Is this really true?

[Toppler]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-things-like-t131541/index.html?p=1701736

Is this really true? Knowing some people from "third world" countries (modern Russia, Paraguay, Ukraine) this smells bullshit to me. These people are by no measures "elite".

While world poverty is a great problem, I feel that if you removed "in the fridge" and "in the bank" you'd get a far larger percentage of people who are "rich". Most "third world" people have food and some money, but no fridge or bank account.

I don't think stereotyping anything "outside of the wonderful west" as starving, nameless masses is really good. It seems more propaganda than anything else. I was a little kid in a time when the average wage in Slovakia was a bit less than 300 USD a month (6000 Skk), yet somehow everybody got by. But then, at that time, a full bag of groceries costed around 7 dollars (150 Skk). Neither I or anyone around us was "starving" and homelessness was no more problem that it is in today, I had a wonderful childhood.

I don't want to deny poverty in Asia/Africa/Latin America, but to push this propaganda about "priviledgeness of the West" in my opinion devalues the values of the lives of people.

[Luís Henrique]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-things-like-t131541/index.html?p=1701736

Is this really true? Knowing some people from "third world" countries (modern Russia, Paraguay, Ukraine) this smells bullshit to me. These people are by no measures "elite".

While world poverty is a great problem, I feel that if you removed "in the fridge" and "in the bank" you'd get a far larger percentage of people who are "rich". Most "third world" people have food and some money, but no fridge or bank account.

I don't think stereotyping anything "outside of the wonderful west" as starving, nameless masses is really good. It seems more propaganda than anything else. I was a little kid in a time when the average wage in Slovakia was a bit less than 300 USD a month (6000 Skk), yet somehow everybody got by. But then, at that time, a full bag of groceries costed around 7 dollars (150 Skk). Neither I or anyone around us was "starving" and homelessness was no more problem that it is in today, I had a wonderful childhood.

I don't want to deny poverty in Asia/Africa/Latin America, but to push this propaganda about "priviledgeness of the West" in my opinion devalues the values of the lives of people.

In Brazil, which is a third-world country, out of 58,577,000 households, 54,716,000 had fridges in 2009. That's over 90%. I don't have the data for bank accounts, but I think that it is false to say that only 8% of the world population have them, and even if it is not, there certainly is a distortion here (of course children, for instance, don't have bank accounts, but that does not necessarily mean they are underprivileged).

Another false, or at least quite distorted, "information" is that 3 billion people "cannot read this message". Well, if the message is in English, probably so. But lots of Chinese, or Latin Americans (probably including lots of actually privileged Chinese and Latin Americans) would not be able to read it in English, but would easily read it if translated into Chinese or Spanish. (And, also, again the problem of age: I can read such message, even in English, but I suppose that lots of people who cannot are much richer than me, but just happen to be under 5 years old...)

Things like this ad deal with guilt at best, and reassurance that your shitty job is an actual "privilege" at worst.

Luís Henrique

[Toppler]

I agree, and I agree with the "be happy with your shitty job" argument - while the media here wants to tell us how much we are better off "integrated" into the EU, the fact is, the same price that would buy you a bag of groceries + a lot of sweets in 1999 (I remember how my grandma went shopping when I was little and brought a lot of sweets, then she lamented "Oh, my god, it all costs 300 SKk (little over 14 USD)"), nowadays, such sum of money would not even buy you lunch, which means while the average wage might have gone up from ~200 USD per month to around 1000 USD, the prices are so high that the average man from, say 1999, would probably faint at seeing them.

What costed a bag of groceries back then now costs a pack of nectarines. So much for "increased living standard".

[Aspiring Humanist]

Attempting the measure the amount of people who have money in their bank and wallet and spare change in their pockets seems like an impossible endeavor, so I'm guessing the stats are unadulterated bullshit.
That doesn't mean the people of the first world have worse lives than the third world, because thats simply not true. There is suffering in North America, Europe and Japan yes but the undeveloped world has a much harder life.