Christmas is a time where we all need to reflect on the truth..... And if the left wants to live in denial, then let them.
http://news.investors.com/blogs-cap...led-off-absolute-poverty-around-the-world.htm
To hear the global left these days, you'd think the only thing that matters is income inequality. Socialist candidate Bernie Sanders has even made income inequality a linchpin of his presidential campaign, as has millionaire presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton.
"The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time," says The Bern , "it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time."
But not so long ago, the left's big bugbear was poverty, not inequality. Then a funny thing happened: The left had to de-emphasize poverty because, as measured by the World Bank and others, absolute poverty is disappearing fast, thanks to capitalism and the collapse of communism.
That's right. Capitalism — not big government — is killing poverty. Socialism talks about poverty, but capitalism actually does something about it. As this chart shows, 200 years ago, 19 out of 20 people on Earth lived on less than $2 a day, adjusted for inflation, the definition of absolute poverty. Today, for the first time ever, less than one in 10 people live in this kind of abject state.
As law professor and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds reminds us: For all of human history, extreme poverty has been the norm.
"Globally, we've changed that 'normal condition' by the spread of free markets and free inquiry, which have led to a global growth in knowledge and skills that has made almost everyone rich by human historical standards," Reynolds wrote in USA Today.
Dead on.
http://news.investors.com/blogs-cap...led-off-absolute-poverty-around-the-world.htm
To hear the global left these days, you'd think the only thing that matters is income inequality. Socialist candidate Bernie Sanders has even made income inequality a linchpin of his presidential campaign, as has millionaire presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton.
"The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time," says The Bern , "it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time."
But not so long ago, the left's big bugbear was poverty, not inequality. Then a funny thing happened: The left had to de-emphasize poverty because, as measured by the World Bank and others, absolute poverty is disappearing fast, thanks to capitalism and the collapse of communism.
That's right. Capitalism — not big government — is killing poverty. Socialism talks about poverty, but capitalism actually does something about it. As this chart shows, 200 years ago, 19 out of 20 people on Earth lived on less than $2 a day, adjusted for inflation, the definition of absolute poverty. Today, for the first time ever, less than one in 10 people live in this kind of abject state.
As law professor and Instapundit Glenn Reynolds reminds us: For all of human history, extreme poverty has been the norm.
"Globally, we've changed that 'normal condition' by the spread of free markets and free inquiry, which have led to a global growth in knowledge and skills that has made almost everyone rich by human historical standards," Reynolds wrote in USA Today.
Dead on.
