Global Poverty
Top 10 poorest countries in the world 2010http://www.financialjesus.com/interesting-economics/top-10-poorest-countries-in-the-world-2010/
by ROMAN on APRIL 21, 2010
1. Zimbabwe – $0.1 (GDP per capita)
2. Democratic Republic of the Congo – $334
3. Liberia – $379
4. Burundi – $401
5. Somalia – $600
6. Niger – $736
7. Eritrea – $739
8. Sierra Leone – $747
9. Central African Republic – $754
10. Afghanistan – $800
London's richest people worth 273 times more than the poorest
Academic argues in new book that society has the widest divide since the days of slavery
Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor
The Guardian, Wednesday 21 April 2010
...He says the government's latest figures show that in the capital the top 10% of society had on average a wealth of £933,563 compared to the meagre £3,420 of the poorest 10% – a wealth multiple of 273....
The rich really aren't like us ... they operate in a different world," said Dorling.
This segregating effect means that the wealthiest are "socially excluding themselves by choice".
A portrait of the poorest town in America
04/12/2011 1:46:29 PM
Andy Johnson
The historic city of Reading, Pennsylvania is nestled in a belt of rural farmland where Germanic immigrants first began to carve out a way of life 250 years ago, earning the region a reputation for hard work, ingenuity, industry and a high quality of life....
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city filled with beautiful turn-of-the-century homes -- many now crumbling or converted into low-rent apartments or rooming houses -- has the highest per-capita proportion of citizens living below the poverty line in the entire country.
For a family of four, that means a combined income of US$22,000 or less.
The census includes only cities with populations over 65,000 and has a high margin of error, meaning it's difficult to definitively say Reading takes the title from other frontrunners such as Flint, Mich. and Camden, N.J....
He agreed that Reading's low cost of living has made it a magnet for lower-income people from Philadelphia, New York and overseas.
As property values have dropped in the city, out-of-town investors have snapped up homes for as little as US$25,000, turning them into multiple-unit rental properties....http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/a_portrait_of_the_poorest_town_in_america/7d18aa29
Economic Reforms and the Poor in China
- Rural people benefited from the Deng reforms the most in the early 1980s when prices for crops were allowed to rise. This one move lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and is regarded as the biggest anti-poverty measure in history. Under the Deng reforms many peasants moved from mud huts to brick homes and acquired better jobs, health care, food and opportunities than they had in the Mao era.
- Even though 800 million peasants were the first to benefits from Deng's economic reforms, they have been left behind by the explosive growth in the coastal regions, cities and special economic zones. Incomes for farmers leveled off in 1985 while incomes for urban workers have risen sharply since then.
- According the World Bank "the quick reductions of poverty through agricultural growth" in China "were largely exhausted by the end of 1984. According to Chinese government statistics 170 million moved out poverty between 1978 and 1985 but only 36 million moved out of poverty between 1985 and 1997.
Sentiment of the Have Nots in China
- Most Chinese are better off than they were 20 years but many remain unsatisfied, envious and worried about their future. One rickshaw driver from Anhui Province, who had no home in Beijing at the time of the Olympics in 2008 and either slept in his rickshaw or on a bench at the Forbidden City, told the New York Times, “The only happy thing is to have money. You don’t have bitterness. You don’t have to feel tired.”
- The people in the countryside who have failed to profit from the economic reforms are perhaps the one who look back on the Mao years with the most nostalgia. Dissident Liu Binyan wrote in Newsweek, "they feel that though life was hard in those years, it was more or less egalitarian, and people had the right to, moreover, to stop the wrongdoing of bureaucrats. But now the gap between rich and poor is growing wider and wider. Millions of workers in state owned factories have lost their jobs or are only partially paid. Retirement pensions are constantly in arrears. The peasants have been suffering under increasing financial burdens, sometimes including extortion at the hands of local officials. Corruption and abuse of power have run wild."
- Many poor Chinese abhor the new millionaires who exploit tax breaks, child labor and financial privileges to get rich quick. "Red-eye disease" describes jealousy brought about being left out but seeing others gett rich quick. One orange farmer in Hunan told Time, "Rich entrepreneurs spend the equivalent of my annual income in one night at a karaoke bar."
- One poor peasant in the Guizhou told the New York Times, " My biggest wish is that government will change its policies and help us to get rich, because living in this kind of poverty makes us too embarrassed to go out of doors."
Riots in Left Out Regions in China
- In the poor province where peasants have been left out of the economic miracle there have been riots and social unrest. In the Guizhou Province, workers who were not paid for working on a road rioted. The province's Communist newspaper reported "illegal elements openly smashed vehicles, illegally took hostages and robbed public security cadres and police of their firearms, thus causing serious consequences."
- Historically rural poverty has been one of the main causes of political unrest. In the mid 1990s, tens of thousands of peasants rioted in the cities of Kaili and Tingren in Guizhou Province over punishing taxes, harsh birth control policies and the high cost of feeding and educating their family. The army had to be called to restore order.
See Demonstrations, Taxes, Government; Land Seizures, Agriculture, Economics.
Homeless in Beijing
- Hundreds of homeless people can be found in Beijing south of Tiananmen Square in Qianmen, where mazelike neighborhoods are being bulldozed and grand shopping promenades erected. Jonathan Ansfield wrote in the New York Times, most of them are ‘ migrants from the countryside, whose chances of escaping their predicament have dimmed with the falteringeconomy. Many of the migrants are elderly or disabled people who came here after their relatives left their villages in search of jobs along the coast. Others are petitioning for redress for a host of alleged wrongs, including the seizure of land for development. [Source: Jonathan Ansfield, New York Times, March 3, 2009]
- “The police and official city management squads conduct regular sweeps to chase the vagrants out. They crack down especially hard in periods like this week, when annual parliamentary sessions are getting under way at the Great Hall of the People...But after each raid, people creep back into pedestrian tunnels and covered walkways to sleep.” [Ibid]
- One of the homeless is Zhang Xianping, a 26-year-old man paralyzed from the waist down. ‘The young man said his brother and sister, who cared for him, had left their home in the mountainsof Guizhou for work in factories far away. Despondent, he traveled to Tiananmen Square, planning to catch a glimpse of it before he planned committed suicide. Then he met another homless man who coaxed him not to kill himself. Now he sells books and wind-up toys on the streets. “ [Ibid]
Help for Homeless in China
- Jonathan Ansfield wrote in the New York Times. ‘The national government, in fact, has made provisions to help the homeless. In 2003, the government abolished a network of abuse-ridden camps where vagrants could be legally detained and replaced them with relief stations that provided short-term room and board and tickets home to those who requested them.’ [Source: Jonathan Ansfield, New York Times, March 3, 2009]
- “The authorities, however, were given leeway to force vagrants with no capacity or with limited capacity for civil conduct into the shelters. But many homeless people avoid the relief stations, saying they believe the main goal is to ship them home.” [Ibid]
- “In a survey of the stations in the capital completed in 2006, Li Yingsheng, a sociologist at Renmin University in Beijing, found that 20 percent of the migrants said they were there involuntarily.’ Before the Olympics in 2008, many homeless in Beijing were taken to shelter 30 miles from the city. Some taken there said they were not released until several weeks after the Olympics were over. “ [Ibid]
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=155&catid=11&subcatid=70
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It snowed a little in Tokyo today.
Suppose you are rich with a lot of assets.
You know there are many criminals in this world who would steal your money if they get a slight chance at all. You know you have to be careful and you have to keep your assets tight.
Then Christ Jesus tells you to give money to the poor and follow Him. What will be your reaction or response as a rich man? You might find an enemy in Christ Jesus.
But, if you are a fairly poor man, you might find a friend in Christ Jesus. As the God has an infinite amount of wealth and money, it is far more reasonable to befriend Christ Jesus.
So, remember the wealth God governs is infinite while that you do is very limited before infinity.
Mat 12:9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:
Mat 12:10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.
Mat 12:11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?