07 April 2010

Poverty

Poverty refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter.[1][2] This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution. Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages.

Poverty is usually measured as either absolute or relative poverty (the latter being actually an index of income inequality). Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 (PPP) per day, and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day. It estimates that "in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day."[120]

3 comments:

J C said...

from good old wikipedia.

J C said...

so if the world population is 6,692,030,277 and we have 2.7 billion living on less than two dollars a day....whoa, that's close to 40%!!!!!

Krahn said...

Sopmetimes I think that government and thier systems have every thing to do with a 40% poverty rate. All of this only exists because we say it exists: ie: the great credit crash of '09 '08. I read this and found it interesting and relevant:

"“Charlie Bit My Finger” [BOB NOTE: this is a Youtube video that has had more than 175M views since it was uploaded in 2007] was made by amateurs, in one take, with a lousy camera. No professionals were involved in selecting or editing or distributing it. Not one dime changed hands anywhere between creator, host, and viewers. A world where that is the kind of thing that just happens from time to time is a world where complexity is neither an absolute requirement nor an automatic advantage.
When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old
system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future."