UN Stats

[Michael McIntyre]

This reminds me of the embarassing postcard from the 1980s that too many of my friends posted on their refrigerators: except then the figure was $17 billion and the postcard noted that it was less than the Pentagon spent in a month.  At the time, I had little success convincing them that $4 per person wouldn't do the trick.  What are the odds of killing this thread by noting that $7 per person won't do it either?

Michael McIntyre


>>> mpollak at panix.com 02/17/01 05:10 AM >>>

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> Let's do the math:
>
> clean water = ice cream - $2bn = $9bn
> health care = pet food - $4bn = $13bn
> education = cosmetics - $2bn = $6bn
>
> thus
> clean water + health care + education = $28bn
>
> then we read:
>
> >  $40 BILLION A YEAR -- It is estimated that the additional cost of
> >achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education and
> >health care for all, reproductive health care for all women,
> >adequate food and clean water and safe sewers for all is roughly $40
> >billion a year -- or less than 4 percent of the combined wealth of the
> >225 richest people in the world.
> >
>
> ergo:
> $28bn = $40bn

No.  $40bn includes adequate food, which the $28 did not. So food = $12bn.

Frankly, I like that conciseness of that figure.  Next time we have a
global shindig and they ask us what we want, we should tell them that:
$40bn a year.  To wipe out hunger and care and ignorance.

Does the UN have a detailed breakdown somewhere on how they arrived at
these estimates?

Michael
__________________________________________________________________________
Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com