http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp

I am doing a paper on how education is a direct correlation on poverty. The statistics I found on poverty in incredible...take a look for yourself.

1. Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. ^{source 1}
2. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. ^{source 2}
3. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. ^{source 3}
4. Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen. ^{source 4}
5. 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations. ^{source 5}
6. The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. ^{source 6}
7. The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. ^{source 7}
8. 20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods. ^{source 8}
9. The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1%. ^{source 9}
10. In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much. ^{source 10}
11. An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
    • 3 to 1 in 1820
    • 11 to 1 in 1913
    • 35 to 1 in 1950
    • 44 to 1 in 1973
    • 72 to 1 in 1992 ^{source 11}
12. “The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels” ^{source 12}
13. The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants. ^{source 13}
14. A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people. ^{source 14}
15. “The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.” ^{source 15}
16. “The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.” ^{source 16}
17. “Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social areas affect by far the larger number and are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.” ^{source 17}
18. “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.” ^{source 18}

19. According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

    That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year. ^{source 19}

20. For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:
    • Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
    • Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
    • Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
    • Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.

    ^{source 20}

21. Water problems affect half of humanity:
    • Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
    • Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
    • More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
    • Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
    • 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
    • Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
    • The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
    • Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
    • Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
    • To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.
    ^{source 21}
22. The richest 50 million people in Europe and North America have the same income as 2.7 billion poor people. “The slice of the cake taken by 1% is the same size as that handed to the poorest 57%.” ^{source 22}
23. The world’s 497 billionaires in 2001 registered a combined wealth of $1.54 trillion, well over the combined gross national products of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa ($929.3 billion) or those of the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and North Africa ($1.34 trillion). It is also greater than the combined incomes of the poorest half of humanity. ^{source 23}
24. A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World. ^{source 24}
25. Consider the global priorities in spending in 1998

    Global Priority	$U.S. Billions
    Cosmetics in the United States	8
    Ice cream in Europe	11
    Perfumes in Europe and the United States	12
    Pet foods in Europe and the United States	17
    Business entertainment in Japan	35
    Cigarettes in Europe	50
    Alcoholic drinks in Europe	105
    Narcotics drugs in the world	400
    Military spending in the world	780

    And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

    Global Priority	$U.S. Billions
    Basic education for all	6
    Water and sanitation for all	9
    Reproductive health for all women	12
    Basic health and nutrition	13

    ^{source 25}

26. Number of children in the world

    2.2 billion

    Number in poverty

    1 billion (every second child)

    Shelter, safe water and health

    For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

    • 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
    • 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
    • 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

    Children out of education worldwide

    121 million

    Survival for children

    Worldwide,

    • 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
    • 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation

    Health of children

    Worldwide,

    • 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
    • 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)

    ^{source 26}

27. The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.”

    In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004. ^{source 27}

Notes and Sources

http://www.intellectualwhores.com/construction.html

This is just a theory, don't get mad.

This sh*t is too funny. I learned about that ladder theory awhile back but they actually have a great site explaning it. So in regard to this information. When a woman says "we're just friends" we mean it and the guy is on the friend ladder and we really mean it. When a man says it, its absolute bullsh*t because there is only one ladder for a man....

Construction of the Ladder

Now for the core of the theory. Since everyone you meet has a rating, it is only natural to stack them up on a ladder. Let's look at the ladder of some example man.

So it should be self-evident, if you are following this at all, that the people you want to have sex with the most will be at the top of the ladder. Descending down to the bottom of the ladder we pass the following people:

1. The people we really want, who may even be out of our league, are on top
2. Then come the people we like
3. Moving further down we pass the people who we would fuck if we were intoxicated and would admit to doing it later.
4. At the bottom are the people we would fuck drunk, and would lie about doing it later.

Clinging to the bottom are the girls that are wolf ugly. These are women so ugly you would chew your own arm off to get away rather than fuck them. Usually fake teeth, or the loss of several hundred pounds can move a woman up from wolf ugly.

Now let's take a look at what the typical woman's ladder looks like:

The first thing to notice here is that a woman has not one ,but two ladders. This is becasue in addition the normal ladder, a woman also has a friends ladder. The friends ladder is where a woman puts guys that she considers "just friends". More to the point where she puts guys who don't get to have sex with her.

The problem arises because a woman never lets a guy know which ladder he is on. Obviously there is a huge difference, or gap between these two ladders. It is in this gap that kisses of death are delivered and intellectual whores are made. All a man can do is "go for it" and make a move on a girl; ask her out, try to kiss her, write her a love note or whatever. If he's on the good ladder fine. If he is on the friends ladder this is a case of ladder jumping. The man is trying to jump the gap from the friends ladder to the real ladder. The girl has two choices at this point: she can let him on the ladder and all is well, or, more likely, she can kick him in the head, and off the ladder. If you look you'll see that below the ladder is the Abyss(what was it Nietzsche said about a man being on a rope stretched over an Abyss?....well it's worse than he thought; there is no rope.) So the man falls into the Abyss. The Abyss isn't really as bad as it sounds. Mostly it's a period of self-loathing, embarrassment, and of course utter awkwardness with the girl in question if they are talking at all.

To fully illustrate the point I'll now examine some common scenarios and their ladder theory explanations. For purposes of these examples Tom will be our boy and Jane will be out girl.

Scenario 1: Tom meets Jane. She's pretty and seems interesting to talk to. Tom and Jane start haging out and talking more and more. Tom develops an attraction to Jane, and one day tries to kiss her. Jane tell Tom she doesn't think of him that way and she wants to remain friends. The next few weeks contact between the two falls off. Jane starts fucking an outlaw biker.

Ladder Theory Explanation: Tom met Jane. Tom was immediately placed on the friends ladder. Tom didn't know this. Tom tried to jump ladders. Jane kicked Tom in the head rather than let him on and sent him hurtling to the Abyss below. The oulaw biker was not on her friends ladder (they never are) but rather on her good ladder.

Scenario 2: Tom meets Jane. She's cute and seems smart. After an appropriate amount of time he asks her out on a date. She acccepts and they have what seems to be a perfectly nice date. Tom thinks he has a chance with Jane. He asks her out again. She says no, either explicitly or by never returning his phone call. Tom has no idea what the Hell just happened. Jane starts fucking an unemployed alcoholic.

Ladder Theory Explanation: Jane misrepresented which ladder Tom was on. He thought he was on the good ladder because of her acceptance of the date. Mistake. This led to an unintentional ladder jump. He was kicked into the Abyss. In this situation, Jane often wants to stay friends becasue you are so interesting and funny or some shit like that. If this happens you are most likely an Intellectual Whore. I'm sorry. This is most likely to be a ninja-bitch.

Scenario 3: A girl says any of the following to you:

• "You're like a brother to me"
• "You're like a big teddy bear"
• "I feel like I can talk to you about anything"
• "You're so nice"
• "Can you help me with my homework"

Ladder Theory Explanation: You are on the friends ladder. So Sorry.

You can see that a lot of problems can be avoided(though sadly not problem two) by declaring as soon as possible to a girl that you will not be friends under any circumstances. You can explain that she is too attractive or you can be blunt and say you don't want to bend your "friends" over a table and fuck them, but would rather play poker and go to the races with them, thus disqualifying her from friendship. As long as you are clear. This may scare a girl away. But if it does what would you want with such a skittish little twit anyway?

Next we'll explore some of the consequences of the ladder and applications in every day life.