[HN Gopher] India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN ___________________________________________________________________ India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN Author : cryoz Score : 316 points Date : 2022-11-07 17:35 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (economictimes.indiatimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (economictimes.indiatimes.com) | jialutu wrote: | I am really baffled by this claim, since I've been observing the | Global Hunger Index for a while, where India has consistently | fared worse than even DPRK (North Korea), and is almost the same | level as Afghanistan, a country that has been at war for 20 | years. https://www.globalhungerindex.org/ | | I am not sure if these 2 reports are contradictory, or whether | they are in agreement with each other (since the GHI score for | India has been trending downwards). Does anyone who is more | knowledgeable on this please explain? | rajeshp1986 wrote: | The reason for this is the population is so large that absolute | numbers will be still very high. There are still millions of | people that need to be lifted. | 3qz wrote: | freeCandy wrote: | https://archive.md/9UPfu | InTheArena wrote: | This is one of the messages that need to be pushed hard - | globalization - with it's implications on the "first world" | global middle class - has helped make this possible. | | It's like talking to people opposed to GMO rice. They are fine | with an ideological position that GMO foods should be eliminated | until you point out the alternative is hundreds of millions dead | of starvation. | [deleted] | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Why does globalisation automatically deserve credit for | progress in two major economies with the most government | planning? | | Have evaluated alternative hypotheses? Maybe Education or | Scientific Literacy or something else deserves this credit. | anuvrat1 wrote: | It's quite easy to see, the early growth is hard carried by | export of manufacturing from China and services from India. | Yes, you can say, this wouldn't be possible without Chinese | government infrastructure and incentives push and Indian | government early push for premiere education, but that would | have been useless without customers that are global markets. | arein3 wrote: | It is like cars in a city in a way. You can build larger roads | but then more people will start driving. | seibelj wrote: | Capitalism wins again! Better than trillions in government and UN | dollars. Only productive enterprise and real business activity | can lift hundreds of millions out of poverty - there is no | substitute. | Kukumber wrote: | It has nothing to do with capitalism, it's all about strong | government, strong institutions and the people who understand | and pursue a common goal i.e: a synchronized society | | If anything, capitalism wins at: | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/india-s-d... | no_butterscotch wrote: | Not OP, but I think what he's referring to is communism | declining a generation ago: | | > Following liberalizing economic reforms in the late 1980s | and early 1990s, India is now one of the world's fastest | growing economies, as well as the second most populous. | | https://web.archive.org/web/20110520002800/https://www.ers.u. | .. | Kukumber wrote: | This is exactly what i'm saying, without the people | deciding one the policies and the tools to use, it's | nothing | | Otherwise we see other kind of societies: | | https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/cartel-capitalism/ | brosinante wrote: | Didn't China (https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press- | release/2022/04/01/l...) and the USSR | (https://borgenproject.org/tag/poverty-in-the-former- | soviet-u...) do similarly? | twblalock wrote: | Both of those articles demonstrate that the improvement | happened after those countries allowed market economies. | epistasis wrote: | Most communists and socialists will refer to both the USSR | and China as capitalist projects on accelerated timelines. | They were trying to speed-run from feudalism, through | capitalism, to communism. | | At least that's what comes up when you mention the problems | that these countries have. | bmmayer1 wrote: | China's unprecedented generational explosion into the middle | class happened only after Deng Xiaoping instituted market | reforms. Economically, China is certainly more socialist than | the west, but far more capitalist than it was in the 1970's. | | Same with USSR/Russia, post-communism. | [deleted] | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | At least currently, Russia is far below USSR median PPP | income, inflation adjusted. | | Life has gotten worse for the average person in Russia in | the last 40 years, not better - by almost every measurable | metric. | | And that's with all the low cost tech they can import - | like $20 cell phones and pirated Hollywood movies. | | If China is on one end of success, Russia is on the other. | janef0421 wrote: | Market reforms are not intrinsically capitalist. | bmmayer1 wrote: | Yes but these were. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese | _economic_reform#:~:tex.... | AnnikaL wrote: | Your second link refers to poverty being reduced after the | fall of communism, when former Soviet states instituted | capitalist reforms. | throwaway4good wrote: | There was a massive drop in living standards in the former | Soviet Union after the introduction of capitalism in the | 90es. Average life expectancy dropped something like 10 | years, corresponding to millions of dead. | wiseowise wrote: | And that's an issue of capitalism, not impotent economy | that has been drained by decades of poor planned economy | of communism? | snovv_crash wrote: | It also coincided with massive increase in the supply of | available alcohol. | kurisufag wrote: | >There was a massive drop in living standards | | that tends to happen when the government runs resources | down to near-zero, forcing the new system to start from | scratch. | | had the conversion occurred earlier, when the USSR was | still a reasonably successful state, I suspect it would | have gone nicer. | purpleflame1257 wrote: | The millions dead in the Holodomor and the Great Leap forward | certainly don't have any need for money anymore. | [deleted] | mensetmanusman wrote: | Only after they gave up a planned economy. | systemvoltage wrote: | The west is shooting itself in the foot with socialism while | Asian countries are lifting people out of poverty at an | unprecendented rate. | | Inequality is a feature, the pie grows larger: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtJwAYJ9B08 | | Instead of lifting poor class upwards, the west wants to pull | everyone else down. Reducing quality of life and regressing in | every metric of progress. The future is in Asia, places like | Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, | Singapore. Socialism is so easily captivating to average IQ | voter class in USA, it is a fight every generation has to go | through. Countless examples of failures won't convince people. | | The likes of Greta Thunburg have changed their tune from | climate alarmicism to just destroy Capitalism all together: | https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/15885879870379786... | | Capitalism branding has been damaged by equating it with crony- | capitalism which is what most people think it is. | tinktank wrote: | A tweet to a writer of a book with bad faith arguments | (https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/review-bad- | scienc...) and a youtube link to a talk by the president of | the Ayn Rand institute does not an argument make. | | PS: You might find this information on how her old was | financed amusing (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand- | social-security/). I know I did. | systemvoltage wrote: | Maybe I should have listed Milton's books. Just because | professor is part of Ayn Rand institute, you're not arguing | about the points presented in the lecture, but instead | discarding his credibility by association. There is a | massive amount of 200+ years of history of Capitalism | that's difficult to succintly address here. | | Here is Alex Epstein's Google talk about climate alarmicism | that aligns with Shellenberger's post: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6b7K1hjZk4 | | Shellenberger's book review (first one that shows up on | google search) is just following the same tropes of Climate | catastrophization. The article doesn't steelman | Shellenberger, but instead reduces it down to "... yet bad | science, strawman arguments, cherry-picking facts, and ad | hominem attacks on scientists, media, others"; ofcourse | written by folks at Yale "Climate Connections" blog. | | Here are a couple of alternative reviews: | https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/apocalypse-never- | the-... | | https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id | =... | | Climate arguments have no counter balance. The media | routinely ignores the otherside of the equation and never | provides a balanced view of how we can tackle it. Instead, | the zeitgeist created by progressives for last 50 years is | that we should depopulate, regress, and reduce quality of | life and ultimately become state dependent. The same group | of scientists and environmentalists that also ran the | campaign against nuclear energy. | wiredearp wrote: | It's not hard, really, given that you will need to make only | $1.90 per day to automatically become declassified as poor [1]. | If anything, capitalism makes this harder to do achieve [2] | which probably explains why the limit is set so low. | | [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/international- | poverty-l... | | [2] | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2... | baybal2 wrote: | standardUser wrote: | It's a _mixed economy_ , with massive government inference in | markets, just like literally every single country on the | planet. | RGamma wrote: | If this plays out the same like it has in the mature economies | since neoliberalism then whelp, our biosphere's done for... | hdjjhhvvhga wrote: | How wonderful! In the influx of bad news it stands out as an | awesome accomplishment. | | Congratulations, India! | Proven wrote: | spaceman_2020 wrote: | One of the best things about living in India is watching families | move from lower or lower-middle class to middle-class status. | Usually, all it takes is someone from the family landing a white- | collar job. | | While the tech bodyshops (TCS, Infosys, etc.) might have a poor | reputation in the US, these companies have been absolutely | critical in helping move tens of millions into middle-class | respectability. | nsenifty wrote: | My first job was in Infosys back in 2001. Coming from a lower- | middle class farming family, it was a huge deal. My monthly | gross was something my dad (farmer) + mom (school teacher) | would earn in an entire year. I remember my dad proudly putting | a portrait of NR Narayana Murthy (founder of Infosys) on our | wall - it is usually reserved for gods/ancestors or revered | sages. | FooBarWidget wrote: | When I see Indian developers, I have in my mind that they're | similar to Chinese: the whole village bands together and | gather resources to give that one kid a university education | and a good job, so that that one kid returns to the village | many years later to help people out of poverty. | rsgrafx wrote: | I have an uncle who came from Malaysia to the US in the | 70's to do his studies. He was "given the task by his | village elders.." as he would say and they did exactly that | pooled resources and made sure he finished school. When I | heard his story I was so moved. He's built everyone in his | village a house, invested in many businesses now, literally | changed lives of countless families and friends. | deepzn wrote: | not villages necessarily, families look out for each other, | everyone's own kin. | synergy20 wrote: | agreed, I feel it's not village-based at all, it's more | of kin based, or family based. | spoils19 wrote: | That's awesome to hear! Our family does something similar - | we have a line of portraits above our family photos of the | various CEOs that have hired us throughout the years - namely | coal and oil company owners. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | My FIL funded their maid's kids education. The son got into a | decent engineering school and landed a job at TCS. The | daughter studied nursing and got a job at a large chain | hospital. The kids bought their mom an apartment and a car. | | Its just amazing to watch - this woman's mom, grandmom, | aunts, uncles were all peasants or did odd trades. Now | because of a single generation, the entire family could dream | of middle class dignity. | deepzn wrote: | real cool, thx for sharing! | acchow wrote: | Is TCS/Infosys/etc taking a risk on hiring | untrained/undertrained employees and putting in the effort to | train them? Or did they get training through a | college/university? | | If the latter, I'd say education is helping pull these people | out of poverty. | GordonS wrote: | IME (I led offshore teams of Indian devs for years), the | quality of the in-house training | TCS/Infosys/Cognizant/Capgemini etc provide for employees | is... poor. They seem to focus on quantity over quality, | presumably so devs have lots of "relevant" training to pad | CVs with. | Dharmakirti wrote: | Indias software sector is so starved of talented resources | that they have already started tapping into rural areas. e.g. | navgurukul.org | akudha wrote: | Not everything is rosy though. In cities like Bangalore, real | estate is super expensive, thanks to software salaries. The | same is happening in second, third tier cities now. | | But generally speaking, yes, all it takes is one person from a | family landing a white collar job. And life becomes | (relatively) much better | spaceman_2020 wrote: | India's physical infrastructure has honestly fallen way, way | behind our digital infrastructure. | | Absurd that I can go a month in India without ever using cash | or cards, order everything I want from anywhere and have it | delivered within a day (or even minutes), yet it can | sometimes take me 45 minutes to travel 3k and that my car's | suspension breaks down at 50k kilometers because there is no | public transport and the roads are filled with sinkhole sized | potholes. | db1234 wrote: | Not everything is rosy anywhere in the world. One can find | issues with any positive story. I would rather have expensive | real estate problem due to high paying jobs than poverty. | akudha wrote: | During my dad's time, it was much easier to buy a house on | a modest salary. And the houses were well built too. These | days, it is near impossible to buy a house unless you are a | very high earner, as all available real estate is being | gobbled up by "investors", aka, who have high paying jobs | (mostly software). | | It is good that we are elevating people from poverty. All I | am saying is it creates a different set of problems. But | yeah, overall it is good that we are able to pull more | people up from poverty. | vbezhenar wrote: | Buy an acre of land in a remote location and build a | house? Programming is a remote job, you have to enjoy it. | That's my plan anyway. | wobbly_bush wrote: | Real estate will get more expensive due to political greed | than any other kind of development. The supply of real estate | is artificially constrained by the political class, so any | kind of development (say hypothetically manufacturing instead | of software) will make it expensive. There used to be a time | when new land for building houses was frequently sold by the | government in the form of new "colonies", but that has | completely stopped. The local political greed (municipal | corporators, mayors, MLAs) has destroyed most Indian cities | due to lack of planning, and this small fish only cares about | short term money they can make. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | A big reason why Gurgaon real estate is more expensive than | Bangalore despite having way more land and poorer jobs is | government corruption. All those bribes and backroom deals | get siphoned off to buy apartments and land. These buyers | can hold forever because their cost basis is practically 0. | | I'm actively hunting for an apartment in NCR and get | painfully reminded of how poor I actually am. | 1024core wrote: | There was a time when we were living in Delhi and we used | to drive down to Jaipur, where our extended family was. | We kids looked forward to the drive, as it meant nice | stopovers, snacks, etc. | | After leaving Delhi we would , after an hour or so, make | our first stopover in a little village called .... | Gurgaon! There we would have chai, samosas, etc. In those | days Gurgaon was separated from Delhi and a sleepy little | village. | | When the capital expanded, those villagers became instant | millionaires. | | A lot of comments in this thread are crediting TCS, | Infosys, etc for lifting people out of poverty, but | another factor was the skyrocketing realestate prices. | Small-time farmers who could barely make ends meet | suddenly were sitting on million-dollar land holdings. | akudha wrote: | What you are describing is one part of the problem. | | I have friends who earn in dollars. They can easily afford | to buy a couple of apartments _every_ year. They do this | and let those apartments sit vacant for a few years, | waiting for them to appreciate. When many people start | doing this, it artificially inflates the prices. | wobbly_bush wrote: | That can be solved with tax/other laws. Guess who will be | most impacted by those laws? Not people with one or two | apartments as much, but those who do in large scale - | that is again politicians and their helpers who help | launder illegal money this way. If there are loopholes in | the law, people will abuse it but we have to realize the | loopholes are not meant for the layperson but the | powerful few who abuse it at much higher scale. | rendang wrote: | Sounds like a job for Georgism (if you are up for radical | economic transformation) or a vacancy tax | anthropodie wrote: | Those millions who moved to middle class are also helping the | layer below them. These lifted households are spending their | wealth on house helps, local grocery stores, taxis/autos and a | whole lot of other local businesses. This trickle down effect | then boosts development in cities where these IT hubs are | located. Even more students then want to join these IT | companies and enjoy the lifestyle of their seniors thus | continuing the cycle. | | P.s. We spend money in local shops because the stores like | Walmart have still not penetrated the Indian market as they | have outside India. | dirtyid wrote: | I think in a few years India will find focusing on middle | class is not enough. There's finite demand for | domestic+outsourceable white collar jobs for 1.4B internal | market + ~400M English speakers around the world. PRC has 10s | of millions of white collar jobs + 100s of millions of | manufacturing that pays better than trickle down | housesitting, but there's still 100s of millions more stuck | in informal economy while both countries are stuck with | another few 100s of millions of subsistent farmers because | keeping agriculture low tech is an essential jobs program. | Even by PRC standards, India is hyper Deng's "let some get | rich first" scheme that's going to cause long term uneven | development issues. | adamc wrote: | There are lots of reasons to think the PRC is about to hit | a very rough patch as globalism shrinks. | naravara wrote: | Shrinking globalism has a lot of causes so I don't want | to overstate the case here, but one big part of the drive | to pull back from it is the PRC's own currency | manipulation and leveraging of its manufacturing | bottleneck for geostrategic aims. They have themselves to | blame partly. | | But really, their demographic precipice is what's going | to stall them out. I hope their political system is | functional enough to let it transition into something | that can continue functioning after the end of a turbo- | growth economy without collapsing into a Putin-esque | kleptocracy or go the way of 20th century Argentina with | constant coups and general political chaos. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Agree completely. We've tapped out our services potential. | We now need large scale manufacturing. Income inequality | and unemployment are very real problems, and its only | getting worse. Only manufacturing can create those kind of | jobs at scale. | TremendousJudge wrote: | You seem to be close to the situation. Do you think Indian | Walmart is a future inevitability? | [deleted] | spaceman_2020 wrote: | One of the challenges is real estate and parking. Most | major Indian cities are extremely crowded with little in | the way of parking space or affordable commercial land. | Most large stores in major population areas invariably have | to pivot to the higher-end to justify the real estate | costs. | | Driving out 45 minutes just to buy groceries seems futile | since every neighbourhood will have dozens of grocery | stores that will deliver right at your doorstep (and now, | half a dozen quick delivery apps too). | makestuff wrote: | Not op, but Walmart owns Flipkart so I think that is their | play for India expansion. | bombcar wrote: | This is how Walmart and other companies spread into | things like India - you might even see a few Walmarts | open as a "higher class American-like" store, but the | vast majority will be in things like Flipkart that are | directly aimed at the market. | kylehotchkiss wrote: | Some cities have "Big Bazaar" which is similar to a Walmart | (smaller though, the Indian market doesn't have the variety | of brands and products other countries do). There certainly | are a lot of other similar stores. A more American thing | that isn't readily available is like a Costco, bulk | shopping would be pretty tough there, and people are fine | to go out on a more regular basis to pick up fresh | milk/veggies. | | No American big box retailer will ever be built. Indian | government doesn't allow foreign companies to come in and | set up shop very easily (at best they can get in with 49% | ownership like Starbucks/Tata). Additionally the logistics | situation is very different. Less ports, roads between | cities built differently than USA, traffic across states is | not a right like USA and various | restrictions/inspections/fees can occur. It's worth keeping | an eye on IKEA's expansion specifically in India. They | really want to grow the marketshare, they have the right | price points, and people seem to genuinely like and want | them around. But lots of artificial hurdles which i suspect | are caused by local traders/shops knowing how much business | IKEA will take from them. | | Indian Amazon is approaching the utility of American Amazon | and are pretty good about taking advantage of the existing | couriers and air cargo which takes care of some of the | interstate logistics I mentioned. The funniest part to me | is that every individual item you order comes with it's own | delivery person, there isn't yet much work to consolidate | packages. The current generation is growing up with Amazon | though and I anticipate many future improvements. | | I also see a dead comment in this thread saying India | doesn't have malls... I've never seen more malls in an area | than I have in big Indian cities. A lot of them are pretty | good! | | Source: many extended visits to india | anthropodie wrote: | We actually have D-Mart and they are quite huge but not | comparable to Walmart. These are present at multiple | locations in tier-1 cities but are hardly present in tier-2 | cities. The thing is even though these are very popular | they are not shutting down local shops in the region that | they are located. The sheer demand is so high that people | get things from local shops instead of standing in long | queues at D-mart. | | To answer your question, yes Walmart can happen but it has | to be ready for some serious competition because other than | D-mart other big player JioMart backed by Reliance has | entered this space recently. | baybal2 wrote: | pvsukale3 wrote: | Yes, there is a company called Dmart and they are doing | really well. Recently one opened in my area and local shop | owner mentioned that it is killing their business. People | are flocking to Dmart for discounts. | pvsukale3 wrote: | I have personally seen this transition. Some folks who started | from tier 2 cities got access to white collar jobs because of | MNCs like TCS, Infosys. Now they have improved skillset through | Internet courses and are now working on much higher pay at | product companies. | | MNCs are essentially doing what colleges fail to do in India. | Teaching people how to code, talk to clients and bring them | into formal employment. | piva00 wrote: | Be careful with that, I saw the same happening in Brazil | between 2002-2012 just to start unraveling quickly after that. | | Our economies and societies are still pretty fragile, any | political shock can start a downwards spiral. Stay vigilant. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | If the commodities boom is any indicator, Brazil should be | hitting a purple patch soon enough. | bergenty wrote: | I think the difference is India is a major startup hub that | mostly caters to the local market so the effort to shift to | more resilient income streams not completely dependent on the | global market are underway, something Brazil did not do. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Entirely possible India hits a lean phase and stays stuck | where it is. Truth be told, everything from infrastructure | to basic law and order are far behind even a "middle income | trap" country like Thailand. Too early to pat ourselves on | the back. | mrtksn wrote: | > While the tech bodyshops (TCS, Infosys, etc.) might have a | poor reputation in the US, these companies have been absolutely | critical in helping move tens of millions into middle-class | respectability. | | The same goes for most "slavery" jobs. A lot of people's | fortunes has turned all over the world by working under | "inhumane" condition for American or European companies. | | These are actually good jobs in respect to state of play in | these countries. The harm comes from degrading the employment | standard in the rich countries where it's impossible to compete | with places like China when they work under these conditions | and as a result the jobs with "humane" conditions disappear in | the wealthy countries or get worse. | | Overall though, the world becomes a better places as the people | in the developed countries get their stuff for cheap and people | in the developing world catch up. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Have to agree. Anyone who has lived in a third world country | knows that a formal job is better than a no job, and that | many would absolutely love to work for, say, Foxconn for a | steady paycheck. | | Some of those stories about workers at Foxconn committing | suicide also neglect to mention that the factory town has 1M | workers who all live and work there, and that the suicide | rate is actually lower than that for a city of equivalent | size, or that 1M people living together might hurt themselves | for any number of reasons (debts, unrequited love, adultery, | etc), not just work. | G3rn0ti wrote: | Technically, India did not do this. The people lifted themselves | out of poverty because, finally, India's government had granted | them enough freedom to pursue their happiness. | dc-programmer wrote: | Economic freedom follows rule of law. And enforcing rule of law | is not a passive activity. Free markets are only possible when | governments take an active and benevolent role in society | jimbokun wrote: | Doesn't "India" include the Indian people? | ClumsyPilot wrote: | What are you going to suggest next, a company consists of | employees and a chair is made of atoms? | | To neoliberalism, Countries and Companies are like the | ghosts. They have a will of their own, they are immaterial | and can't be pinned down. | | Together with the omnipotent and omnibenevolent Invisible | Hand they form the Trinity and Haunt the stock market. | | If there is a recession, it is never a structural problem in | the market, it is always because the consumers have sinned. | sabujp wrote: | Why does the US need to stick to a 2% inflation rate? India's has | exceeded 5% for decades | (https://www.worlddata.info/asia/india/inflation- | rates.php#:~....). Indian stock market shows no signs of | recession. If you held since 1990 (or inception) (data from tv | https://www.tradingview.com/x/rGnAJxlH/) : | | Ethereum +9110% | | India NIFTY50 +6059% | | Bitcoin +5566% | | Nasdaq100 +4705% | | Shanghai SSE Composite +2307% | | NIFTY100 +1709% | | SPX S&P 500 +908% | | SSE50 +227% | | SSE100 +67% | itspi wrote: | I don't comment but also hate reading popular threads like this | but I will do it anyway because someone was interested in hearing | from someone living in India. | | There's so much emphasis (from comments) on information | technology services contributing to this. This is a recent | phenomenon. Growth due to IT services was extremely concentrated | in a few cities and most took their family there. | | India was never a nation state before becoming a federal | republic. Poverty was not widespread uniformly over the | subcontinent. Over-reliance on agriculture and lack of trade | meant factors like climate patterns disproportionately affected | people in the lower social order. | | Government definitely played a role in establishing energy | infrastructure, educational institutions, introducing healthcare | schemes and before that, smart people played an even bigger role | with the constitution. | | India's growth can be traced to a small list of landmark | decisions which caused chain reactions. | | - 1950 Constitution and enforcement by institutions | | - 1954 Midday Meal Scheme | | - 1956 Non-Aligned Movement | | - 1961 Green Revolution | | - 1970 Operation Flood | | - 1991 Economic liberalisation | | Looking back, just liberty guaranteed by Constitution wouldn't | have worked because of the caste system. | | I can add more if someone's interested. | | - itspi | aerovistae wrote: | Interested in comments from anyone who lives in India or has | experience/familiarity with it as to whether reality on the | ground matches the rosy picture painted in the article. | TuringNYC wrote: | Firstly, thanks for posting this. Everything done to help | alleviate poverty is wonderful, no matter how it is achieved. | | I'm American, but of Indian origin. Our family visited many | major cities in India when I was a child (early 90s) and it was | heartbreaking. We just kept wondering -- how does anyone begin | to fix poverty that is so vast? We gave a lot of charity (esp | schooling support) over the years but it always seemed like | just scratching the surface of a vast problem. | | We havent been back since -- but i'd say every family helped is | a positive step. Solutions do not need to be 100% comprehensive | at the start. I look forward to more economic success for the | people of India, and for people everywhere. | bergenty wrote: | In my parents generation, very few people finished high school | and college degrees were rare. If we go back to the village now | (in southern India), pretty much all the people my age go to | college, have professional degrees and have generally moved | away from the villages or abroad. But they all send money back | and most everyone is visibly comfortable at this point. | boruto wrote: | Grand father had 6 children, Father and family used to eat red | chilly burnt over coal to satiate hunger(What I heard). | | My father dug water wells, Did farming on small piece of land | he inherited. Got a bachelors degree but ended up working as | accountant servant for local landlord. When I was in college in | late 2000's he earned 60 dollars per month. We lived in a one | room house. He did that same job for 45 years from morning 10AM | to evening 10PM. I used to wait for him sleepy just so he | brings some candy or snacks for me. | | My first job out of collage was 14000 dollars per year. I | bought a house, a bike. My father quit his job joined another | where he works on his terms at the age of 73 now. | vishnugupta wrote: | Purely anecdotal, please don't ask me for data, sources etc. | | It seems to me the government is doing a good job of supporting | those at or below abject poverty. There are food security | programs, free medical aid, education, and I guess even | housing. Of course the poor have to wade through bureaucratic | and corrupt system. But with digitization it's getting fixed to | an extent. | | That said, the huge challenge I see is in the so called middle | class segment. For a reasonably educated person the jobs just | don't exist any more. So the mullion of people who join the | work force every year have to fight for a few thousand jobs. | And they live their life precariously, just one or two jolt | away from falling back into poverty. For a vacancy of 10 | clerical posts tens of thousands jobless people turn up, some | of them way over qualified. This cohort is really getting | disillusioned and is easy to manipulate and radicalize. | | India is a hugely complicated, vast, and diverse country, it | can't be comprehend by one person or even group. So you will | come across all kinds of contradicting views all of which could | well be true simultaneously. | rajeshp1986 wrote: | I can tell my experience. Not just me but everyone I know moved | from poverty to lower-middle or middle class in just 20 years. | When I was 5 years old, we were living in a village with no | electricity. Having 2 square meals was a luxury only some house | holds had. Many farmers & daily wage workers had only enough to | eat one meal a day. My family's biggest fear while I was | growing up was what will happen if my father felt sick and | couldn't work. I am thankful those days are behind us. | nsenifty wrote: | Posted my anecdote elsewhere in this thread | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510940 | aravindgp wrote: | India did make progress in lifting poverty. The numbers wary | according to context but yes in absolute numbers India did make | significant progress. Most of it is done by IT and pharma | industry. | as1mov wrote: | I can give me 2 cents (or paisa hah), apologies if it gets a | little sentimental, I am drunk. Looks like I've ascended on the | Maslow's hierarchy of needs. | | Grew up in a poor family with my dad as the sole earner taking | care of my mother and 3 kids. Mum used to do minor clothes | repair work for neighbours for some extra money, but it wasn't | much. One of my first memories is waddling along to the ration | shop (cheap subsidized government shops) with my mother to buy | rice and kerosene for cooking. | | Things were hard for quite a while (I was about 12 or 13), it | didn't really change until my oldest sibling got a job at | Infosys after finishing university. Now that I look back on it, | what they were paying him wasn't much, but for us it was a life | changer. We could afford daily essentials without any hassle. | No longer we needed to buy things on credit from the grocery | stores, no longer we were worried about not being able to pay | the electricity bills at the end of the month. | | It did change the trajectory of our life dramatically, as it | allowed me and my other sibling to afford university. I did a | bachelors in Computer Science and eventually managed to move to | Europe for work after a few years. We are in a much better | position than we were 15 years ago. | | I know people here tend to look down on these cheap curry- | consultancies for their dogshit services but at the other end | of the line there are real humans too. Same dreams and | ambitions as you do. It's true that these companies pay their | actual employees peanuts and treat them like shit, but | sometimes that's good enough when the baseline of what life | gave you to begin with was wayyyy less. | | This is just anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt, but | this was a similar story for many of my friends from childhood. | | It's a little funny that people here assume that everyone on | this forum is some FAANG engineer earning $400k in SF, there's | also a small section of us little people hanging out in the | corners :) | Dharmakirti wrote: | > One of my first memories is waddling along to the ration | shop (cheap subsidized government shops) with my mother to | buy rice and kerosene for cooking. | | Man you just rekindled those memories. I still remember the | dusty ration card book (from PV Narsimha Rao's times, I | guess). | | > people here tend to look down on these cheap curry- | consultancies | | HN is very parochial when it comes to outsourcing and the | vitriol some people here have for H1-Bs is sad. Our stories | are the other side of the coin which shows that these curry- | consultancies are making some real dent in the universe for | the rest of us. | throwaway1207 wrote: | Thank you for sharing your journey. As a fellow Indian with a | similar trajectory, I can totally relate to this. | | Although I do fall in the FAANG engineer earning 300k+ in New | York, I do believe most of us are the same(desi engineers in | TCS/Infosys or on site FAANG) for whom programming/CS/tech is | a passion and ambitious/adventurous/lucky to be able to get | out of poverty/lower middle class, we hustle and make the | best of the hand we are dealt, not everyone gets lucky to | crack the FAANG lottery and clear the leetcode hoops FAANG | companies throw at you. Personally I feel you should change | your attitude to think the peanuts they give you is enough, | of-course while keeping your humility and remembering your | humble upbringing to appreciate the pay/privilege many others | dont have/wont ever get just due to dumb luck, unless some | crazy innovation like miniature nuclear fission reactors that | give humanity potentially infinite energy and makes everyones | life luxurious , in a world of finite resources and potential | over population its inevitable there will some overpaid, some | underpaid engineers, yet both these sets are paid | significantly higher than many many others from a non | engineering disciplines. | vishnugupta wrote: | As a fellow Indian who has had a similar trajectory as yours, | thank you for sharing your story. | | The point you said about Infosys paying salary that is good | enough to escape poverty trap can't be emphasized enough. | Infosys, TCS, and similar companies gave lifted hundreds of | thousands of families out of poverty trap. | [deleted] | Dharmakirti wrote: | I can tell my personal story if that matters. | | Background: I come from a non-UC, rural yeoman farmers family. | I grew up in rural India and used to spend my summer and winter | vacations working on our family farm along with my cousins. I | was the first Engineer in my family and studied in a Government | college, and most of my batchmates were from a similar | background, with over 50% of them being lower classes. | | I have witnessed India's progress from the front row and it is | something my parents or grandparents could never have imagined. | Many of my friends went on to achieve great prosperity, some | being C-level at Unicorns, others helping build Indias nuclear | submarines etc. There is substantial wealth in the hands of my | 4th tier town folks and I can see the signs of (relative) | prosperity. Most households have people working in the private | sectors and the wealth does trickle down. | | I visited a Govt. hospital recently and I was surprised to see | that it is not an ugly damp place it used to be. Granted, it is | not on par with NHS or US hospitals but neither is it a god | forsaken place. | | The infrastructure is also much better than it was in the 90s. | My grandfather would be shocked to see the Nagpur Metro and | would think Aliens built it. | | I am also proud of the fact that India does take special care | of wild life and is actively working to preserve the amazing | biodiversity it has. Of course there will always be pressure | from humans, but the heart is at the right place. | [deleted] | abhinavm wrote: | It is true. A lot has to do with the reforms of 1991-96. | | It is only when you think back that you realise how bad the | situation was back then and how much had changed. | newsclues wrote: | Hasn't there been recent news about toxic pollution in the | region? | | What good is lifting people out of poverty, if they are lifted | out of poverty and placed in a toxic urban environment? | gandalfgeek wrote: | This line of reasoning needs to be stopped. If you haven't | lived or grown up through India's pre-capitalist era you have | no idea what you're talking about. Ask any Indian about it and | I think they'll tell you that urban pollution is a small price | to pay for the distance they've come in terms of overall | quality of life and wealth. | abhinavm wrote: | A major source of pollution is stubble burning, which is of | rural origin. | Choco31415 wrote: | That article was specifically about India's capital. It's also | possible that problem can be fixed in the future, so people are | lifted into a clean urban environment. | | Also, last I recalled, London faced similar issues before and | is in a much healthier state nowadays. | dotnet00 wrote: | If they aren't in poverty you have more options for reducing | pollution. | | When someone is so poor that they can just barely feed | themselves and their family, you can't realistically expect | them to do much to reduce pollution. You can't really enforce | pollution regulation because they can't pay fines and tossing | them in prison only makes things worse. | | When they're able to afford some luxuries they're capable of | devoting more thought towards their environment and can afford | to spend more for more environmentally friendly living. | cuteboy19 wrote: | The move away from socialist economic policy has been a great | boon for the Indian people. But a lot needs to be done still to | root out the corruption and wastage of the socialist days | Qtips87 wrote: | jp42 wrote: | Current Prime Minister of India is from 'Other Backward Class' | and and President is women from tribal community. | db1234 wrote: | More than 50% of Indian MPs are lower caste and minorities | https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/only-39-mps-are-politi... | Indian PM and president are from backward caste. Reservation | for lower caste in government educational institutes and jobs | is more than 50% | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India#States. So | much for upper caste having complete control of democracy and | lower caste being "the most disenfranchised and marginalized | communities". I'm not saying all problems are solved. It's a | work in progress like any other democracy but progress is being | made slowly and steadily. | arcen wrote: | This literally reads like some misinformation campaign hit- | piece. I would suggest reading up on actual news sources that | function within India and speaking to Indians who live in | India. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | Can you explain this dichotomy then? You say people who vote | are lower caste, and those who "don't vote" are upper caste, | yet the upper castes control the government. | | Are you saying then that the voting is fraudulent? Or that | lower caste voters are voting against their interests? Or that | there are restrictions on the candidates that are available so | voters are only given the illusion of choice? E.g. for lunch we | can choose between KFC, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut, but they're all | actually the same company. | eldaisfish wrote: | While the first sentence is correct, the rest is just nonsense | based on misinterpretations. What evidence do you have that | voting is largely lower caste? | | If anything, the voting system in India is among the best, most | transparent and most accessible in the world and that is really | something amazing. | | Beyond voting, India is largely an electoral autocracy and | their idea of "democracy" is really stretching the definition | so you are accurate there. | ginger2016 wrote: | This opinion is offensive. India is a functioning democracy. | Your claim is that the people who vote are lower caste and | upper caste won't vote hence democracy is invalid. Are you | suggesting democracy is only valid if upper caste people vote? | kodyo wrote: | He seems to be suggesting that upper caste people don't need | or care about democracy, which is true of all democracies. | Qtips87 wrote: | What I am saying is that upper caste don't need to vote | because they have complete control of the country. Democracy | confers power to the people because you would assume people | who vote can affect policies to their favor but this is not | the case for the people who vote in India. They are totally | disenfranchised and marginalized. | eldaisfish wrote: | the accurate statement is that a small slice of India's | upper castes have control. They dominate many sectors but | you seem to assume that caste and economic class are | interchangeable. they are not although there is a strong | correlation due to generational wealth. | soared wrote: | He's claiming the votes are valid, but the votes do not | translate to outcomes like they do in a democracy like the US | because governmental power is still controlled by upper | castes. | yutijke wrote: | Is this your lived experience? I am finding it hard to believe | when the Prime Minister of India comes under what is classified | as a "Backward" caste there. The President of India, Droupadi | Murmu comes from a historically disadvantaged tribal | background. | | The political parties and political commentariat in India | heavily emphasize Caste and other identitarian aspects as the | building blocks of building a coalition rather than policy. | | Political parties field candidates who belong to a particular | ethnic community and pander to their sentiments to secure their | votes. And the historically disadvantaged communities achieve | representation in this manner. | | While I agree that Caste is a major issue in the Indian society | (with a lot of variance between regions and across social | strata), saying that "backward" castes are denied political | representation and agency is extremely dishonest. | Qtips87 wrote: | India's political system has all the forms but none of the | substance of a democracy. Yes Modi is from a backward caste | but his policies are biased towards the upper caste and he is | beholden to the upper caste support. The proof in the pudding | is how well off the lower caste compared to the upper caste | in the last seventy year. And the answer is the lower caste | is worst off compared to their upper caste counterpart after | seventy years of upper caste rule. | yutijke wrote: | Disadvantaged communities seem to be improving their status | as far as I can see. https://theprint.in/opinion/education- | levels-of-sc-st-obc-ri... | | That BJP only works for the upper caste is inaccurate. Like | every political party in India they pander to communities | for votes. Freebies and subsidies for disadvantaged groups | like ration and gas is a card they have played in | sufficient numbers. Recently they have increased | reservations (affirmative action) for Scheduled Castes in | Karnataka, I believe. This and their rhetoric are pretty | much the building blocks of their campaigns. | | You can say it doesn't work in the long term, but only | working for upper castes is not what it is. | | Our political system enables people of various backgrounds | to rise in the ranks of politics regardless of their caste | (I have given examples up the thread) or religion (we've | had Presidents, Chief Ministers, Governors and Prime | Ministers from Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Muslim | backgrounds). | | The medicine is working. If you are frustrated that it is | not working fast enough or the way you expected it to, the | reason is far simpler and what every Indian knows about. | | When you have many "Backward" caste politicians and leaders | with a predominantly "Backward" caste voting base who do | not work to improve the status of their communities and | instead just want to line their pockets, it should be | obvious what the problem is. Rich people ultimately just | want to make themselves richer, especially in a system that | enables it with rampant corruption. That the Rich person is | from a disadvantaged background does not matter. Whatever | you may want to call it you cannot explain this away as | Upper Caste Hegemony. | | Note: I am _not_ saying that casteism, doesn't play a role | in Indian society and politics, but it is not one and only | explanation for our problems. Repeating this again due to | the tendency of many people to explain away every problem | in the Indian society with "Is this Casteism?", | synergy20 wrote: | Per my observation over the years, India immigrants are unique at | hi-tech job market, when one India became a manager, over one or | two years, all his team is pretty much filled up with people from | India, this is unseen in other ethnic groups like Chinese, | Japanese, or any other races. I can not stop thinking if they | violated Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws in US. | praz4HN wrote: | Sounds suspiciously like anecdata... | MrBuddyCasino wrote: | I've heard this before. So now you've got two anecdata. | koshergweilo wrote: | That's very interesting because my boss is Indian and he hired | only one other Indian person out of like ten new hires over the | years. Then again, my company does have a lot of diversity and | inclusion folks looking over the hiring process, so either D&I | in my company is unusually effective or your anecdote is just | an anecdote. | | Maybe we shouldn't be painting millions of people with the same | brush because of some patterns our brains happened to notice | speakspokespok wrote: | A roommate in college was from a small rural village in Vietnam | and a first gen college student. It took his entire extended | family to pay the cost of tuition (international student rates). | At the age of 18 he was putting in 60 -70 hours a week to his | studies, as the responsibility he felt to his family to earn that | sacrifice was overwhelming and less than an a perfect score | visibly upset him. Not knowing any better I once said 'but you | got a 3.9...', his reply was 'My father skips meals for me!'. | joenot443 wrote: | Do millennial and gen-z Indians have a similarly skeptical view | towards capitalism held by so many young people in NA and the EU? | | I had a friend tell me the other day that I couldn't be anti- | racist if I wasn't anti-capitalist, because capitalism is by | inherently racist. Ever since 2018 or so it seems as if anti- | capitalism has become part of the mainstream progressive Western | viewpoint, while I don't remember that being the case in the | 2000s. Are these views held around the world, or do I just have a | very well-selected sample? | xmprt wrote: | I think India is already quite socialist to begin with so anti- | capitalism isn't a very strong sentiment there. There's also a | lot less centralization and fewer monopolies. I probably | shopped at my local small business much more often than I went | to a big box store in India whereas in the US, I can't remember | the last time I was able to conveniently do business at a small | business. | umeshunni wrote: | > I had a friend tell me the other day that I couldn't be anti- | racist if I wasn't anti-capitalist, because capitalism is by | inherently racist. | | I think you need to get more educated friends. | joenot443 wrote: | FWIW, she has a Masters in French Lit from one of our | relatively well-respected schools, but obviously I completely | disagree with her on most political topics. These kinds of | stances are more common than you'd think in Canadian academic | circles. | dotnet00 wrote: | Most young 'anti-capitalists' in the West are still generally | capitalists who prefer socialization for certain essential | industries like healthcare or are disillusioned by the | gerontocracy trading the future of the young to further | maximize their own comforts (see: housing, education, anything | to do with green energy or big tech). The kinds of people | you're talking about are fringe extremists. | cuteboy19 wrote: | Quite the opposite. It is due to the shift away from socialism | (after the USSR fell) that many of these things are possible. | wiseowise wrote: | Have you tried leaving home and touching grass? Because | everything you've wrote doesn't make any sense. | joenot443 wrote: | Which part, specifically, confused you? Was it 'well-selected | sample'? Was it the notion of anti-racism? Neither of these | are terms I coined, but they're fairly well defined in my | social groups. I'm happy to clarify any topics you're | unfamiliar with. | renewiltord wrote: | No. Liberalization of the economy is either what made all of | this possible or in any case is what preceded this. An anti- | capitalist viewpoint is associated with kids of rich parents | who study what are generally viewed as non-productive subjects. | The general view is that winning means getting your kids on the | next step of the ladder in a profession that will move them | upward in socioeconomic status. | abdullahkhalids wrote: | South Asia was captured by the East India Company, and the | wealth of its people systematically extracted over centuries. | This is different from the many other local wars and invasions | that happened in India before and during this time, where | either the invaders left after stealing wealth once, or they | stayed and generally tried to improve the area they captured. | Systematic extraction of wealth was only a feature of | capitalist firm made of people who said they were distinct from | you, and superior (please note 'race' was invented by | Europeans). | | So, hate for capitalism is pretty old in certain parts of the | world. | Dharmakirti wrote: | > hate for capitalism is pretty old in certain parts of the | world. | | I would like to have a different take. India has a strong | merchant class since aeons and market economy was never a | taboo culturally. You can see that in the entrepreneurs like | Bansals, Agrawals, Shahs that are at the helm of Indian | Unicorns. So yes, there is a skepticism about 'western' | capitalism, but not for market economics. | abdullahkhalids wrote: | I don't see how we disagree. I am aware that capitalism and | market based economies are not one-to-one. The share-holder | system is what results in massive exploitation in | capitalism. Market economies can also exploit but not in | the same dispassionate way that share-holders do. | morbidious wrote: | Racism and capitalism are two entirely different things | mensetmanusman wrote: | Such an awesome accomplishment. | | Also, it's interestingly a huge black eye to the CCP: news of | this Indian accomplishment will be censored in China, because it | proves that nations can progress without forced- | sterilization/-abortion/-1-child-policy/authoritarianism/ etc. | ardit33 wrote: | I think this is a world wide trend as well. Humanity is | progressing with every generation. (this is true even in | Africa). | | Some countries progressing faster though, (China being one of | them). | Shoue wrote: | In absolute terms, yes we are seeing advancements in | tech/medicine and the like and that will always help more and | more people, but in more relative economic terms it's | questionable whether the gap between poorer nations and | richer ones is actually closing, because there is economic | evidence that the gap is actually widening: | | > Net Resource Transfers (NRT) for all developing countries | have been mostly large and negative since the early 1980s, | indicating sustained and significant outflows from the | developing world (see graph below) | | https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-report-on- | unrecord... | dirtyid wrote: | Wut, India started from a better state, took same amount of | time, to progress 1/5th as much, while still having north | korean tier food insecurity. Dooming generations and hundreds | of millions of avoidable deaths due to being stuck in poverty | for longer than need be. There's nothing to be envious about. | Also eliminating rural poverty + building rural infra is the | actual hard part that takes time and resources. We'll have to | see if India has the resources to even get there, PRC didn't | until $6000 gdp per capita. India and by extention relying on | democracies to develop still a case of what not to do. Also | India did their own sterilization / family planning campaign. | keepquestioning wrote: | The truth hurts... | [deleted] | [deleted] | diordiderot wrote: | And all the Chinese got was 2.5x GDP per capita | svieira wrote: | "That's a chain of office you are wearing; may I see it? Why | Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the | whole world ... but for Wales?" | | https://youtu.be/bLIsqYKDqY8?t=214 | | To put it another way - how many children are an acceptable | sacrifice for mammon? I say "none". | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | They also have 300% debt to GDP compared to 84% for India. | | We'll never know how much more advanced India would be if | they invested as much in infrastructure. | Aunche wrote: | > They also have 300% debt to GDP compared to 84% for | India. | | You're comparing the total debt of China with the national | debt of India. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | India doesn't have "private" corporations which are just | an extension of the state. | | All the mega banks in China are indistinguishable from | the state - you're looking at 100% of debt to GDP on | their balance sheets alone. | scarmig wrote: | I think the relevant figures here would be how much of | each countries' banks' balance sheets are de facto | liabilities to the state. I can buy that Chinese banks | incur more liability for their government than Indian | banks do for theirs; I don't buy the idea that China is | 100% liable for its banks' balance sheets while India is | 0% liable for its banks' balance sheets. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | AFAIK, ICBC is China's largest bank, and it's main | purpose is to finance government construction and keep | the debt off China's balance sheet. | | Such a bank does not exist in the US or any major EU | countries. They issue bonds and keep the debts on their | balance sheets. | | I'm skeptical India has any such equivalent. | | The same is true for all the major banks in China. The | main difference in China is that - since the bank is an | extension of the state - the state directly decides who | does and very importantly WHO DOES NOT get funding. | | The companies that do get funding are often times GSEs. | This is federal debt... Pretending otherwise is pedantic. | | Sure, I'm with you - count Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's | debts as the US Federal Government's debt. | | India and almost every other country don't have any | equivalents. | dirtyid wrote: | You're comparing national debt with total debt. | | PRC national debt gdp is ~70%, LOWER than India ~90%. | | Also PRC has 5.5x the GDP / per capita vs India. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | That's including debt held by "private" corporations that | are extensions of the state. | | All the mega banks in China are indistinguishable from | the state - you're looking at 100% of debt to GDP on | their balance sheets alone. | endisneigh wrote: | Why would it be a black eye to the ccp when they've lifted | twice as many from poverty as India? And far higher growth, gdp | per capita, etc. weird comment | | https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l... | Montaque wrote: | Linked article is roughly double the time frame referenced | for India. Its in the world's largest democracy. Benevolent | dictatorships work for as long ad the dictator(s) remains | Benevolent. | rhaway84773 wrote: | Because the CCP's (more specifically Xi Jinping's) entire | thesis is that democracies are incapable of producing good | outcomes. | | A lot of the move towards authoritarianism that we've been | seeing in the world has been driven by the success of the | "China model". | | If India is successful to a similar degree as China, that | shatters this belief, especially since there are very | significant questions about the Chinese economy and how | stable it is. A lot of the numbers appear to be made up in a | way India simply cannot do. | | And if Democracies can achieve success, Chinese citizens | themselves may consider it as the better alternative as it | might indicate that China's economic success was less the | result of the CCP and more because the Chinese government | chose to move towards a Western capitalist economic system a | couple of decades before India. | eldaisfish wrote: | ... but India isn't successful on the same scale as China. | India's middle class is not secure nor are successive | generations guaranteed to remain middle class. That wealth | is just not there. | | India's real middle class is just one financial disaster | away from poverty. China on the other hand has been | immensely successful at lifting millions out of poverty and | securing them firmly in the middle class. | | Also, if you think India cannot and does not make up | numbers, you are completely wrong. See most recently their | COVID numbers. See in the past their economic data that was | treated at par with garbage by the global community. | endisneigh wrote: | I'm curious to see a source that says the modern CCP states | that democracy cannot succeed in general. | | The CCP stance is that democracy wouldn't work for China. | Whether that's actually true or not is debatable of course. | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi- | idUSBRE... | GauntletWizard wrote: | Their stance relies mostly on the same tired canards that | India disproves; that an uneducated populace, rural | areas, etc are hindrances. They are, but they're not ones | that Communism/Authoritarianism solves - And India has | some authoritarian properties, too. | | The 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation is perfect | example of how a somewhat democratic state can pull off | large scale action that China refutes as a possibility. | Was it pretty? Was it effective? Who knows. What matters | in this argument is that it's the kind of corruption | fighting mechanism that China likes to cite as the domain | of their heavenly mandate and not possible for | democracies. | | Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the only | way for China, but there does need to be a little more | supporting basis than that. | scarmig wrote: | > Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the | only way for China, but there does need to be a little | more supporting basis than that. | | Says who? | | Running a society is hard. You can't simply compare the | reality against a hypothetical guaranteed better outcome | that would happen under democracy, even ignoring the | claim ( _at best_ contentious) that India has done better | than China for the last couple decades. | | An equally a propos comparison would be the Soviet Union | and its attempt at a transition to democracy. Life spans | and material wellbeing collapsed, and even their | political system ultimately backslid, to something as bad | as the USSR. You can say that they just did democracy | wrong--which they certainly did--but that doesn't solve | the core issue that getting democracy right is a really | hard problem. If the CCP had committed to democratic | reforms under Deng, maybe it would have worked out | better; but it also might have created turmoil and mass | death, as attempts at democracy did in the USSR. And if | the latter happened, rubbernecking Westerners would just | say "well China did democracy wrong"; democracy never | fails, it can only be failed. It's easy to call for from | afar, but when your society's well-being is on the line, | it's a much scarier risk to take for abstract benefits. | artificialLimbs wrote: | Are those numbers from China? | | Is there a reason to trust them if so, considering they would | be coming from a brutal, authoritarian dictator? | mc32 wrote: | I wouldn't doubt that they are roughly accurate. | | The question is is the growth worth the pound of flesh the | CCP takes as its right in return for that growth and social | stability? | | Another fair question is could it not have been achieved | through a more humane system of governance? | wahnfrieden wrote: | You've just met with cognitive dissonance | bergenty wrote: | I think the idea is we can have both democracy and paradigm | shifting changes in a very short time span that hasn't really | been proven out recently. | scarmig wrote: | 1) At this point, the CCP internally considers the 1 child | policy a mistake. I'm sure this news won't be widely published | within China, but mentioning it is not going to get anyone into | trouble. Plenty of people complain about the one child policy, | and so long as you don't call for the downfall of the CCP | because of it, you're fine. | | 2) India has its own sordid history with coercive | sterilization. During the Emergency, millions of people were | sterilized, under varying levels of compulsion. | odysseus wrote: | Regarding 1), the documentary "One Child Nation" (currently | included with Amazon Prime) goes into China's history with | their one child policy in detail - from people who lived | through it. | | It is fascinating how they went from "One Child" to their | current policy without admitting any mistake at all. | | --- | | As for India, not only have they had problems with forced | sterilization, they've also had problems with parents wanting | a son at any cost: https://www.theguardian.com/global- | development/2021/dec/27/f... | vkou wrote: | 32 years ago, GDP per capita in China and India was $300. | | Today, GDP per capita in India is $2,200. | | It is $12,500 in China. | | I'm not sure that 'Six times faster growth, and eight years of | life expectancy, and seven times fewer people facing hunger and | food insecurity' is as much of a black eye as you think. | | I could think of quite a few Americans who would happily | embrace a one-party state, if it meant that they wouldn't lose | five sixths of their wealth and income, and eight years of | their life, and have a one-in-seven chance of having to | seriously face starvation. Most of them, actually. | ohiovr wrote: | Life under a king can be great but it always depends on the | king. | FooBarWidget wrote: | This makes absolutely no sense given how everybody in China | knows that western countries are richer. China is not North | Korea, there is no information blackout. The average Chinese | knows a lot more about, say, the US than the average American | about China. | | Chinese policies are meant to solve Chinese problems (whether | they are successful is a different discussion). The government | is in the business of producing results, ideology is secondary. | richard___ wrote: | Why do so many people on HN hate on China? What's your | relationship with Chinese people in your personal life? | m4jor wrote: | Because China is the number one threat to democracy and the | US. | | They also are responsible for stealing hundreds of billions | of dollars of IP from the US every single year. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr. | .. | | And masters at stealing R&D and tech from US companies for | their own use | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t. | .. | | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took- | trillions-... | paxys wrote: | USA is the number one threat to democracy in the USA. | There's no point continuing to blame China, Russia or | whoever else for domestic problems. | [deleted] | m4jor wrote: | Nation-state hackers from Russia and China are certainly | running active campaigns in US elections to disrupt or | manipulate them. | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/chines | e-h... | | Best evidence of this is the previous 2020 elections. | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | We literally elected people that are telling us our | elections are rigged. Even if Russia and China | orchestrated it, we're stupid enough to eat it up. | | _" Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says | they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians | come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't | pass through a membrane from another reality. They come | from American parents and American families, American | homes, American schools, American churches, American | businesses and American universities, and they are | elected by American citizens. | | This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to | offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage | out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going | to get selfish, ignorant leaders."_ - George Carlin | socialdemocrat wrote: | That sucks, but the US lacks moral authority to point | fingers as the US has such long history of manipulating | elections all over the world, overthrowing democratic | leaders. The US even actively spied on European citizens | through PRISM at a scale never done by either China or | Russia. When Snowden exposed the US, it just shrugged | "everybody spies on everybody". | | Okay, if so, then why complain about Chinese spying? They | are just doing what the US is even more guilty of. | | As a westerner I would love to see the US stop | embarrassing us in front of autocrats. | coding123 wrote: | Maybe your solution is to set up a firewall and block any | articles written out there that gets the wrong people | elected. | largepeepee wrote: | Sure they are, which countries aren't interested in the | most powerful country that constantly exports their | problems.(our debt is YOUR problem) | | But the coverage is probably outsized to their actual | impact compared to the hundreds of billions spent by the | local monopolies trying to influence the elections | themselves. | | Trump ignoring his personal issues for a moment, has | shown with his rise and fall, just how much of the media | are just working together - I have never seen all of them | including interestingly enough CNBC and Fox constantly | dismissing the same candidate in unison for months | towards to 2016 election. | | Add the tech monopolies into the mix for 2020 and it was | another eye opener. | chiefalchemist wrote: | > with his rise and fall, | | Not being daft, but what fall? Sure the non-Right media | wants to paint him as a has-been, but that's revisionist | history, and wishful thinking. | | Key fact: Trump in losing received more votes than Obama | in either of BO's victory. Yet Obama is generally painted | as popular and love, and Trump a nothing? | | I'm not a fan of DT but a false hope in a false narrative | is an opportunity for him to exploit. | latchkey wrote: | CIA Officer Frank Snepp Discusses Planting Stories in | Vietnam | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM | paxys wrote: | And the USA is doing the same to other countries. It is a | given that this happens, and will continue to happen. You | measure how strong a democracy is by how well they can | resist such campaigns. If some random Russian bots can | trigger a coup in the strongest and richest country in | the world then, well, that's on us. | e-clinton wrote: | "the US is doing the same to other countries" | | Source? | | "If some random Russian not can trigger a coup" | | It's still an act of aggression regardless of whether the | US is equipped to deal with it. While I agree that the US | does lots of shitty things, we have way more checks and | balances than our key enemies. For one, it is the people | who elect those who represent us. | zmaurelius wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_i | n_r... | | I think it would be naive to think similar programs are | not being enacted in the present day. | aylmao wrote: | John Bolton has been directly involved with foreign | policy at least since he first worked at the State | Department (the department responsible for the USAs | foreign policy and relations) in 1989. | | He has openly been a an advocate for military action and | regime change by the US in several countries[1]. Recently | he also openly mentioned his role in helping plan coups | d'etat in an interview, when asked about the events on | January 6th that followed the 2020 election: | | "As somebody who has helped plan coups d'etat-- not here | but you know (in) other places-- it takes a lot of work." | [2] | | Also, tragically enough, he in fact served as the 25th | United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Just a | reminder, when listing its principles, the _first point_ | of the UN 's _foundational charter_ reads: "The | Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign | equality of all its Members." | | The USA counting a self-proclaimed "coup planner" as | their ambassador to the UN can give us an idea of how | fundamental interfering (ie, "hacking") other nation's | affairs is to their foreign policy, and how little it | respects the sovereignty of nations. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bolton | | [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRvMJDTrL2E | | [3]: https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml | quonn wrote: | Those programs did not remain hidden then, why would they | now? | vetinari wrote: | > "the US is doing the same to other countries" | | > Source? | | Not even hiding it: https://content.time.com/time/covers/ | 0,16641,19960715,00.htm... | SadTrombone wrote: | If in 2022 you're seriously asking for a source for US | interference in sovereign nations and their elections, | you have some serious reading to do. | helij wrote: | Please, please know your history[0] before speaking. | | [0]https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution- | spies-eur... | socialdemocrat wrote: | I don't like the CCP, but in practice the US conservative | movement is probably the biggest threat to democracy in the | West today. They are spreading the idea that elections need | not be respected and spread conspiracy theories people are | eating up all over the world. | | For instance when we started getting problems with | vaccination of people in Norway it was not due to China but | fake news and conspiracies pushed by the radical | conservative movement in the US. | | The US holds a special position in advancing and protecting | democracy, but is itself turning into a liability. China is | a concern but first priority has to be to fix American | democracy before it drags the whole West into the mud. | amanaplanacanal wrote: | I wouldn't say the conservative movement as a whole, but | the MAGA folks currently ascendant in the Republican | Party are certainly a threat. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | > threat to democracy | | > billions of dollars of IP | | I like how your make claims about important societal | issues, but the evidence provided is all about money. | bergenty wrote: | It's the exact opposite. I don't think anyone hates the | Chinese people, just the CCP and primarily because it's | authoritarian and fast becoming the US' main rival. | richard___ wrote: | Raise your hand if you hate the CCP and you have a Chinese | ex. There is already one guy who said as much in this thread. | FooBarWidget wrote: | As a Chinese I want to say thank you for posting this. It's | really ridiculous... | socialdemocrat wrote: | I just have an issue with the CCP and their apologists. That | is primarily who people refer to when they say China. It is | pretty common speech. Same when talking about America doing | something, we refer to the US government primarily, not its | people. | boxed wrote: | The heros in the story of Chinas amazing numbers of people | lifted out of poverty is Deng Xiaoping and his successors. | They've been basically thrown out with Xi. So modern China | is unfortunately on the totally wrong trajectory. | | It's ok to say "China was going the right direction between | years X and Y" without being an "apologist". | ohiovr wrote: | Deng was a heck of alot better than the guy before him. | _zamorano_ wrote: | It's the double standards, you know. Not being able to vote, | and so... While the US and its war machine has lost track of | destroyed countries in this last decades in an Orwellian | permanent conflict. | | But the bad guys are the chinese, who hasn't been involved in | a war in 40 years. | Gil-galad wrote: | It's not the Chinese people, they are in general awesome | people. It's the CCP. | dabernathy89 wrote: | "Why do so many people hate brutal, authoritarian | governments?" | roflc0ptic wrote: | My relationship with Chinese people is great. I have a | chinese ex, whose mom is hyper critical of the CCP and hates | communism. They're not Han chinese, they're one of the less | desirable ethnicities, and they didn't feel well treated. | Anyways. | | Authoritarian regimes are bad. The fact that this | authoritarian regime has mongoloid/asiatic facial features is | irrelevant. I hated GWB's expansion of the security state and | two senseless middle eastern wars, I hated Obama killing | American citizens without trial, and I hated Trump's... | everything, basically, but admittedly withdrawing from | Afghanistan was p cool. Stopped clocks etc. | | Anyways it's totally consistent with wanting a just world to | also hate the largest authoritarian regime in that world. | This "but what if it's because you're racist?!?!" line is an | absurdity | [deleted] | TotoHorner wrote: | Hating the CCP != hating Chinese people. | | Amazing that this needs to be said... | [deleted] | burntbridge wrote: | And when there is a war? | iwillbenice wrote: | burntbridge wrote: | Forced sterilization is something India did do. | yorwba wrote: | The United Nations Development Programme announced it 20 days | ago on their official WeChat account and the post is still up: | https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/JAY6_fef5htRqbnOQwnoFg | | Also, re: "without forced-sterilization" | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30040790 | pxue wrote: | sure, no forced sterilization. | | just nation level apathy on child mortality in lower class | citizens. | gandalfgeek wrote: | I grew up in India in the 90s, saw first hand the transition from | the disastrous socialism of the Nehru era to open markets, | capitalism and deregulation. (The end of "license raj".) | | It started with PV Narasimha Rao as PM and Manmohan Singh as his | finance minister in the early 90s. Thankfully Singh himself had a | fruitful tenure as PM later. All it took for India to take off | was the shackles of govt control to come off. | | Sad to see that the lesson hasn't been learned and even today | there is a strong strain of socialist reasoning calling for more | govt control on markets. | | Concrete example: before deregulation one had to pull strings | (e.g. have family or friends in the civil service) to get a phone | to your house, then wait a few months after approval to actually | get the wire to your house. That was also the era that there were | two channels on TV, both state controlled (Doordarshan) that | broadcast maybe 5-6 hrs per day. | softveda wrote: | The license raj is still there for business, except maybe some | sectors like tech startups. Yes there has been improvements in | citizens life like mobile phones etc. But official harassment | and bribery is as prevalent as before. Want to get a passport | issued or renewed have to pay Rs 500 to the police. Just last | week a mother and her kids died as they were turned away from a | govt hospital as they could not show the Aadhar id card. Read | the Indian news and this kind of cases as their every week. | ganeshkrishnan wrote: | >both state controlled (Doordarshan) that broadcast maybe 5-6 | hrs per day. | | We just had one channel DD1 It would start in the evening | around 7 pm I think with this tune | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-7JmGB9BRA | damagednoob wrote: | I don't understand poverty statistics. With this news, the UK now | has more people living in poverty than India (16% vs 22%?). If it | is valuable to judge poverty on relative income, you would think | the rational course of action would be mass immigration from the | UK to India but that is clearly not the case. | BurningFrog wrote: | Discussions about poverty is usually confused by the two | competing definitions: | | - Absolute Poverty: If you have less than $X/day, you are poor. | This measures living standards. | | - Relative Poverty: If you're in the bottom x%, you are poor. | This measures status. | | Without knowing anything, it sounds like this measurement is | more on the Relative Poverty side. | Shoue wrote: | Relative measures are important because it's an indicator of | how fairly domestic resources are being allocated. You can be a | poor country but have resources fairly allocated among the | population, and you can be a rich country and have resources | unfairly allocated among the population. It's a good indicator | of how well people at the bottom are being taken care of, and | the ideal scenario is a rich country with low income | inequality, which the Nordic countries are probably the best | examples of. | | You can use measures that are less country-specific like the | Gini coefficient and UN R/P to measure domestic inequality | between countries: | | The UK has a Gini coefficient of 35.1, a UN R/P 10% of 13.8 | | India has a Gini coefficient of 35.7, a UN R/P 10% of 8.6 | | For reference, Norway has a Gini coefficient of 27.7, and a UN | R/P 10% of 6.1 | | (higher = more inequality) | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq... | Neil44 wrote: | That is very interesting. But I think the answer to the | parents question about why people are not boarding rubber | dinghies from the UK to India is that in absolute terms | poverty is not the same in the two countries. | advisedwang wrote: | > With this news, the UK now has more people living in poverty | than India (16% vs 22%?) | | The severity of poverty in rich western nations is easy to | underestimate. There are people in the UK who are underfed, | can't afford heat, have to work multiple jobs etc. This kind of | poverty does look different than poverty in India - better in | some ways, but worse in others - but it is still poverty. | | The data on relative poverty is hard to trust, but we also | can't trust gut feelings about which countries "must" have more | poverty. Perhaps it is true that UK does have a higher fraction | of people in some kind of poverty. | mym1990 wrote: | Have you been through the process of emigration before, | especially as a person in poverty? You make it out to be like | just packing up a suitcase and setting up in a cushy new place, | the reality is so far away from that. | bergenty wrote: | I don't know the answer but I'm sure they're defined | differently. Poverty in India means making less than $1.90 | dollars a day. By those standards the UK would have zero | poverty so their numbers are clearly self defined at a much | higher standard than the UNDP global standard. | DimitriPetrova wrote: | Apparently the Multidimensional Poverty Measure is defined as; | | An index that captures the percentage of households in a | country deprived along three dimensions of well-being - | monetary poverty, education, and basic infrastructure services | - to provide a more complete picture of poverty. | | There's also the Multidimensional Poverty Index which has an | alternate definition | jimbokun wrote: | But is there a greater percentage of people in UK deprived | along any of those dimensions? | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Uk has 4.1 million children in poverty, or 30%. It now more | food banks than macdonalds. | | Poorer counties often have large families, government | programs for food distribution and many people growing | their own food. | | You might have empty bank account but you will have | something to eat and some roof over your head, even if you | are crashing at family place or it's illegal construction | on a land thats not technically yours. | | If you are poor in London you will just starve and freese | to death | jialutu wrote: | > Uk .... now more food banks than macdonalds. | | Holy cow! I just checked this fact and it's true! | https://fullfact.org/electionlive/2019/dec/9/food-banks- | more... That said, it shouldn't be a suprise since there | are food bank donations everywhere these days. Truly | depressing. | deathgripsss wrote: | It must be relative to that nation. From my experience the | UK IS becoming an incredibly segregated nation along | economic lines. I don't find it hard to believe that 22% of | the populace are in relative poverty. This is very | different from absolute poverty, of which I'm sure India | has a higher percentage. | formerkrogemp wrote: | Three cheers for Brexit and Tory rule I suppose. | renewiltord wrote: | I think that's just a measure that is meant to vary over time | for a single state rather than vary over states for a single | time. India struggles with problems of feeding, sheltering, and | hygiene for its population. | | Ultimately, the purpose of that statistic for the state to be | able to tell whether its policies are working. The state, | therefore, must construct measures that show progress when it | makes progress and show regress when it makes errors. A measure | that ultimately shows 0 progress even when real progress is | made, is not that useful to the state. | | A data nerd may want to normalize definitions (I certainly do | and the MMR and IMR measurements are ones I find particularly | annoying) but ultimately a state measures for its own purposes | and not mine. | bparsons wrote: | These are two very different definitions. | | The international definition of extreme poverty means living on | less than $1.90 a day. It is the basic ability to survive. | | The domestic poverty threshold definition in the UK is whether | or not you are able to maintain a fairly stable middle class | standard of living. | atentaten wrote: | > India lifted 415M out of poverty in 15 years, says UN | | At what costs? | | I've heard this narrative before as it has happened in many | Western countries and it is continuing to happen in China. I | don't have the answer, but I always wonder about the costs of | lifting so many people out of poverty, for example, there could | be costs related to: environment, quality of life, traditions and | values, mental health, etc. | | Along with that thought experiment, I wonder how did they get | into poverty in the first place. A lot of areas that are now | declared as poverty zones today may have been poor in the past, | but were self-sufficient and self sustaining. | vhanda wrote: | > I wonder how did they get into poverty in the first place. A | lot of areas that are now declared as poverty zones today may | have been poor in the past, but were self-sufficient and self | sustaining. | | Well, when the British left in 1945, roughly 15% of the country | was literate [0], now that is up to 77% [0]. From here [1], it | seems that poverty was around 45% of the population (361 | million). It also says the rate varied based on how the monsoon | season went, which makes sense for a primarily agrarian | society, especially one which had to import food to meet their | needs till 1965 (roughly). | | so, basically, the British didn't leave India in a good place. | See [2] | | [0] - | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India#/media/File:... | | [1] - https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNACR801.pdf | | [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 | colinmhayes wrote: | > I wonder how did they get into poverty in the first place. | | Human history is basically nothing but suffering and | starvation. 80% of the population was living in extreme poverty | before the industrial revolution. | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-populatio... | feyman_r wrote: | >> there could be costs related to: environment, quality of | life, traditions and values, mental health, etc. | | quality of life, mental health: are you implying folks in | poverty were perhaps happier before? If so, you're probably not | familiar with life in poverty. | | environment: while there are larger issues that could likely | surface (more consumption of electricity, additional waste | etc.), the environment in which they lived most likely improved | (sanitation, medical help, gas instead of wood-burning stove, | cow-dung as fuel, water-borne diseases); this comes from | personal experience having lived close to one of the largest | slums a long, long time ago. | BurningFrog wrote: | > _I wonder how did they get into poverty in the first place_ | | Humanity has always, by current standards, been dirt poor and | living near starvation levels. | | The last 250 years of industrialism has changed that | enormously. | | To answer your question, they got into poverty because they had | always lived in poverty, since the dawn of time. | achow wrote: | The UNDP Report (pdf link) | https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2022-10/2... | anm89 wrote: | I think these statistics are all BS. If you took away all of the | game playing involved in defining poverty and then measured the | total number of people in the world living in poverty after our | massive population growth over the last decades, you will find | that the sum of human misery due to poverty is by far the highest | it has ever been and is only increasing. | | But this way a bunch of self righteous people like Gates and | Pinkerton can play statistical games and say everything is great. | No, it's great for them. | soared wrote: | I'm not sure what this comment is saying? Poverty as a | percentage of population has steadily declined globally, same | with starvation, etc. | | 70 years ago 50% of the world lived in extreme poverty, today | it's 11%. | | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-livin... | | The population in 1950 was 2.5 billion, so 1.25 billion living | in extreme poverty. Todays population is 7.6 billion, so 840 | million living in extreme poverty. | | Undernourishment has the sametrend, data once 1991: | https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_... | factsarelolz wrote: | Thanks to the United States of America wether it be through legal | or illegal means. | morbidious wrote: | Yes, thank you America for crippling your own economy for the | sake of India. Please give Biden the peace prize for his | humanitarian efforts. | zuminator wrote: | The article is talking about India's economic development | during the period 2005-2021. How you mangle that into an | anti-Biden remark is bizarre. | InTheArena wrote: | Globalization certainly, to the degree that the United States | has pushed and opened borders, absolutely. To the degree that | pseudo-communistic countries have reformed their legal systems | to respect the rule of law and property, that has little to do | with the United States. | | The guy who can't get a lifetime job at a shirt factory, | steelworks, or software job in the USA also "paid" for this. | quicklime wrote: | The global economy is not a zero sum game, and globalisation | worked well for the USA as a whole. | | Americans just didn't share that newfound wealth with the | lower classes as well as India did. | InTheArena wrote: | Actually, multiple studies have shown that yes, while some | did get richer in the USA, the cost of globalization - | worldwide - was mainly born by the middle class. People in | poverty received governmental assistance. | | And as someone who is in India frequently, the idea that | newfound wealth was shared as a deliberate policy mechanism | with lower classes is somewhat ... discredited. | | I believe in globalization - but the US government should | have done a better job helping people with it's impacts, | and the developed world should stop pretending that there | was no cost to others to make it happen. | verisimilitude wrote: | Hmm. If you are saying we are all interconnected, relying on | the diverse resources, products, and gifts from around this | small planet to do the things we want to do, e.g. care for our | sick, advance the common good, protect the vulnerable, provide | stable sources of food _so that_ our global population can grow | in a safe, equitable, sustainable manner toward lives full of | fulfillment and wonder, away from subsistence living that | steals time and health and hope from those stuck with no other | choice, then, yes. | | But if you mean the US should take credit, then, no. | factsarelolz wrote: | The US has injected untold billions into the Indian market | through off shoring phone support. India has made hundreds of | millions of dollar scamming America's most vulnerable | population. | another_devy wrote: | US has not injected billions into India! Capitalist | companies trying to find cheaper and disposable labour has | done it. Of course the US Government police allows that but | the policy is there because of these companies not other | way around. | | > scamming America's most vulnerable population | | Nothing from that goes to Government taxes or public | benefits. These people are not out of poverty by scamming. | | please try not to down punch some positive news from "Third | world countries" if you don't have any constructive | criticism | nigerianbrince wrote: | They redeemed. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-07 23:00 UTC)