[lbo-talk] $ 700 Billion would ...

[Ira Glazer]

· Would clear the accumulated debt of the 49 poorest countries in the world
($375bn<http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:21725423%7EpagePK:64133150%7EpiPK:64133175%7EtheSitePK:239419,00.html>)
twice over
· Is almost 5 times the annual amount of extra aid needed to achieve all the
Millennium Development Goals <http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/> on
poverty, health, education etc ($150bn a
year<http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/debt_aid/bp113_credibility_crunch.html>
)
· Is about 7 years of current global aid levels ($104bn in
2007<http://www.oecd.org/document/8/0,3343,en_2649_34447_40381960_1_1_1_1,00.html>
)
· Is enough to eradicate all world poverty for over two years (UNDP
calculates it would take $300bn
<http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2005/>to get the entire world
population over the $1 a day poverty line).

On the other hand it's
· only a quarter of the cost of the Iraq war ($3
trillion<http://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/1846141281/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222593629&sr=8-1>on
Joseph Stiglitz' calculation )
· a half of annual global military spending ($1339 bn<http://www.sipri.org/>
)

http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=50