Poverty Statistics · 12:27pm Jul 16th, 2014
I just watched a documentary on poverty by Compassion called Isaiah 58. For the first hour it was taking the basic line, 'these people are poor, give us money so we can help them' and I just kept thinking, 'I know this,' but I kept feeling that God wanted me to keep watching.
Then after an hour, right at the end they finally start giving statistics and answer questions that I have been wondering most of my life. I've been trying to calculate this for ages, but according to 'world renown economists' it would take $73 billion a year, for ten years to end extreme poverty globally.
Its higher than I'd estimated, but in the global scheme it's not that much:
Global income of everyone is about 60 trillion. Ending poverty would only require a little more than 1% of the global income.
The combined incomes of everyone in North America who claim to be christian, regularly attending church, who say their religion is very important to them, have an annual income of about 2.5 trillion. If you do your 10% tithe, and give one third to ending extreme poverty, we have the 7.3 billion with a bit left over.
Globally, the big businesses like Shell, Apple ect, who exploit resources from areas like west Africa and don't bay taxes ect, rip 3rd world countries off by about 700 billion a year. The big companies wouldn't even have to tithe their total profits, all they'd have to do is give 10% tithe of what they're stealing, back to the people they're stealing from, or steal 10% less, and you'd have global poverty licked in 10 years.
I hate to say it, but given my experience with human stupidity, I doubt we'll end extreme poverty in 10 years. Please, someone prove me wrong?
