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Topic: Rich Awed by Poor's Ability To Live Like That

topic by John Calvin 3/23/2002 (14:01)

reply top RICH AWED BY POOR'S ABILITY TO LIVE LIKE THAT 'No Way We Could Do It,' Say Leaders of Wealthy Nations Monterrey, Mexico — At a United Nations conference this week to address world poverty, dozens of leaders from the planet's wealthiest nations concluded they were 'totally in awe' of the 1.2 billion people who reportedly live on less than $1 a day. With no medicine, sanitation, or food, the poor do it anyway. 'Lord knows I couldn't do it,' U.S. President George W. Bush told a roundtable of colleagues Friday. 'The mortgage on my ranch alone is $5,500 a month.' 'I think the hardest part would be keeping it up,' added South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. 'Every now and then I'd have to sneak out for a nice meal with my wife, or maybe a movie.' But truly poor people, several delegates noted in wonder, never do that. 'How often do you see a really poor person splurge for a steak dinner, or an upgrade to first class on an airliner?' said French Prime Minister Jacque Chirac. 'I tell you, these people are incredible.' Said Bush, after a momentary pause: 'I'd like to propose that the world doesn't just have a billion poor people, it's got a billion heroes.' However, some attending the International Conference on Financing for Development respectfully suggested the leaders, while apparently no longer indifferent, were missing the point. 'The poor don't have mortgages. They don't have houses,' said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. 'Most days, they don't even have food.' 'Oh heavens no, I'd have to eat,' replied World Trade Organization chief Michael Moore. 'I could maybe skimp on dessert, but that's it.' As the meeting adjourned, a spokesman for the World Development Movement announced that almost half the earth's population — 2.8 billion people — lives on less than $2 a day. The attendees stood in unison to cheer until it was explained to them that these people wanted money. Copyright © 2002, SatireWire.

reply by barb 3/23/2002 (16:21)

reply top OK, John, so we're a bunch of rich, (I wish I were) selfish 'meanies' and war mongers here in the U.S. None of the other rich countries are responsible here -- just the U.S., right? (why is that????) What do you propose to 'solve the world's problems?' Gee, aren't you guys the same ones that keep insisting we are causing our own troubles by putting our noses into the world's business and that we should stop trying to POLICE/CONTROL the world? I am sensing some contradiction... You can't have it both ways. Yea, we'll give and give and don't expect a thing in return. Yea, right! Keep living in your Utopia!

reply by barb 3/23/2002 (16:56)

reply top As soon as the U.S. can properly address its own poverty problems and lack of affordable health care (we all know the insurers are running health care) to its own citizens, the very idea of even trying to help OTHER countries is just an idiotic idea. Clean up one's own backyard before you start to clean another's...

reply by John Calvin 3/23/2002 (17:05)

reply top Manifestly the point of the satire, Barb. You express the real sentiments of the conference members perfectly, demonstrating the complete emptiness and hypocracy of their promises and pronouncements which, in the end, are utterly self-serving.

reply by Raquel 3/23/2002 (19:00)

reply top If the US does not come up with a plan that reduces poverty in its backyard, how McDonalds is it going to sell burgers in countries where the percentage of poor is more than 60%? how Wal-Mart or Home Depot are going to sell things that these countries DO NOT need if they don't have enough market size??????? It is not a question of ethics, it is a question of business. I agree with you that the US is not solely responsible for the poverty in the developing and less developed countries, but don't forget, the US rules the world and, therefore, it sets the rules!

reply by John Calvin 3/23/2002 (21:56)

reply top Well, there you go : It's not a question of ethics, its a question of business? Who makes these neat little distinctions and on what basis can they be justified? Is this what people mean by the 'triumph of Capitalism and Democracy': the erasure of ethics from 90% of what pre-occupies people in their daily lives? And if business and ethics are seperated: why bother with the rule of law at all? What the need for constitutional processes- just let the dogs attack and maul each other as best they can, after all, 'there is a sucker born every minute'. Since this seems to be the pre-dominant attiude of so many people, it is not surprising at all that they view any religion as one of the greatest obstacles of all to 'freedom' and prosperity, that secularism is the be and end all of modernity. No wonder, then, that so many feel that Islam is under direct attack. It's complete destruction would be absolutely necessary to fulfill the 'golden promise' of complete seperation of business and ethics. So Norman Mailer was really not so far off when he refused to conclude, after 9/11, that Osama bin-laden was completely wrong. Maybe nothing in the whole world needed to be blown up more than the World Trade Center, along with all its puny little workers running around slapping themselves on the back for their modern ideas about the seperation of business and ethics. And, of course, when barb says we ought to solve the problems of poverty and health in America first before helping people in any other country, that just the argument she uses when the question of foreign aid arises. When questions about domestic priorities arise-well, we've all read what she says about its time lazy, no good minority groups quite complaining about past injustices and discrimination and lift themselves up by their own bootstraps!.

reply by John Calvin 3/23/2002 (22:00)

reply top Oh no, Barb never said anything like that!

reply by TheAZCowboy 3/24/2002 (10:25)

reply top Re: Splurging on $1.00 per day. Gee folks, with the world's population now actually exceeding 6 billion and expected to hit 7 billion by 2015 $1.00 per day seems like a hell of a deal. No wonder the US rains 'happy meals' to the people of Afghanistan from their camouflaged C-130 gunships's and sometimes even their B-52's. The confusing thing is why they usually include matching yellow colored cluster bomblet's in the same drop?! O'Sammy 'El Che' bin Laden had the best response recently: 'They want to fatten our people up before they annihilate them in keeping up with UN requirements he was heard to comment to El Monde reporters from his new posh apartment which is several estates down the street from Mrs. Arafat's home in Paris where BTW, his people were recently seen taking measurements of the Eiffel Tower! LOL! :) TheAZCowboy

reply by barb 3/24/2002 (12:10)

reply top I don't know about '1.00/day' but everything is relative and you are comparing oranges to apples! One can live in many parts of the world like a king for a few dollars per day.

reply by Raquel 3/24/2002 (12:22)

reply top 1$ per day (adjusted by the purchasing power exchange rate) is the minimum that even the World Bank uses to establish the line of poverty for their measures.