Plenty of Money

Bill Gates is in the news twice tonight.  First, because he made the rather optimistic statement that no nation will be in extreme poverty by 2035.  Admittedly, there are some weasel words in there.  It’s not the nation’s level of poverty that’s critical, it’s the individuals within that nation.  Saudi Arabia has a high average per capita income, but that’s because of all the rich, oil types.  There are plenty of people still wandering around the desert with their camels and their tents and not a whole lot of cash at all.  Then there’s the “extreme” qualifier.  At exactly what level of misery does that “extreme” appellation kick in?

Bill Gates

Nonetheless, it would mark an  improvement over what we have now and I sure hope he’s right.

But, nobody  can predict the future with certainty, not even Bill Gates, although he’s  better at it than most.  I think what old Bill is actually saying is we could end poverty by 2035.  Heck, we could end poverty in a year or two, if we put our minds to it.  Just hire all the poor people to build the infrastructure for a sustainable society, a water system that takes fresh water to wherever it’s needed and sucks it right out of wherever it’s not wanted, houses for everybody, schools, hospitals, high speed trains, and cities under the sea.

The only problems are the political, legal, and bureaucratic problems that governments and corporations deliberately put into place to guarantee that poverty will continue to exist, because they are monstrous pricks.

Money is not a problem.  There’s plenty of money.

That brings up the other way Bill Gates was in the news tonight.  Apparently, the 85 richest people (of whom Gates is one) in the world have as much money as the poorest 50% of the people in the world.  Shocking, but once you  enlarge that wealthy group a tad, you find that the wealthiest 1% of people in the world (the wealthiest 70 million people) have, among them, about $112 trillion.  They could finance a permanently sustainable, worldwide, anti-poverty infrastructure, and still be rich.

Piece of fucking cake.