poverty1

Conversation among the inner voices, recorded this morning:
"How can you sit in a lovely, safe space, enjoying the luxury of a hot breakfast cooked for you by others, and read a book on poverty?"
"How can I not?"

I'm on the way to work (for the 6th day in a row). It's the weekend as well as spring break, so free computers are in short supply at the moment (I'm writing from kinko's). My laptop just died, but there are too many observations and other blessings to let exorbitant computer fees stop me (on occasion). Here, then, are just a few lines that astounded me this morning from Jeffrey Sachs' The End of Poverty. I offer them out of their (very astute) context of discussion, but hopefully something of their impact will communicate here. They're taken from a series of insights onto the causes and factors at work in global poverty. So many things which I for one never considered; others whose phrasing brings unexpected new light. By which, in some cases, I was almost moved to tears.

I suppose, for the moment, I only ask/invite you to feel into this subject with me, although it's a difficult one. Next time I'll try to summarize some of his very optimistic but convincing arguments on what can actually be done about it.

For now, the quotes:

"Consider the plight of inventors in an impoverished country."

"There is no margin of income above survival that can be invested for the future."

"It is no coincidence that Mexico's assembly sector is right along the Rio Grande River, since Mexico's economically relevant "coast" is its border with the United States."
(talking of the contrast of geographical and political, natural and contrived: the fact that we, among other wealthy countries, began life as a nation with the immense benefit of extensive natural coastlines for trade, yet have converted our neighbor's "virtual coastline" into a militarized "border" instead...)

"...the government may lack the resources to pay for the infrastructure on which economic growth depends...the population itself may be impoverished, so taxation of the population is not feasible."

"Children can be treated for disease to better ensure their survival, meaning that parents can have fewer children, feeling secure that they will survive to take care of their parents in old age."

And of course this line almost brought tears of a different kind:
"Americans, for example, believe that they earned their wealth all by themselves."