The Bourgeois Boom

jlilly and all the other RHP neo-socialists are all wet about economics -- the world is not getting poorer, it's getting more "middle class":

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bourgeois+boom%3a+expanding+middle+class.-a0186900401

How surpising, the source is a libertarian NGO.

In any case, this trend has been going on since 1870, so it's hardly news.

This sharp reduction is pretty much entirely down to China.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7583719.stm
This article makes very misleading claims, confusing absolute poverty with extreme poverty. The last sentence is horrendously inaccurate, about 985 million are below the $ a day mark (which doesn't allow for inflation since 1981, making it an unfair comparison)... they must have missed the 1 in front of the 5.

Still, it's good that so much progress has been made.