David Brin: In this interview, Bill Gates discusses whether a combination of trade, foreign aid and philanthropy can combine with local development to raise living standards around the world. Gates joins the chorus of those who denounce cynical pessimism, showing that real progress has been made… which means that we should try harder to finish the job! From the article... Look at the numbers. If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, most countries were very poor. India, China, Africa, everyone but the West was living on less than $2 a day per capita. But the curve is shifting and incomes are rising and now most of those countries have $5- to $10-a-day-type incomes. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s per person not per family and the key thing is purchasing power, which can be quite high on $10 per day in a country in which things cost much less. Living on $6 a day means you have a refrigerator, a TV, a cell phone, your children can go to school. That’s not possible on $1 a day.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 20:37:23 +0000
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