Poverty

Here's a simple post. There's a lot that's wrong in the world; but we should keep things in context. Poverty world wide is decreasing at the most rapid pace ever observed. It shows what good can be done when markets work, as opposed to corporatism masquerading as capitalism. No system has a better track record.

At the same time, this raises the question of what is happening in the United States. Whereas global inequality is decreasing, in the United States it is increasing. Whereas global poverty is decreasing, in the United States it is increasing (mostly due to the Great Recession but considering that it is at least not decreasing). As the graph below shows, while the United States has a lower poverty rate than many countries, it has a higher rate than pretty much every other developed country. And in a country of 310 million-ish people that results in a very large population in poverty.