Over 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 per day (Singer 7). In impoverished nations, the life expectancy is below fifty, compared to the average of seventy-eight years in rich nations. The mortality rate of children is twenty times greater in “least developed” countries than in developed nations. Nearly 18 million people die every year from avoidable, poverty-related causes (UNICEF). On the other side of the spectrum, there were more than 1,100 billionaires in the world in 2007 (Singer 9). According to Singer, “[t]here are about a billion [people] living at a level of affluence never previously known except in the courts of kings and nobles” (9). Peter Singer insists in his book, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, that there is no reason why the rich should not give up part of their income to help the poor achieve a sustainable way of life. Looking at these statistics, who could say that he has an extreme viewpoint? With so many resources and so much money to give away, helping those in need takes no more than a simple action. Giving up some unneeded luxuries to potentially save more than one child’s life would not kill anyone. However, would that, in reality, benefit the impoverished? Ignoring the impoverished will leave them in their current situation; helping them excessively will cause them to rely on others. The real solution to this ongoing crisis lies in microloans.
Developed countries should not simply hand money to third world countries, as this gives no incentive to develop responsible government or fiscal policies. Dambisa Moyo, an international economist from Zambia, comments on foreign aid, stating that “aid is easy money” (Collier). If a person were to give a man in need a small sum of m...
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...y establish a business by loaning it money through microloans reduces poverty permanently.
Works Cited
Collier, Paul. "Dead Aid, By Dambisa Moyo." Rev. of Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo. The Independent 30 Jan 2009. Web. < http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/dead-aid-by-dambisa-moyo-1519875.html>.
Shah, Anup.“Poverty Facts and Stats.”Global Issues. 20 Sep. 2010. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. .
Singer
UNICEF
http://www.starvation.net/
http://www.realityofaid.org
World Bank
http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm#a3
O’Hanlon, Ellis. “Aid is not the only answer to Third World problems.” Irish Independent News.
Kiva
Erase Poverty
Collect Educate Advance (CEA)
"How aid works (or doesn't)." African Business Feb. 2009: 22+. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 16 Jan. 2012.
The United States continues to give around $550 billion in aid to other countries each year, making America the world's top donor by far (Richardson). While the United States government only supplies $252 billion to needy Americans each year. Former Assistant to the President for Communications, Patrick Buchanan said, "The idea that we should send endless streams of tax dollars all over the world, while our own country sinks slowly in an ocean of debt is, well, ludicrous" (Foreign Aid). The United States need to give money to support the domestic impoverished rather than supporting developing foreign countries because the poverty and homelessness in America is increasing faster than the aid necessary to reduce this trend. Part of the reason that the United States should aid the domestic impoverished is that some foreign countries cannot be trusted with the money given to them and in certain cases, the money intended to aid countries are harmful for that country’s well-being.
The imperfection of Singer’s solution to end world poverty exceeds its convenience in the average American. While the wealthy is targeted and responsible for the lack of donations to the less fortunate, singer gives poor supporting details in why the wealthy should donate a large portion of their wealth to only help a few individuals for a certain period of time.
Peter Singer’s article, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”, highlights the need to prevent absolute poverty in developing countries. An estimate of one billion people live in “a condition of life characterized with malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy” according to Wesley Bagby (pp. 29). As a victim of Sudan’s civil war and a former refugee, I totally understand what it means to be homeless and street child. The hardship endured by homeless and street children on a daily basis is unbelievable; a day without food to eat, a day without clean water to drink, a day without shelter, a day without cloth, a day without medical care, and a day without security. There is no doubt that a
The writer behind “Singers Solution to World Poverty” advocates that U.S. citizens give away the majority of their dispensable income in order to end global suffering. Peter Singer makes numerous assumptions within his proposal about world poverty, and they are founded on the principle that Americans spend too much money on items and services that they do not need.
... aid across the world. As we have established that we do have an obligation to redistribute globally in a cosmopolitan perspective, distributing wealth however we may need to rethink what the best assistance is. Amaryta Sen conveys that before sending aid to the third world state, we would need to fully understand the limitation of freedom in the country. Redistributing wealth to global countries requires it to be evaluated by the economic shortage that they are suffering and to see whether it will be efficient in the long run. The more effective ways to contribute would be to international relief agencies or NGO’s that would pursue international development projects to help those in poverty or the alternative option by Tom Campbell’s idea of a ‘Global humanitarian levy’ which suggests a more appropriate taxation on all citizens to collectively aid those in need.
are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” With a society that is becoming more and more
Did you have a cup of coffee today? Or maybe you went shopping for that new shirt for the summer? Your money could be going to a better cause. Of the 7.15 billion people on Earth today, approximately 2.4 billion people live on less than two dollars and day, and 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. More than eight-hundred people go to bed hungry, and more than one million people do not have access to clean drinking water. The amazing stat is that over eighteen thousand children die per day from diseases that are preventable. Kids die from a multitude of cause such as diarrhea, malaria, malnutrition, and disease. (Abbate, Global Poverty, 2014) Each could be prevented with the money you spent on that nonessential item for yourself. Most people do not seem to do this because of the out of sight out of mind principle. Since we never get to see how our aid actually helps those across the world, individuals are less inclined to help. In his article ,“The Singer Solution to World Poverty” (Landau, 2012) Peter Singer provides a unique argument in that he believes that we are no different than a murderer because we had the capability to stop it and didn’t do so. We have the ability to give what we essentially waste to maximize the happiness of another person and reduce poverty around the world. There are many charities out there, that can take the little money that we have or need to give, and can distribute it to help a magnitude of people worldwide. In this paper, I am arguing that we should give what money we can to relief and aid organizations in order to reduce global poverty because it is our duty to maximize the happiness around us.
Thousands of books and essays about poverty, causes and possible fixes have been written for others to gain an understanding and pocket a little bit of knowledge so this can soon be fixed. There are millions of organizations in today’s world that beg for money, clothes, and food so they can be sent overseas to help a poor child in Uganda or Haiti. Helping nationwide is always a good thing to be a part of; however, there are many things that can be done in each person’s community, which is always a great place to start.
The neoliberal policies have benefited some people in generating great wealth for them, but controversially, the policies have failed to benefit the people who live in extreme poverty and those people are the most in need for financial support (Makwana, 2006). In the last 2 to 3 decades, the wealth disparity between nations as well as within nations has increased. Currently, one out of every 5 children in the United States is in a state of poverty, continual hunger, insecurity and lack of health care (MIT, 2000). This situation is becoming even more desperate. Between 1960 and 1980, the developing countries’ economic growth was 3.2 percent. Then it dropped significantly to 0.7 percent between 1980 and 2000, and this is the period when neolibe...
More than $3billion people in the world which is nearly half of the world’s population are living on less than $2.50 a day and more than $1.3 billion live in extreme poverty which is less than$1.25 a day. (Unicef 2013). One third of deaths a year are cause by poverty. An estimate of 600 million children live in absolute poverty, every year more than 10 million innocent children die of hunger and PREVENTABLE diseases, such as diaorreah, pneumonia and malaria 19 million kids worldwide remain unvaccinated, even a simple net would prevent malaria. During 2011, 165 million kids under the age of 5 were stunted( reduced rate of growth and development) due to chronic malnutrition 870 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat. More than half a million women die in pregnancy and child birth every year… one death a minute. Why do we have cases of poverty in 2014? “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it’s an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man made an it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings”. Mandela (2005). It’s heart breaking that in this day and age there are children dying of hunger, and easily preventable diseases. Poverty reduction is one of the most dominant themes in current scholarship, policy formation and international discussion on economic development. A sign of it importance is shown by the fact that the very first target of the millennium development goals (MDG) is in fact to reduce the people living under $1 a day by half by 2015. Relative to this dissertation the role of economic growth in in poverty reduction is of high importance. Substantial and lasting reductions, if not complete eradication of poverty has been and will continue to b...
Accessed 06 March 2005. 11. Garten, Jeffrey E, “Don't Just Throw Money At The World's Poor” BusinessWeek, March 7, 2005.
From the book The Life You Can Save written by Peter Singer, he addressed that poverty is one of the biggest problem that most of the world faced today. Singer defined poverty as shortage of food for all of a year, do not have saving, can’t afford education, live in unstable house, and have no source of safe drinking water (5-6). This can lead to the death of children. On page 12, he questioned whether is that wrong if we spend money on things we don’t need while thousands of children die each day? He also asks how far does our obligation to the poor go? I personally think that it is not right for us to live comfortably while we know that there is some people out there who are suffering and needing our help. There is nothing wrong if we offer them some help whether directly or indirectly as long as it costs no harm to us. Also, helping poor people does not mean that we are not allowed to use the money that we earned for ourselves.
Poverty is prevalent throughout the world around us. We watch television and see famous people begging us to sponsor a child for only ten dollars a month. We think in our own minds that ten dollars is only pocket change, but to those children and their families, that ten dollars is a large portion of their annual income. We see images of starving children in far away countries, and our hearts go out to them. But we really do not know the implications of poverty, why it exists, or even what we can do to help combat this giant problem in our world.
Poor countries have been receiving aid from the international community for over a century now. While such aid is supposed to be considered an act of kindness from the donor nations or international bodies, it has led to over dependence among the developing countries. They have adopted the habit of estimating and including international aid in their national budgets to reduce their balance of trade deficits. It is believed that foreign aid is necessary for poor nations in order to break the cycle of poverty that ties their citizens in low productivity zones and so their economy will not be weak. However, some critics view the extension of aid to poor countries as means of keeping the nations in economic slumber so that they can wake up from only by devising ways of furthering self-sustainability. Because of these two schools of thought concerning the topic, debate has arisen on which side is more rational and factual than the other. The non-sustainable nature of international aid, however, leaves the question of what may happen in the event that foreign aid is unavailable for the poor nations. After thorough consideration on the effects of the assistance to poor countries, it is sufficient to state that giving international aid to the poor nations is more disadvantageous than beneficial to the nations. This point is argued through an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of giving international aid to the poor countries with appropriate examples drawn from various regions of the world to prove the stance.
Poverty, also known as the silent killer, exists in every corner of the world. In fact, almost half of the world’s population lives in poverty. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 46.7 million people living in poverty the year of 2014 (1). Unfortunately, thousands of people die each year due to this world-wide problem. Some people view poverty as individuals or families not being able to afford an occupational meal or having to skip a meal to save money. However, this is not the true definition of poverty. According to the author of The Position of Poverty, John Kenneth Galbraith, “people are poverty-stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls radically behind that of the community”, which means people