Article of the Week
A sharp reminder of today’s global income divide
Succinctly illustrating the colossal gap between the world’s rich and poor is a challenge. The “dollar a day” stat was nice and catchy and simple, but its impact faded over time. This map caught our eye the other day via X/Twitter. Average total lifetime income (and roughly speaking, consumption) of Americans, Australians, Irish and a couple of other countries: pushing US$10,000,000. Total lifetime income for someone from DRC, Yemen and a shamefully large number of countries: around $25,000.
It's a hard problem to fix. Foreign aid can help, but only in favorable circumstances. Horrible governments will waste the foreign aid. By far the most important way to fix world poverty is open borders.