red team
5th December 2006, 05:29
Originally posted by wsws
In November, the World Banks chief economist on China, Bert Hofman, issued a preliminary study showing that real income for Chinas poorest 10 percent, or some 130 million people, had fallen by 2.5 percent from 2001 to 2003, despite growth rates of 10 percent.
These people are living on a $US1 a day or less. The cause of poverty in many cases was illness, job loss or the confiscation of land compounded by the lack of any significant social security, including health care insurance or unemployment benefits. Another 470 million Chinese are living on $2 a day or less.
Hofman told the Financial Times: Our analysis suggests that a considerable number of people below the poverty line were hit by an income shockthey only kept up consumption by spending their savings. He said his findings rejected the theory of the rising tide lifts all boats. Rather Chinas rapid economic growth had benefitted only a small wealthy elite at expense of the vast majority of the population.
An article entitled, In China, Growth at Whose Cost? in the Wall Street Journal on November 22 warned that for the CCP regime, which has staked its legitimacy almost entirely on its ability to make people richer, evidence that incomes are falling could be devastating. It noted that the Gini co-efficient for China, a measure of income inequality, had risen from 0.3 percent in 1980 to 0.4 percent last yeara level of inequality similar to that of the unabashedly capitalist US.
Beijing prepares the army to repress domestic unrest (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/chin-d05.shtml)
In November, the World Banks chief economist on China, Bert Hofman, issued a preliminary study showing that real income for Chinas poorest 10 percent, or some 130 million people, had fallen by 2.5 percent from 2001 to 2003, despite growth rates of 10 percent.
These people are living on a $US1 a day or less. The cause of poverty in many cases was illness, job loss or the confiscation of land compounded by the lack of any significant social security, including health care insurance or unemployment benefits. Another 470 million Chinese are living on $2 a day or less.
Hofman told the Financial Times: Our analysis suggests that a considerable number of people below the poverty line were hit by an income shockthey only kept up consumption by spending their savings. He said his findings rejected the theory of the rising tide lifts all boats. Rather Chinas rapid economic growth had benefitted only a small wealthy elite at expense of the vast majority of the population.
An article entitled, In China, Growth at Whose Cost? in the Wall Street Journal on November 22 warned that for the CCP regime, which has staked its legitimacy almost entirely on its ability to make people richer, evidence that incomes are falling could be devastating. It noted that the Gini co-efficient for China, a measure of income inequality, had risen from 0.3 percent in 1980 to 0.4 percent last yeara level of inequality similar to that of the unabashedly capitalist US.
Beijing prepares the army to repress domestic unrest (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/chin-d05.shtml)