Slashdot Mirror

With 30-35 million people, Chongqing is the largest municipality in the world. Most people have never heard of it.

-Brett

I can understand this for a startup company, as long as the company quickly moves to start covering the costs of its labor. But in the case of a wealthy organization, this means that the wealthy organization just *chooses* not to give economic justice. More for me, nothing for you.

I have been seeing this more and more, and it is part of what ails America. It comes from the move to give more to the investors, and comes from the blinds that are provided by corporate coverage, in which the investors can't see the plight of their workers.

But let me point out the results of economic injustice: if there is economic injustice, then the victim's investments remain unpaid, and in that case, it does not pay for the victim to invest!

In the case of inventors who can't afford to patent and defend their inventions, because the patent system only benefits wealthy corporations, the proper response is to not devote effort to inventing.

In the case where your compensation is not based upon justice, it does not pay to invest in an education that will make you a more valuable employee.

In the case where businesses are taxed to death, so that other businesses can recieve lucrative government contracts, it does not pay to start a business and help the economy: it pays to work your own garden instead.

In the case where individuals are taxed to death, to pay for more tax collectors, the farmer's strategy doesn't pay -- only the highway robber's strategy pays. If you want to see what this is like, look at Congo/Zaire.

If you think it is getting bad, and the problem is the government, then tell the government. If you don't think they'll listen, then it's better to leave, and find a better place.

Here's How.

If you think it is getting bad, and the problem is the people (yeah, they're all good people, they just, well, you can depend on them to do really evil things), then it's doubly important to find a better group of people.

Here's a hint.

If worst comes to worst, duck, cover the ones you love as well as possible, stay out of the way of wars as much as possible, and try to live with as much justice and charity as possible.

But the bible is absolutely right: when we choose to withhold a man's wages, we commit violence. When we choose economic theft as a regular diet, we commit murder. And we recreate our world to become a horror. Our spiritual failings definitely bring physical problems and death.

Just my two cents. That's all.

Water vapor is not bad for the environment. 70% of the planet's surface is after all covered with water.

Maybe it's because most entrepreneurs and small business owners in Senegal can't afford a computer, and would be better off renting small amounts of time as needed. According to the world bank Senegal's GNP per capita for 1996 was only $570. I doubt it's gotten much higher.

According to the World Bank, which is hardly biased against Colombia for Cuba, the average Cuban female lives 5 years longer than the average Colombian female, and the average Cuban male outlives the average Colombian male by 7 years. 93% of Cubans have access to safe water compared to 63% of Colombians, the adult illiteracy rate is higher in Colombia than Cuba, the average Cuban gets to use more electricty, a higher percentage of Cubans have better sanitation, by virtually every scale Cubans are better off than Colombians. As I said several times, I never said Cuba was not authoritarian or that it didn't have substantive problems, I just wonder why it is the Latin American country whose foibles are always pointed out. And if you really want to see poverty, look at Guatemala, whose democratically elected government the CIA helped overthrow in 1954, and whose people were kept down, with the support of the US elite over the past decades - as late as 1998 the Catholic bishop who had been a voice for human rights there was killed.

Also as far as Colombia's government - the government declared a "state of emergency" a few months ago to allow for rule by decree and the restriction of civil liberties. The government can "restrict personal movement, detain people for suspicion with no evidence, conduct warrantless searches and wiretaps, and limit press freedom." This is also a country where in 1958, left wing political parties were banned in the government you seem to love so much - yes, great democracy, although you can only vote for the right wing. This lasted until 1974 when some cracks began to open up, M-19 becoming a legal party in 1989, but political activity is still restricted and candidates often wind up dead.

"[Chavez?] You mean the guy who extended the length of presidential terms after he got himself elected president? Yeah, real bastion of morality and democracy there..."

You conveniently neglect to mention that the new constitution was electorally approved by large margins and that Chavez was re-elected under the new constitution.

Actually, according to the World Bank's Corruption Index, Canada scores a 9.2, making it the 5th least corrupt country in the world; compare to the US's 7.5, making it the 16th least.

Well, it seems clear that most of you don't have any idea of WHAT the Gyandoot project is...It is *NOT* some kind of cybercafe, but a govt. initiative for IT-enabling rural areas, so that all the info required by the largely farmer-populace is available and accessible electronically - land records, foodgrain prices across the world, market info, weather etc...This info is crucial to farmers and helps them to keep in touch with the world...these kiosks have custom local language software, easy to use interfaces and this effort is recognised and widely appreciated the world over and funded by the World Bank...so money is *NOT* the only question...its the FREEDOM that matters...

Please check World Bank Info on Gyandoot

Will that be all? :-)

Will that be all? :-)

Will that be all? :-)

Go ahead - try to find a place where I can live the good life for US$1/day. Just don't try too hard because there is no such place. Nobody is going to suggest that these workers should receive the same pay and benefits that we in the first world receive. But they are certainly entitled to a living wage that permits them to feed, house, and clothe their families.

You may be amazed at this...

But on average a Briton earns far less than an American, and a Canadian slightly less than a Briton.

Here's a link with some slightly out of date data (but I doubt it's changed much in 4 years). GNP per capita would be income.

Canadian prices seem to fit the level of income well, as do US prices. I don't know why the UK has such a discrepancy (higher prices, lower income) -- maybe an economics major could tell us more...

The Egyptian Pound (LE) had been pegged at almost exactly 1/3 of a dollar for a long long time, but I look now and see that it's shot up to $1 = 4.65LE. Thus 25 = 1.15LE (approx). It's been about 10 years since I lived there... what does an Egyptian Pound buy you these days? Anyone on the ground in Cairo care to comment?

Looking for current data on income, the world bank cites a figure of $1,490 for Gross National Income per capita in 2000. So, that's about 6700LE. Africare says it's more like $3,420 (=15,903LE), but that's "real GDP per capita."

Getting useful numbers is tricky, especially when you're talking about a country like Egypt that has a vast off-the-books economy going on.

Damn. You've forced me to inject facts into a perfectly good flamewar. Here is a table that seems to indicate that, adjusted for purchasing power, the U.S. comes in third behind Luxembourg and Liechtenstein in gross national income. Which one of those do you live in?

No you've practiced that a lot I'd expect. Still, as long as you like to think that, it'll be ok.

Um, practiced which? Being rich, mother-fucking, or blind luck?

Worldbank (Seems slightly out of date)

The Globalist

FHS Sponsorship

The average I supposed is really gained depending on how it is worked out (Mean, Median or Modal average perhaps?). From what I understand, many of the tribespeople in India earn at or around $7 a year, while others (as kindly pointed out by another poster who is from India, and I'd trust his word over mine :) ) earn far, far more.

IANA Economist, however.

Here is a color-coded map showing relative levels of corruption in different countries. More specifically, it represents how well the countries' governments control corruption in their country.

In hard data, the US is in the 91st percentile, so it's doing pretty well, although there are other countries that are less corrupt than the US, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, etc. Finland has the honor of being the least corrupt country in the world.

The February 28th edition of The Economist had a special report about corruption around the world. It was very interesting reading.

Can you point me to a studies...

This is common knowledge any more. Start with this one.

It focuses mainly on education, but my position is, anyone of reasonable intelligence will not be stupid due to lack of education. They are smart enough to figure out how to avail themselves of educational opportunities despite the socio-economic class of their parents. The reverse, however, is not true, as you point out. A stupid spoiled brat who has wealthy parents will most likely get plenty of the best education available, graduate, and still be stupid.

Education is also closely linked to population. The more education people have, the more economic options they generally have, and the fewer children they are likely to want or need. In the areas of the world where fertility is lowest - Europe, Japan, China, the former Soviet Bloc, and North America - education levels are correspondingly highest.

We got this thing called the internet. Doesn't take much intelligence to plug in some good keywords and find a whole raft of information on this topic...

btw, why are you so anal about the word "stupid" anyway. Do you prefer a more P.C. term which basically says the same thing?

Incidentally, India's per-capita income is $460.

Kinda makes you stop and think, huh?

(Source)

Russia is ranked at number 17 according to the world bank

Number 77 is Lithuania, and you thought newscientist knows what they are talking about.

So come on people! Its important to ensure that we crack down on those who cannot afford to buy ridiculously overpriced products, otherwise the rich won't carry on getting richer, and the poor won't be further enslaved to products they don't need but have be told to want.

Seriously though, it is times like this that are the perfect opportunity for the free-software advocates to get out there and push their product. Dammit, advertise, promote, market - let the common Joe or Jane know how they can break their bonds and join a community that ins't there to fleece them for every penny, but to try offer a more fulfilling alternative. And yes, money can and should be made from open source, but there is a difference between making money and gathering a treasure trove dragon-like.

I would love to see Mr Gates and ask him, "why are you collecting so much money? What are your motivations? Do you really believe you are Smaug?"

Oh, I'm British btw, so I probably should just shut up, but I do the same here: everyone I talk to about software i try to explain the benefits of OSS. I hope I am slowly getting through.

~Dan

--Fools going past what they need running after what they want. -- TK

Travel is not a particularly efficient way to gather this information. Here you can see that the USA, on an absolute measure, comes fifth, with Switzerland the only sizable country ahead of it. (Others are small banking specialists and tax dodge havens like Luxembourg.)

If you measure standard of living as "the amount of stuff you can buy given local prices" the the PPP numbers on the same chart show the USA is third, with no sizable country ahead of it. "Cost of living", which you cite, is best measured this way.

Now one could make a quite valid argument that standard of living really includes things like nice weather, beaches, elephants, or icebergs. Depending on which of those you chose, of course, the country coming out near the top would differ.

Note that historically, the USA is not always so completely in front. The dollar is presently overvalued by many measures. But it is a historical feature of the last several decades that the US is always near the very top by these metrics.

What is astonishing about this is that the USA is both so large and so rich. I would argue that gives us (I am a citizen) a much greater obligation than we currently acknowledge to help the poorer bits of the world, for example by hunting down malaria cures.

Nepal: GNP per capita (US$) 1996 $210

Add another five bucks to bring us up to 2001 and a YEARS wages buys about 5 (could be 10 if you found 2 sticks for $40) sticks of 32 meg. Awfully bloody expensive in my book.

That's because it is a premise. Something most people would agree upon. If you would like to argue about it, go ahead. I think this link adequately describes the effects of unions and that in the case of monopoly unions (who specifically do maximize wages at any cost) this argument holds. Is an "average worker" who seeks to maximize his/her wages at the cost of (for example) his/her fellow employees evil?

Split $60 billion (£40 billion) three ways and you have $20 billion (£13 billion). Assuming Russia gets a nice loan from the World Bank to help them cover their share, this could easily be pulled off. $60 billion to the US is like $6,000 to your average computer programmer. Sure it's a lot of money, but you could afford to spend it if you really wanted to.

--

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

According to Worldbank data there were 39 personal computers for every 1,000 people in 1988. For comparison the US had 459 per 1,000 and Canada had 330 per 1,000.

And with a per capita GNP of less than $3,000, Dell is not likely to see a surge of business out of this.

Granted, no statistic is really reliable, it would be nice to see some sort of numbers comparing crime in the US to crime in a place such as the UK...but more specifically a certain city in the UK that scales well to a city in the US. Anybody have any data, or know a good source for solid statistical data?


Okaaaaay..

From the Home Office Statistical Publications website, I can get the 1998 British Crime Survey, which tells me that in the UK in 1997 there were 714,000 wounding assaults (more than trivial injury). Only 25% of violent crime is committed by people previously unknown to the victim. The Statistics of Deaths Reported to Coroners: England and Wales 1998 tells us that 142 deaths were given a verdict of `unlawful homicide` in 1997 (note this doesn`t include Scotland); this works out as 2.4 murders per 1,000,000 head of population (see below).

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has a summary of firearm-related crimes, wherein we are told that: "Victimizations involving a firearm represented 23% of the 2.9 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault" and that it is "estimated that 68% of the 18,209 murders in 1997 were committed with firearms." This works out as 67.9 murders per 1,000,000 people, or 46.2 murders with firearms per 1,000,000 people.

The population of the US is 268 million, with 29 people per square kilometre. The population of the UK is 59 million, with 243 people per square kilometre. (Source: World Bank country data.)

I`m afraid I don`t have time to go looking up specific cities though.

Goddamn it. Punched "Submit" on my way to hit "Preview".

Here's what the links should have looked like:

• The IMF
• The World Bank
• Some anti-IMF (etc.) articles courtesy of Global Exchange
• Example of a pro-IMF (etc.) etc article at he Economist

And now slashdot can't handle my html (though, Netscape 4.5 has no problem with it). So you've got to cut and paste those last two: http://www.globalexchange.org/economy/rulemakers/ http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/libr ary/index_special_collection.html

(Slashdot's alpha-quality is pissing me off today. They sold this shit?)

I've been an Economist subscriber for a few years now, and despite some problems I've been pretty impressed with it, particularly it's technical reporting. So I've been submitting Economist stories to slashdot off and on (because I'm sick of all the pointers to zdnet, cnn and msnbc)... I thought about submitting this one, but it looked like pretty lame business-think stuff to me, so of course, this is the one that made it. Whatever.

However, it is true that they can be a bit naive about computers (e.g. I remember a particularly funny article about how wonderful Object Oriented programming is because of all the code that gets reused, thereby saving oodles of programming dollars).

Anyway: the primary strength of the Economist is that they really do report on global news (unlike, say "US News and World Report", where the "world report" half of their title typically refers to one page). The Economist, on the other hand has lots of stories about things like competing consititutional conventions in Zimbabwe (have you heard about that one? Why not?).

It's a bit misleading to call it a "conservative" publication, because it's British and it has different biases than American conservatives do. They're rabidly opposed to the right to bear arms, regard the death penalty with suspicion, and they're opposed to the "War on Drugs". They're also nowhere near as hostile to the UN as American conservatives... and they're positively in love with the IMF and the World Bank (I would guess that the average American doesn't even have a clue as to what the IMF does.)

Just for the hell of it, some links on that subject:

• The IMF
• The World Bank
• Example of a pro-IMF, etc article at he Economist
• Some anti-IMF, etc articles courtesy of Global Exchange