A case of extremes

I must have been so outdated that there are a lot of interesting information that I wasn’t aware of when I stumbled on Forbes’ website recently. All the while I thought that Bill Gates was going to be the richest person for as long as he is alive, well, I was proven wrong. For two years in a row now, Mexico’s telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helú has “outriched” Gates by $14bn and with whom according to financial experts, would make Carlos the richest man for the next 3 to 5 years. As of this time, he is estimated to have a net worth of $74bn.

Another interesting fact that I’ve learned is that 4 out of 10 wealthiest people in the world is in the US. Likewise, the US has also the most number of billion-dollar men that if even you combine all the billionaires in the world, you will find that they are not even close to half of the 422 billionaires that the US has produced since it became a free country. And without an iota of doubt, the world’s wealth is so concentrated in this part of the world that dreams and hopes of living there is very much alive for most people around the world.

If there is such an oasis of moguls in North America, there is also a parched region in the world where a full square meal is as sparse as gold. More than three-quarters of the African region live in poverty and many of whom live with or earn less than a dollar a day. So if you think that you’re living so desperately here in the Philippines, fret not. The countries in Africa are far worse than we are – there is scarcely water to drink or crops for food and yet paradoxically, Africa is the world's richest continent. According to The Economist, Africa has "40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power supply; the bulk of the world's diamonds and chromium; 30 percent of the uranium in the non-communist world; 50 percent of the world's gold; 90 percent of its cobalt; 50 percent of its phosphates; 40 percent of its platinum; 7.5 percent of its coal; 8 percent of its known petroleum reserves; 12 percent of its natural gas; 3 per cent of its iron ore; and millions upon millions of acres of untilled farmland. There is not another continent blessed with such abundance and diversity.”

There is so much of everything and yet so little that’s much closer to nothing. The book, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs, explains an in-depth view of the world’s current state a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in regions like Africa, even in the midst of great wealth.

The book also highlights how wealth is distributed and why the more than one billion helpless people around the world are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education which he attributes to the lack of responsibility of rich countries like the United States to invest in developing nations. The US alone has an average GNP of about $14 trillion, “the US is a huge chunk of the total GNP of the OECD (which is about $40 trillion). The sheer size of the US economy means that even though they only give 0.18% of their GNP as Overseas Development Assistance, they still give the most total money of any nation on the planet.”

Sachs points out that it is impossible to rid poverty on a global scale when everybody’s eyes are focused only on the opportunities that are present in rich countries. He argues that global economic security can best be won if all nations achieve a certain degree of economic prosperity. And to do this is not gargantuan as it seems. To end extreme poverty worldwide in the next 20 years, Sachs figures that the total cost per year would be about $175 billion. This represents less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world. The book provides an impetus for policy makers around the world to wage the battle against poverty in the same zeal and commitment as waging war.  

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