“Let them eat cake” – Marie Antoinette
The world’s economy is nosediving this week. The price of bread has been going up for months. Inflation has ravaged more than just Zimbabwe…have we been paying attention? The harsh reality where recession is concerned is that the closer you are to the edge the harder you’re hit. There are still 946 billionaires who’ll sleep soundly I’m sure. Let’s take a look shall we. (The words of a devious cynic!)
The poorest 40% of our world accounts for just 5% of global income. ‘How can this be?’ I hear you ask. Well:
The ten richest americans, according to the Forbes Rich List have a total worth of 298 billion dollars. This is while 12% of the US live in relative poverty.
This is the top ten Forbes Rich List:
62 – Warren Buffett (US)
60 – Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico)
58 – Bill Gates (US)
45 – Lakshmi Mittal (India)
43 – Mukesh Ambani (India)
42 – Anil Ambani (India)
31 – Ingvar Kamprad – Ikea (Sweden)
30 – KP Singh (India)
28 - Oleg Deripaska (Russia)
27 – Karl Albrecht (Germany)
The numbers are in billions.
Can someone please tell me what one person needs $1 billion dollars for? It would be impossible to spend in any reasonable lifetime – unless you lost it trying to make more or spent it on war, and that’s another story. Whoever knows say it soon, but say it slowly because I really don’t get it.
According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty. I realise these facts are available but I’m repeating them here because it is so urgent that people listen. If current trends continue, the Millennium Development Goals target of halving the proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30 million children, largely because of slow progress in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Who amongst us is willing to explain this to thirty million starving children, or their families?
Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. There are 2.2 billion children in the world and 1 billion of them live in poverty. 10.6 million children died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (this is the total number of children in France, Germany, Greece or Italy). 15 million children are orphaned each year due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or the UK).
Here is an analysis of long-term trends showing the distance between the richest and poorest countries:
- 3 to 1 in 1820
- 11 to 1 in 1913
- 35 to 1 in 1950
- 44 to 1 in 1973
- 72 to 1 in 1992
This is not an improvement. The world’s richest 20% consume 77% of the resources. The world’s middle 60% consume 21.5% and this leaves 1.5% for the poorest 20%. Fair?
I’m sorry for throwing so many facts at you but these are truly shocking. I do have one more however:
There are over two billion Christians on this planet. That’s one third of the population. Over one billion of these are Catholics. That’s one in six.
What does all this mean for each one of us today? Each one of us is called to lives of personal holiness, personal charity. If every Christian lives a life of personal holiness then the world would surely notice.
How am I called to express this in my life…how are you?
That’s the question. Do with it what you will but it has been asked. It cannot be ignored.
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 and is filed under Love Thy Neighbour.
Responses are currently closed
julie Says:
That’s at least 300 million people living in poverty while India’s ten wealthiest men are worth 229 billion dollars. This is absolutely horrific!
My thoughts on this comment automatically went to the Hindu idea of Karma. So it is possible that these rich men believe they deserve all this wealth and the poor deserve their plight.
Can someone please tell me what one person needs $1 billion dollars for?
I enjoyed reading your post, this line says it all, and sorry I don’t understand either.
Thank you.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:43 am