Christy Krall
Much has been made of the fact that China is supposedly the second largest economy in the world. This is based upon Groos Domestic Product (GDP) statistics. Not forgetting the
controversy that surrounds the validity of China's statistics, when you actually look behind the GDP figures, the fact of the matter is that the
per capita figures show that the average Chinese lives in poverty and has to get by on just U.S. $14,340.00 a year, and China ranks at just 84th in the world when looked at in per capita terms. India is another country that is often cited as amongst the new powerhouse economies. However, again, the vast majority of its citizens live in abject poverty, with the average person having to live on just U.S. $6,187.00 a year (ranked at 122 in the world in per capita terms). As the old adage goes, lies, damn lies, and statistics. Given this:-
1. Should organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund stop using crude GDP figures to measure the wealth of nations, given how misleading they are, and use a wider set of criteria instead - Yes or No?
2. Chinese and Indian politicians are in the habit of hiding behind the crude GDP statistics to pretend to their people that their countries are an economic success, and to justify wasting huge sums of money on
ego boosting vanity projects such as space ventures, and on
military hardware. Should a new measure of national wealth focus firmly on the average income per person, to help shame countries like China and India into focusing upon and prioritising the tackling of poverty, instead of wasting money on arms and vanity projects - Yes or No?
3. Would a new measure of national wealth help in the fight against global poverty by preventing countries such as
the BRIC economies from being placed artificially high, and thereby preventing politicians within those countries from hiding behind the statistics and ignoring the abject poverty within their nations - Yes or No?
