An Inconvenient Truth: World Poverty Cannot be Solved

                Every day I am constantly reminded of how privileged we are to live in the United States and to have grown up on the North Shore.  We have received more opportunity than the majority of the global population will ever have, even here in the United States, most of us are better off than the majority of the population. The idea that this problem will most likely never be completely solved (or at least in my lifetime) seems almost tragic.

                80% of people live on less than $10 a day. When I first heard this statistic, I was shocked. This problem of global poverty happens to be much greater than I imagined. When I think of how much that $10 is worth to the majority of the world and I usually could not even be able to buy me a meal at a restaurant for only $10. The national and international income disparity is enormous.

                I know this could be explained using economics saying that these people are less productive than us. That we are so much more educated that we deserve to make so much more. I read a book titled, 20 Things They don’t tell you About Capitalism. It mentioned how a bus driver in India makes 50 times less than a bus driver in Sweden. It questioned whether or not the Swedish bus driver was 50 times more productive. Obviously the answer is no. There is no way that is possible. The reason the book offered was that in Sweden (similar to the United States) there is much more opportunity available. There is access to education, infrastructure such as roads and bridges, a more stable economy and government, and other thing provided in Sweden but not in India. But the education and other things do not justify this extra pay for the bus driver because they do not use them in their daily job. The successful people that use this education and opportunities to earn this high productivity bring up the entire nation. These successful people do more productive things than their counterparts in foreign countries. An example would be Bill Gates who has been at least 50 times more productive than his foreign counterpart. Additionally, it is only because of these opportunities we succeed. Warren Buffet said that if were a poor child in India he would  have never amounted to anything near what he is today and that our countries has helped him earn his success; that it was not him as an individual but as a member of a society working towards a common goal.

                This economic theory above shows that no matter how much we try to help poor countries the only way to truly fix this problem would be equal opportunity globally. With much of the world poor with backward governments this equality will almost never come. The acceptance of this theory and facts makes me want to take advantage of the opportunities I have been given. To acknowledge that the life I am living is a dream to billions of people around the world. I believe that this makes me morally obligated to work; that if I don’t use the resources and opportunities our forefathers worked so hard to create I would become a drain society. Thinking of all the opportunity I have helps me stay motivated and strive for success; knowing that my success will have an impact on society; that my need for success is my debt to society. Think of the poor innocent children in Africa whose only dream would be to live in America and adult who want more than anything to work in America doing jobs I would never be able to get myself to do.  It is just mind blowing to me how we live in a world with so much injustice.