Salient to Investors:
Fareed Zakaria said:
- The World Bank says that in 1981 nearly half the world’s citizens were poor, while today, less than a fifth lives in poverty – from 2 billion to 1.2 billion people. Chinese poor declined by nearly 680 million people in the last three decades, or 95 percent of the total global decline.
- In 1981, China accounted for 43 percent of the world’s poor, South Asia for 29 percent and Sub-Saharan Africa for 11 percent.
- By 2010, China accounted for 13 percent of the world’s poor, South Asia for 42 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa for 34 percent.
- China has transformed the fortunes of a poor nation within a generation, while the rest of the world has made much slower progress if any.
- In 1981, 429 million Indians lived in poverty, or 60 percent of the population. By 2012, the percentage had dropped to 33 percent but the total number is still 400 million. The Cato Institute said if Indian reforms had taken place two decades earlier, it would today have 175 million fewer poor. India’s recent drop in economic growth is alarming and will most affect the poor.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, poverty rates slightly worsened in the 1980s and ’90s and has only recently begun to turn the corner again thanks in large part to faster economic growth.
- In 1933, the US unemployment rate peaked at 25 percent.
Watch the video at http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/gps-episodes/ or read the full transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1304/28/fzgps.01.html