Extreme Poverty In Rapid Decline Worldwide
By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
Further to that Oxfam report on poverty, their whole case is undone by this graph:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute
It comes from Our World in Data, an extremely professional outfit, and is based on official World bank data.
Our world is certainly a long way from being perfect, and much more needs to be done to tackle poverty. Yet the incidence of extreme poverty has fallen sharply in the last few decades, despite the huge increase in global population.
In 1970, 60% of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. This had reduced to 10% in 2015.
This reminded me of an excellent commentary by Dan Hannan in the Telegraph a few weeks ago:
Africa was for a long time synonymous with suffering. It appeared in our news reports and charity appeals as a savage, war-torn, corrupt, benighted and famine-prone place where cartoonish dictators lorded it over cowed starvelings. Such stereotypes don’t survive first contact.
Visiting Uganda for the first time recently, I was completely taken off-guard by the optimism I found, the enterprise, the constant hum of activity. Everyone seemed to have a business. Private schools and clinics were springing up on every corner. Uganda has taken more than a million refugees without anyone suggesting that it build walls, yet it still manages to grow at around five per cent a year.
Fair enough, you might say, but Uganda was never at the bottom of the African league. What about a proper s—hole? Zimbabwe, say – officially rated the worst place on the planet by the United Nations for most of the first decade of this century, where inflation peaked at 90 sextillion per cent in November 2008? Well, inflation in Zimbabwe in 2017 was 2.5 per cent – a lower rate than in the UK.
The government is contemplating a privatisation programme, floating loss-making behemoths such as the airline, the railway and the electricity company. Contrary to the expectations of many observers – including this one – the country seems to be heading toward multi-party democracy. It will be one of 15 African states in which national elections take place this year.
Africa’s largely unremarked and unreported transformation has been brought about through free trade. As previously closed economies have joined the global market system, poverty has fallen, literacy has risen and people have started demanding greater rights.
Africa stood aside from much of the global enrichment of the late 20th century, locked instead into socialism that its post-colonial leaders had learned at Western universities – often the London School of Economics. It was Africa’s misfortune to win independence at precisely the moment when the worst ideas in economics – import substitution, nationalisation, price and wage controls – were in fashion.
Decades of overseas aid made no difference, but a few years of economic liberalisation have unleashed a technological revolution. Many Africans are going straight from bricks of banknotes to phone-based payment systems without the intervening stage of bank accounts.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice,” wrote Adam Smith in 1755. In Africa, we see his dictum being realised every day.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/20/thanks-free-trade-africa-today-far-s-hole/
What he reports about Uganda is borne out by the World Bank charts:
https://data.worldbank.org/country/uganda
And all coinciding with rising emissions of CO2!
Oxfam, with their out dated marxist ideas, would like to put this all at risk.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Get rid of the twin evils of socialism and corruption (which go together like fish and chips) and people thrive. Unfortunately in the UK socialism is on the increase accompanied by increasing levels of corruption.
Sadly, the corrupt leading the blind.
“Unfortunately in the UK socialism is on the increase accompanied by increasing levels of corruption”
Same with most of Europe, and also Australia…… and probably other countries
A general push throughout the world..
The left won’t rest on this, they’ll have extreme poverty redefined to show that things are worse than ever before.
AndyG55 February 3, 2018 9:29 pm
And so many people cling to the outmoded ideas that humanity is
a) born naturally good and
b) improving with every generation
What worries me is the indicated level of population increase over a very small time line.
All that extra carbon has to go somewhere!!
Without population increase there is no wealth generation. Without wealth generation there is poverty.
A sudden jump in population is associated with an increase in wealth and well being. In poor country survival into adulthood is for a lucky few, but in the case of countries like Uganda where the growth in wealth is rapid there isn’t time for the population to react by having 3 or 4 children rather than 10+ to ensure 2 or 3 reach adulthood. It takes a further 100 years for the wealth to create a situation where the birth rate isn’t enough to maintain the population and immigration, with all the problems that brings with it, is used to maintain national wealth.
UN estimates are that world population will peak around mid-century and start to decline around 2100. I don’t know the rationale behind this projection but I imagine it would be at least partly based on an assumption of increased wealth.
If there is one thing that is going upset this apple cart it is the continued infuence of Ehrlich and his disciples who refuse to accept that the most effective way to stabilse/reduce population is to reduce the perceived need for big families — ie development and wealth creation fuelled by cheap reliable energy.
“Stopping the third world right where it is” is anti-human, arrogant, and pointless!
It also appears that in the medium to long term Europe is going to be needing all those immigrants! Figures suggest that by the end of the century indigenous populations in some countries will be insufficient to maintain an “acceptable” level of economic activity and essential services.
Of course the mantra is “extreme worldwide poverty.” It’s their way of redistributing wealth and getting funding for organizations that promise to “end poverty.” The Clinton Foundation made millions off this scheme.
Jillian in the DT again:-
‘Drought Britain: As water shortages become more common, will our infrastructure cope?’
“…..The Environment Agency’s figures show that last year rainfall was a quarter below normal levels. The current winter is faring little better. In October rainfall was 63pc lower than usual, and the driest month since 1978. November’s rainfall was 34pc lower than usual. The dry autumn months may have given way to a wet Christmas but January saw a return to drier than usual conditions. …..
No links to data, no checking etc
……“There’s a growing population in areas that might already be quite water stressed, such as the South East. There are climate change impacts as well…..
What ‘climate change impacts’? I seem to recall Dame Julia standing in the pouring rain saying this si going to be the future. Ho hum….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/02/03/drought-britain-water-shortages-become-common-will-infrastructure/
The government – either the last New Labour one or the Liberal one that followed – stopped the building of more reservoirs in the South-east that are needed to supply the increase in population due to immigration. There is also an EU directive that classifies water as a scarce resource – a concept many will struggle with in the UK.
Reading South East Farmer, Southern Water have asked for an extra extraction licence to take more river water as their Bewl Water reservoir is only half full. Having regularly splashed along flooded roads around here since Christmas you have to wonder at the incompetence of having the reservoir only half full. The streams, brooks, and the Eden having been running full many times over that time.
You’ve hit the nail on the head Gerry. The problem we have in Britain, and especially in the South East, is not lack of rain, it’s lack of water storage (for which read, reservoirs). And, yes, there are various fingers pointing at EU mantras about becoming more efficient re use of water, rather than building reservoirs. However, more fool our stupid politicians for not ignoring such garbage as, for instance, the French would have done if it didn’t suit them. The next time we have a really warm summer, the folly of not keeping water availability in tandem with exploding house building and population growth will be starkly revealed.
And there i was thinking that climate change was increasing poverty.
I dunno. I don’t trust the numbers keepers.
Poverty is relative to where one lives. A person living under the poverty level here doesn’t have enough to survive because it costs more to live here. In a 3rd world country, they might be considered middle class.
Another problem: because the poverty level isn’t raised by the amount of inflation (here), they get to lie about the numbers. The COLA is supposed to help people keep up with inflation, but government instead uses the COLA to say that people are no longer living in poverty – and the states and Medicare take punitive actions because people received a COLA – they can lose it up to 4 different ways and are in fact ending up with less because of the COLA. This numbers fudging needs to stop. They say people aren’t living in poverty because they get assistance when in fact they get the assistance because they are living in poverty. *SMH* Tired of the games they play.
You are so right! During the obama administration, my neighbor who’s old and very poor, received a $9 increase in her SS over the course of 8 years, but her food stamps were reduced by $58 during that same period, despite the rising cost of food. She’s worse off than she ever was. She recently told me that the Trump administration increased her SS by $15, but her food stamps were reduced an additional $9. I doubt if $6 sustains her.