As usual with Charles Koch, this add running on TV in the Kansas area and elsewhere, is very misleading. It starts off telling you that if you earn $34,000 a year you are in the top 1 % of the world’s earners. What he is not telling us is that about 1/3 of the world has people who earn $2.50 an hour or less. No one living in the US could afford to live on a salary that low. But some countries are poor, their people live in huts or shanties and about all they have to buy with that money is a small amount of food. Many people in such countries have no electricity, running water, flush toilets or few if any health services.
Notice that North America and Europe together make up
about 2/3rd’s of the world’s wealth. The US makes up most of North America.
The reality is that most of the countries in this graph
have a relatively similar economic system. “Economic freedom” as Koch tells us,
is really not that different from country to country.
For example India makes up only 2%. But how much economic
freedom does that country have?
According to Wikipedia:
“Until 1991, all Indian governments followed protectionist policies
that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread state
intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from
the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991forced
the nation to liberalise its economy; since then it
has slowly moved towards a free-market system by emphasising both foreign trade
and direct investment inflows. India's recent economic model is largely
capitalist. India has been a member of WTO since 1 January
1995.”
But does all the economic freedom result in well paid
happy workers? Again Wikipedia:
“However, the country ranks 140th in the world
in nominal GDP per capita and
129th in GDP per capita at PPP
……. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption,malnutrition, inadequate public healthcare, and terrorism[1].
So people in the US are economically better off than the
people in India. According to Wikipedia here are some differences between India
and the US including population, India has 1.27 billion people, the US has 315
million people, The US has more land and more resources, so that has
a great deal to do with the differences in their place in the world economy.
The United States is a developed
country and has the world's largest national economy, with an
estimated 2012 GDP of
$15.6 trillion – 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity, as of 2011.
Then there is Europe that has 32% of the world’s share of
wealth. About 30% of Europe’s workers belong to unions, compared to12% of
workers in The US. That means that Europeans get better wages and benefits than
their US counterparts.
One country that is very poor, vet has many economic
freedoms and lacks government regulations is Bangladesh. The Rana Plaza Garment
fire disaster in Bangladesh, caused the deaths of at least 1,127 workers, due to ignoring safety
regulations. The minimum wage for Bangladesh's garment workers is $37 a
month.. That’s one country where economic freedom and lack of
government over-reach has not benefited workers.
So don’t be fooled by the phony statistics of any ad put
out by Charles Koch. His ad is mostly just lies and that is what he and his
brother do best.
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