The cost of fixing things.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Back in the 80s, I  went to a presentation on world poverty being run by a group called The Hunger Project.

One of the arguments being discussed was that poverty was not inevitable. we had , after all, put a man on the moon - so could we not end poverty on Planet Earth?

Think of the cost of giving every child on Earth a decent home with running water, with proper sanitation, and then giving all those children a primary education and then an adequate diet. the cost would run into astronomical figures.

I was actually shown the figure on a screen - a huge number with a whole string of noughts on the end.
" And yet, " the speaker told us " this is what the UK spends every year on chocolate and sweets, its what Europeans spend every month on alcohol, and it's what the USA spends every day on armaments."

Wow!

A more recent figure put it at three trillion US dollars. A trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.  It's a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. That is a lot of money - and yet, I wonder  how much that would come to in terms of government spending? Is it an accurate estimate even? It must be added that the money needs to be spent wisely and not funnelled off by corrupt dictators - but what would the cost be of eliminating endemic poverty , and could the world actually raise that amount?

Comments

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

It's all very well you putting it in those sorts of terms, so let's do it, but what happens when their governments collect all that aid and sell it for the stuff Geldofs money went towards... new shoes for the Prez's wife and arms and yet more arms...

Me, I say if you want to do it, go ahead, but then if anyone from that country buys arms from western firms (no matter which foreign department) then bill the full costs of "Fixing the third world (Of which we are still a part of remember)" to the suppliers of the arms, pro-rata.

Then of course, when all hits the fan because they are really not set up to deal with a workforce that has some cash, who's going to run their ecconomy, where are the west going to buy their cheap crap from when their cheap crap increases in price? £1 stores will cease to exist and millions of westerners will become rather resentfull that the poor third world got handouts while many in the rich western nations still starve/die of cold related ailments each year.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

Well, I did add this at the end - the question of corruption , the amount we give in aid that never goes to the end we wanted it to - but for now, I am asking about the actual cost in terms of world GDP.
Turns out lower than I though. here is another site with better figures.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

scroll down and you get an itemised bill in Billions, not trillions.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Lack of food. Lack of water. Pollution. This have a common factor. Scarcity of valuable natural resources.

Spend a couple of minutes reading over this and see what conclusions you draw.

http://blog.lvrg.org.au/2009/01/importance-of-formula.html

[jackdabastard.livejournal.com]

Place like Intel don't use much land in its native country. Materials to make the parts are mined, processed, and put together in third-world countries who are less concerned with the value of the land they despoil than with making enough cashola to make the jump to not being third-world countries. Lotta land in the US lies fallow now. While I advocate sticking it to Con-Agra on general principle, I don't think they can support the US by themselves.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

It's not impossible to do it, yet I think the even more interesting thought worth pondering about is: what shall we do with all those non-poor people who have food and shelter and good education and who are not willing to serve the rest of "us" for a couple of dimes a week. They'll start asking uncomfortable questions, and "we" better be prepared with good answers, no?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

as these figures show - it is do-able.

Global Priority $U.S. Billions
Cosmetics in the United States 8
Ice cream in Europe 11
Perfumes in Europe and the United States 12
Pet foods in Europe and the United States 17
Business entertainment in Japan 35
Cigarettes in Europe 50
Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105
Narcotics drugs in the world 400
Military spending in the world 780

And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:
Global Priority $U.S. Billions
Basic education for all 6
Water and sanitation for all 9
Reproductive health for all women 12
Basic health and nutrition 13
= 40 billion in total.

However, as you say, we in the west have to think about what we do with the wealth we already have. A world that works for everyone is a Green priority.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

The reason why we could put a man on the moon and could not end poverty is because in relative terms the former was easy. The unstated message in the article was that if we realigned our priorities, we could end hunger. Eat your food Jimmy, there are people starving in Africa. Unfortunately it isn't that simple.

There are theoretical ways to elevate regional standards of living, none of them will work without social changes such as effective birth control. Humans as a species will respond like any other species by completely filling the ecological niche. If we *simply* feed the poor, we end up with more poor to feed. Birth control does not naturally occur without first empowering women. One cannot empower women on a large scale without changing both governance and religion. The problem mushrooms up into a horrible mess.

Over the past 30 years I haven't seen any progress in ending poverty and this is certainly not for lack of trying. The prognosis is bleak. I have come to the belief that it is beyond current human ability to solve the problem on any large scale, if a solution is even possible at all.

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

since the 1960s, IMRs have fallen below 50 across the globe.
in this post , I wanted to find the actual cost - is it do able?

In my next post , I will show what has already been done.

You are correct in saying that e mpowering women is a key policy. eradication of preventable illness is another, and there are others still.

But this is a big issue. almost as big as Peak Oil.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Paul Collier's "Bottom Billion" is excellent on this subject.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Let's say it costs $1,000 to rehabilitate a drug addict. If there were 10,000 drug addicts in an area, could we make it a drug-free area for $10,000,000?

[torpidai.livejournal.com]

Let's say it costs $1,000 to rehabilitate a drug addict. If there were 10,000 drug addicts in an area, could we make it a drug-free area for $10,000,000?

lmao, the odds are not in your favour there, $1000 rehabilitation against a what? $20 baggie and a little social time on the dealers part to bring back a customer...

The criminalisation of the drugs IMHO is the problem, if they were decriminalised, costs would come down and if the costs are down, soon to follow will be crime, then if crime is down, so Should insurance prices (a bit unrealistic though considering those con-artists.)

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The power of government, we can combine tasks instead of everybody doing their own things.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The first problem with this article is it assumes that poverty, and especially 3rd world poverty is a purely financial problem.

It is not. It is a choice.

Yes, that is right. 3rd world countries are poor because they choose to be.

Now you say, "Oh that's just racist, b.s. no one chooses to be poor".

To which I respond, you are correct, no one chooses to be poor. What they do however is choose a course of action whose inevitable result is poverty. This applies on the individual level as well as on the national aggregate level.

Now here it is important to note one important distinction. When I speak of poverty I am referring to a long term stable trend of low economic output (this again applies at both the personal and aggregate level). Poverty is not a transient condition in this context, so a nation which normally has a high enough economic output to provide a reasonable standard of living but just concluded a costly war may be impoverished at the moment, but in 10 years when their infrastructure has been rebuilt they will no longer be. On the same level someone who normally falls in the middle classes but has suffered a job loss or divorce or similar setback may be temporarily impoverished but in a few years they will be back on their feet and at least close to where they had previously been in terms of income and lifestyle.

So, with the understanding that we are talking ONLY about endemic long term poverty both on the personal level how does one choose that course?

At the individual level we can easily see some ways this is possible. Choose to do drugs, drink alcohol to the level where you are unable to work, sit around and play video games all day and just not bother to go look for work, etc. Yes at the personal level there are actually some circumstances which are beyond ones control which can lead to long term poverty such as injury or illness but relatively speaking they are a small percentage of the population who experiences poverty of this type.

At the aggregate level again we can see some ways it is possible. The regional (or national or supranational) culture could be very accepting of corruption, have little respect for property rights, they could choose to live according to ancient traditions that prevent the introduction of modern economic efficiencies in production or full utilization of the resources available to them, or they could allow tribal/cultural differences with their neighbors to throw them into a constant state of warfare (more on this in a moment). Here it is also possible to see a few ways that an aggregate group of people can be forced into persistent poverty without choosing it to be so. First they could live an an area with few enough natural resources that economic development in simply impossible (although here it is still somewhat of a choice as they could choose to relocate) or they could be enslaved by a larger and more powerful group of people and denied access to economic development however that would not create regional poverty it would only create an impoverished minority within the region, to create the type of regional endemic poverty we see in the 3rd world can only be explained by it being the result of choices that residents of those regions have made.

Now we come to the second problem with the OP. It is inherently racist. In essence it is a modern version of Kipling's White Man's Burden because it would seek to impose a certain way of life on all of humanity.

First off, not all peoples want what we consider the basic necessities of life, they are quite happy with their agrarian or hunter gatherer tribal lifestyles and us westerners coming in an forcing them into tenements for "their own good" isn't likely to work out too well.

Second even for those who wish for a more modern life until they voluntarily choose to make the kinds of changes in their societies that will allow for more stable economic environments and therefore development any attempts by the west (or the richer eastern countries) to come in and "build" infrastructure for them will not work because their culture will not support the necessary changes to maintain that infrastructure which means inevitably the "benefactors" forcibly imposing cultural changes on their "half devil children".

...

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

...

As much as it may pain is to see our fellow men suffering we must simply stop ALL attempts to provide for the 3rd world because at best it creates economic distortions that prevents those countries from developing themselves and any attempt to impose what we view as "necessary" economic development on them is really just a fancy word for imperialism.

In the end we could throw 100 trillion at the problem of 3rd world poverty and it won't do a bit of good. Just as the US has spend several trillion in the war on poverty since the 60's with no discernible benefit. Until the people living in long term endemic poverty decide (both individually and in the aggregate) that they are ready to climb out of it no amount of money will change their position.


Now, the place where we can get involved is when a nation shows it has chosen to develop stable systems and is dedicated to providing a better life for it's citizens (and, no this cannot be shown through it's government, it's people need to demonstrate it with their actions) providing them with knowledge assistance *WHEN IT IS ASKED FOR* so that they can avoid some of the pitfalls more advanced economies went through is a worthy goal but that is about the limit of assistance we can realistically provide without derailing their efforts to improve themselves.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

You do know that your arguments can be traced directly to the 19th century house of lords in Britain, right?
It's a very old argument, re-hashed and re-phrased and ultimately created to make comfortable people feel well. It's simplifying and though it holds elements of fact the argument also makes these facts moot in its ambition to simplify several complicated world dynamics, or simply not addressing them.

I don't have the energy for this right now, it's too much bullshit and too little time. I hope someone else will.

Yeah, this community really *needs* more political conservatism. I have longed for this kind of "knowledge" to re-appear on the map again, life simply isn't full without it...

Let's see: it's the individual's own fault if they are poor - check
Structures that relieve poverty are bad - check
Even charity is bad - check (but more hardcore than many of similar beliefs)
They simply have to learn to "grow" without aid, even if it kills them - check

I bet a grand that you've never spoken to someone living in real poverty. The first thing that goes out the window when you do that are personal life choices. You are lucky if you can even choose between two things, and often you can't. And what if you have to choose between the life of your kid and making the "right" political/structural choice?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

You know, I know you feel smug that your wall of text keeps people from responding so you can feel like 'you told them' but mostly people just ignore you and you're taking yourself out of the discussion. Not that I have much problem with that, but maybe its something you should think about.

[penguin42.livejournal.com]

Choose to do drugs, drink alcohol to the level where you are unable to work, sit around and play video games all day and just not bother to go look for work, etc. Yes at the personal level there are actually some circumstances which are beyond ones control which can lead to long term poverty such as injury or illness but relatively speaking they are a small percentage of the population who experiences poverty of this type.

Your thesis seems to require that there are enough jobs available to fully employ every individual who is willing to work. Even ignoring location and qualification constraints, I can't think of a way to justify such an assumption.

[dierdrae.livejournal.com]

Just a note.. you need money and/or some form of transportation to be able to relocate.

If you don't have either of those, you're stuck where you are. In poverty.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Considering that access to food is defined in primarily economic terms, I'm surprised. You're usually reluctant to blame problems on the free market.

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

I am not sure you can eliminate poverty anymore than you can eliminate shortness. Both a relative terms. There will always be people who are shorter than others and there will always be people with less money than others.

Nor really can you solve poverty solely with money. For example you can to some extent point to aid programs as having a role in African instability. Well meaning aid comes in, mostly focused on children. As a result you have substantially more kids making it to adulthood were they find there is no way to make a living or the only living they can get involves living in a crowded slum. Thats a recipe for revolution right there.

What you need to do to end poverty is not to just give people money or build them houses and water purifiers but to help them develop functioning economies so they can get those things themselves.

Thats why microcredit programs are so great. They create industry and business.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Well, here's how I see the issue: there will always be people who have less and have more, this is true. However, we can see easily how *what* constitutes less and more can easily be changed. Look at the state of say, the working poor in the U.S. compared to the working poor in say, Ethiopia.

In the U.S. our standard of living is relatively very high to the rest of the world. it's a great example that even though you'll never change the fact that there will always be people who are relatively poor, and relatively rich, you can change those baselines. That being said, even the U.S. has quite a ways to go, but we *can* make it so being very poor does not mean risk of starvation nor lack of shelter or access to at least some sort of baseline health.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Poverty will be with us for as long as there are forms of government that promote it, such as socialism (usually in its totalitarian forms).

One need look no further than North Korea or Zimbabwe to see that.

It's amusing that when people talk about all the money that some countries have to spend they use democratic nations that embrace capitalism/free markets to some extent.

Gosh, think there's a connection there?

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

You lack optimism Mr. Hammer. Once socialism is fully implemented we will all be equally dirt poor. That will end our environmental destruction, racism, and inequality.

Man on the mood

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

The same time we put a man on the Moon we had a bunch of pot heads dancing naked in the mud.

Those people who were dancing naked in the mud are now running our countries.I think the problem is we have the wrong people are trying to stop poverty. It can't be done by the pot smoking, mud dancing, tree hugging hippies.

Re: Man on the mood

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

a.) Obama wasn't smoking pot, he was doing coke.

b.) A bunch of people who're running our countries were off at war in '69, weren't they?

c.) I don't so much have a problem with the pot smoking, mud dancing, tree hugging hippies trying to stop poverty if they have advanced degrees in biology or something.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Oh I didn't see you post anything in a while. Congrats on getting a member in the house, or whatever you guys call it. Pow wow?

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

And people actually don't care that much.