Economic Growth, Population and Poverty Numbers

I normally don’t do numbers. But in this post, I will have to refer to numbers because wealth and poverty have to be understood quantitatively too. So let’s do the numbers.

It is an amazing fact that extreme poverty has fallen both in absolute and relative terms. The world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped from 42% in 1981 to 11% in 2013. The world population was 4.5 billion in 1981, and 7.2 billion in 2013. Therefore in absolute numbers, extreme poverty numbers dropped from 1.9 billion to 0.8 billion. Over one billion people climbed out of extreme poverty, mostly in China. Good job, China. Continue reading “Economic Growth, Population and Poverty Numbers”

The British are Gone but the British Raj Lives on

“It was [in India] the British learned the art of imperial power. … India was decisive. It gave Britain the resources, the market, the manpower, and the prestige to build a world-wide empire. And in the years to come they worked feverishly to secure that prize.”  Continue reading “The British are Gone but the British Raj Lives on”

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