All this is tied to capitalism and its own relentless internal logic. I do admire your perseverance and consistency, even as believe you misattribute the cause. — Vera Mont
Not when needing to tribe with the tribe that is far away and has rocks that we want. To make that trade we need a concept of money. — Athena
Poor deluded them! Wait till they're offered only $100 per kidney. — Vera Mont
Black humor-a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.
Balderdash! The overpopulation could easily be remedied - could have been, for decades now - if there wasn't more profit in keeping them barefoot and pregnant and dependent on the bosses. — Vera Mont
hey give the foreign 'investors' free rein to plunder their nations' resources and the industrialists supply them weapons to keep the peons in check. — Vera Mont
But Chinese women and Indian children and African men work twice as hard for a tenth of the pay, and their governments, sufficiently lubricated with bribes, are not too fussy about what you spill on the way out. So all the garden gnomes come from China and the American Guild of Gnome Crafters is sleeping on the street
Alas, you are conflating the concept of money (an imaginary way of equating the relative value of various goods and services) with capitalism and multinationals/globalism. — LuckyR
Except that the poor people, in either place, have a whole lot less reproductive choice than the rich ones. However, a rise in the standard of living for poor people, which invariably leads to a decline in the birth rate (the more babies survive, and the more choice women have, the fewer babies - works every time) But that's not going to happen. The growing wealth * of the already-too-rich gathering more wealth from the third countries to amass in the first ones by modern technological methods will continue to guarantee that the poor just keep getting poorer.The growing human population is destroying the planet no matter if this explosion of humanity is in a third country or a modern technological one — Athena
Nor has the disparity of wealth. I wonder whether there's a connection. Is it really because a cycle rickshaw operator has six kids to feed that the rivers are poisoned? And do those six kids really use up twice as much of the world's resources as three of Walton's? Is it the extra child soldiers and slavesAt no other time in the history of our planet has the human problem been as bad as it is today. — Athena
that contribute more to glaciers melting, or the trafficking of vast amounts of goods to well-off consumers?The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal practice in Africa. Families send their daughters to work for money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life.
So, don't make that trade. We don't really need oil from Iraq. How many lives has that little transaction cost, so far? How much in money and resources? (That's a bare outline, with no mention of what's been going on behind the arras.)
But Chinese women and Indian children and African men work twice as hard for a tenth of the pay, and their governments, sufficiently lubricated with bribes, are not too fussy about what you spill on the way out. So all the garden gnomes come from China and the American Guild of Gnome Crafters is sleeping on the street. — Vera Mont
Nor has the disparity of wealth. I wonder whether there's a connection. Is it really because a cycle rickshaw operator has six kids to feed that the rivers are poisoned? And do those six kids really use up twice as much of the world's resources as three of Walton's? Is it the extra child soldiers and slaves
The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal practice in Africa. Families send their daughters to work for money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life.
that contribute more to glaciers melting, or the trafficking of vast amounts of goods to well-off consumers?
Of the ten biggest strip mines in South and Central America, three are owned by South American interests; the rest belong to investors from Canada, the US, UK, Mexico and Australia. Beef farming is a great investment for North Americans: apparently, there is still 'undeveloped' land in Paraguay, and it won't be wasted on local people eating well. https://www.gatewaytosouthamerica-newsblog.com/cattle-ranching-in-paraguay-an-investors-perspective/ — Vera Mont
And by gosh, we need to have the military weapons and a base on the moon, so we can do the will the God, and prevent the evil enemies who are jealous of us, from doing anything that might be against the will of God. — Athena
At least the American military boot industry is thriving! Unfortunately, 'we' have already supplied a great many weapons to the chosen of that other god, A---h, whose will runs contrary, while the blessed of Mao can make their own. — Vera Mont
I know such things are tied to culture and that cultures are learned. I would like to know what should people learn and how should that be taught? — Athena
recently became a member of a UK group called 'Compass,' who describe themselves as politically progressive and seek common ground/cause, regardless of which current political party you support.
I joined them because of their strong stance and efforts in support of UBI (and their stance on many other issues). I thought you both might find the following 'New Settlement,' campaign, hopeful, in the sense that, 'there are groups out there,' who imo, are trying to make life for the average human, a better experience. What do you think of: — universeness
I now wonder if something like that is happening in my community. Participating with others in coming up with solutions would be better than sitting alone at home wringing my hands and feeling totally powerless. — Athena
This is a really promising group as well guys:
Citizens Network
Maybe they would particularly help support the work you do Athena.
This is their North American sub-group:
Citizens Network, North America — universeness
Why not?However, a rise in the standard of living for poor people, which invariably leads to a decline in the birth rate (the more babies survive, and the more choice women have, the fewer babies - works every time) But that's not going to happen. — Vera Mont
And for this you refer to the opening a new bank vault for the rich three years ago?. The growing wealth * of the already-too-rich gathering more wealth from the third countries to amass in the first ones by modern technological methods will continue to guarantee that the poor just keep getting poorer. — Vera Mont
It has happened. — ssu
Sorry, but the poorest haven't gotten poorer. — ssu
Although hard to track, the number of homeless people increases each year, with few countries being an exception to that. The United Nations has documented that there are around 1.6 billion people residing in poor housing worldwide, with around 15 million being forcibly evicted each year.
Yes, in the context of possible redistribution. The stuff in there isn't paying anyone's rent or medical bills, ever. The more wealth - which has been made out of natural resources by human labour - goes in there, and into other such vaultsAnd for this you refer to the opening a new bank vault for the rich three years ago? — ssu
, as well as safe hidy-holes for their ownersSafe-deposit boxes hidden in subterranean bank vaults are no longer just for European spy movies. Their demand is steadily increasing among the super-rich, according to Bloomberg. Billionaires and millionaires fear recession and climate change and just want some security for their cash, art, and jewels –– security that can cost as much as a mansion.
is out of circulation; not paying wages, not paying tax with which governments might alleviate the burden of the working poor and the sinking middle class, reduce poverty and crime, repair infrastructure; and for damn sure not helping to avert or mitigate any of the natural disasters that continue to render more poor (even not, by definition, in extreme poverty) people homeless and destitute, every year.Though the concept of a luxury underground bunker designed to help you survive a global disaster in style may seem utterly dystopian, the Swiss company Oppidum is quickly turning fantasy into reality.
When you widen the viewpoint to let's say 50 years (1970's to 2020's) or more, the changes have been dramatic. Earlier there were widespread famine in Asia, which isn't anymore. Both China and India have made quite a dramatic change:No, they live on a princely $2.15 a day, instead of $1.90. Terrific! — Vera Mont
When you widen the viewpoint to let's say 50 years (1970's to 2020's) or more, the changes have been dramatic. — ssu
Post-WWII history in China was a bit different to Western history.Yes, the post WWII to the Reagan/Thatcher Axis, were a period of liberalism, tolerance, and broadening of vision. In the new Conservative dark age, it's closing in again.
Your notion of poverty is different from mine. — Vera Mont
The last 30 years have seen dramatic reductions in global poverty, spurred by strong catch-up growth in developing countries, especially in Asia. By 2015, some 729 million people, 10% of the population, lived under the $1.90 a day poverty line, greatly exceeding the Millennium Development Goal target of halving poverty. From 2012 to 2013, at the peak of global poverty reduction, the global poverty headcount fell by 130 million poor people.
This success story was dominated by China and India. In December 2020, China declared it had eliminated extreme poverty completely. India represents a more recent success story.
And what is so wrong to start with the most poorest people in the World?Your notion of poverty is different from mine. — Vera Mont
And you seem to look at the West, which in fact doesn't have the poorest people. — ssu
The fact that you want to "start" at the finish line; the fact that there are still millions of "most poorest" people, after all the decades you claim for improvement; the fact that you arrogate to yourself the power of treating millions of people like a project, instead of giving them back their lands and freedom to live as they choose.And what is so wrong to start with the most poorest people in the World? — ssu
Really, is it a pathetic improvement that there hasn't been a famine in China in the last 50 years, but before that there indeed were? (Those who don't know, the largest famine that killed the most people happened in China after WW2) I think the first thing is when poverty is so bad that the survival of people is threatened. Only then comes poverty that excludes people from the "normal" society.The evidence of improvements in the charts you posted are pathetic — universeness
Well, those leaders in China still think of themselves as devoted Marxists. When talking of China and India, you aren't talking about the West. Yet there in those two countries the biggest changes have happened.Any improvements made, come from the pressure applied to the elites, from local/national/international and global humanism/socialism. — universeness
That work has to be done cannot refute the fact that things also have improved. And I myself have already stated that there looms big dangers especially in the Sahel region, but also in the Sub-Saharan Africa in general.The following WHO information is a small indication of how much work still has to be done: — universeness
You call a billion people going out of absolute poverty a "small improvement"?Sadly, despite the small improvements you cite — universeness
Why there a persistent large class of poor people is a complex issue. In poor countries it usually starts from things like the vast majority of people that do work their entire lives don't have access to any kind of reasonable debt, like having a decent mortgage that people in the West enjoy. When jobs available to the vast majority of people covers only the basics (food, living which is usually a rental flat), people cannot get richer through work. Furthermore, the real difficulty is to get from subsistence farming to modern "capitalist" farming: a subsistence farmer has typically been dirt poor in every society, in the East or in the West.I never claimed that the west had the poorest people; I said that making the rich even more rich keeps making the not-rich even less rich. — Vera Mont
Yet look at the countries that have made it. South Korea, Taiwan, China, Malesia etc. They were drastically poorer earlier, but somehow haven't been robbed by the West. Weak countries are exploited, that is true.In many, though not all, cases it is the western capitalist investment that co-opts their governments and institutions, and robs entire nations of their resources, their heritage, their autonomy and their health. — Vera Mont
Really, is it a pathetic improvement that there hasn't been a famine in China in the last 50 years, but before that there indeed were? — ssu
Pfth!Well, those leaders in China still think of themselves as devoted Marxists. — ssu
Nothing complex about. Somebody with a big gun comes along, burns their homes, orders them off their land and into the mines, or factories, or cane or cotton or coffee plantations - whatever makes the rich even richer.Why there a persistent large class of poor people is a complex issue. — ssu
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