about the human condition that start with:
You only need 1 cubic metre of water for survival - a year!
My own approach to the redistribution of wealth has been to have conspicuously little of it. Additionally, I encourage the provision of access to resources by combining in mutual organisations which provide finance at non exploitative rates. Well it keeps me off the streets.
Imagine my interest in another article entitled "Uncommon Wealth" by Chrystia Freeland in the FT Weekend A-Train column on March 31 2007 where she states
. .. even people who have a lot of experience with a lot of money, such as Wall Street investment banker Felix Rohatyn, admit that the magnitude of today’s wealth is hard for them to fathom.He finds
.... the mass of money that is being accumulated by individuals staggering, If you suddenly have $4bn in your bank account, I don’t know what you do. It is one thing to decide how you will deal with a fortune of $500m. I used to think that was a huge amount of money. But, to a lot of people, it is not any more.I am staggered by the amounts but lets qualify the phrase 'lot of people' and not get carried away shall we!
The significance as far as Freeland is concerned is that Soros, Gates and Buffet, to name but a few, have added -
new energy, and star power..... to promote social change
I have always found Peanuts a great consolation at these troubling moments of indecision about the meaning of life, the universe and everything else! Basically, I am an altruist. I want to make the world a better place for me to live in.
Ojala!
