Could You Live On Less Than $2 A Day!
Friends, coming back from dropping my son off at school this morning I heard about a report issued by the ILO (International Labour Office) which keeps records of world employment.
It shows that the current global economic and financial crisis is having a marked effect on the employment of people across the world and that many more people are actually starving now and their children are permanently malnourished. Some of the figures are rather staggering:
- In the Global Employment Trends Update (May 2009) the ILO revised upwards its unemployment projections to levels ranging from 210 million to 239 million unemployed worldwide in 2009, corresponding to global unemployment rates of 6.5 and 7.4 per cent respectively.
- Updated projections of working poverty across the world indicate that 200 million workers are at risk of joining the ranks of people living on less than $2 per day between 2007 and 2009 (of which there are already billions).
- The ILO report said 2009 will represent the worst global performance on record in terms of employment creation. The report underlined that the global labour force is expanding at an average rate of 1.6 per cent, equivalent to around 45 million new entrants annually, while global employment growth decreased to 1.4 per cent in 2008 and is expected to drop further to between 0 and 1 per cent in 2009.
If you translate these figures into what happens in millions of homes especially in third-world countries it means that as more people lose their jobs, more children go to bed hungry, more children are pulled out of school thereby decreasing their chances of finding employment, more children are sent to work (if they can find it) where they earn little and have unsafe and unhealthy employment conditions, etc. It is a picture of increasing misery and hopelessness.
The other side of the coin is that, right across the world, trillions of dollars are being poured into propping up, patching up and pumping life support into the failed market-driven, dog-eat-dog Capitalist System, a system that heaps huge monetary rewards upon a few cunning and unscrupulous people and corporations while most of the people in the world spend a lifetime struggling to survive.
Capitalism causes wars over scarce resources, generates enormous inequality and divisions between people and nations (even in first world countries) and brings about a situation where most people spend the bulk of their lives as menial, subservient consumers and producers until they are thrown on the employment scrapheap.
Why are we continuing with capitalism? Why are we allowing children to go to bed hungry? Why are we clinging to a failed, corrupt, inequality-ridden, greed-based, dehumanizing system, one that has helped to create global warming and encourages never-ending war?
Oh, yes, I forgot. It’s so that a few people can enjoy obscene wealth!
Silly me. I must try to get my priorities right.
David, please edit. I watched a very disturbing program this evening and I can’t find my equilibrium. ” I was born a poor white child. I truly hate, every white supremacist that ever walked the face of this god-forsaken earth. ” I hate American history. It leaves me riddled with bullets and bombshells of sick and unconscionable behavior that has no explanation in a sane mind. My wife insists that there are POCKETS OF PEOPLE, that will turn the tide. Do you believe this to be true.? Peace, but don’t f@#k around, Chucky Moreland.
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Chucky, I’m finding your comments are becoming increasingly obscure and vulgar. Take a break for a few weeks!
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VR2LNNNTT Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
David, thank you for your critique of my written word. I appreciate it immensely. I continue to see the world as increasingly obscure and vulgar and therefore I hesitate to take a break. PBDFA, Chucky Moreland.
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David G Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
If you could occasionally address the topic of the post, Chucky, it would make a nice change.
My blog is not about you. Perhaps you haven’t noticed.
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Everytime I hear people in this country complaining about how hard their life is even though they have a job and health care and a roof over their head I think about those people who are living on $2 a day. When I try to explain to them how good they have it I cannot seem to make them understand.
Even though I do not have a lot of money for an American I am by world standards a wealthy person. I recently visited a web site where you could enter your income and it would tell you where you ranked in world wealth. I was in the top 15%. Even though I certianly don’t feel wealthy I am.
Most Americans seem to be too insulated from a realistic view of the rest of the world. Since the vast majority have internet access there is no excuse for such ignorance of the real world.
They just don’t get it!
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David G Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Jeannie, Americans are divorced from what is happening in the real world. A few moments of Faux News shows that.
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Jeannie, I share those thoughts. I too manage on very little cash, and yet I am aware of how priveleged my life is. Having traveled to India and other parts of Asia helped me to have this increased perspective. I keep thinking without knowing for sure, that maybe some of my neighbors are beginning to appreciate the peace we enjoy. I like to think that other people around me realize that real people are dying so that we can put gas in our cars and drive wherever we feel like. I don’t know everyone around me, but I have to hope for something more evolved. Actually, I think most working class and poor and even well of folks with a working class background, know what is going on and are noticing changes and grasping for something more sustainable. Then there are pockets of people who voted for McCain and want the world to return to something more familiar and are willing to pay the price of somebody’s dead body or bodies at the gas pump.
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