4Boston Reflection: Global Village

4Boston Reflection, November 19, 2006 – The Global Village
If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look like this:
81 non-whites, 19 whites
57 Asians, 13 Africans, 12 Europeans/Soviets, 9 Latin Americans, 6 Americans/Canadians, 3 Others
49 Female, 51 Male
89 Heterosexual, 11 Homosexual
33 would be Christian, 67 would be non-Christian
21 would be Muslims
15 would be Hindus
6 would be Buddhists
5 would be Animists
6 would believe in other religions
14 would be without religion or atheist
7 would speak English, 93 would speak another language
15 would speak Chinese or Mandarin
6 would speak Hindi
6 would speak Spanish
5 would speak Russian
4 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
51 would speak Indonesian, Japanese, German, French or some other language
6 would control 59% of the entire world’s wealth and all of them would be U.S. citizens.
74 would control 39% of the wealth, and 20 would share the remaining 2%
74 would live in substandard housing
40 would not have access to modern sanitation
79 would have access to clean drinking water, 21 would not
67 would be unable to read
1 would have a computer
1 would have a college education
45 would be malnourished with 1 dying of starvation and 15 overweight
1 would have HIV
In the village, there would be:
7 Teachers
5 Soldiers
3 Refugees driven from their homes
1 Doctor
The budget for the village would be around $300,000. Of that budget:
$18,100 would go towards weapons and warfare
$15,900 would go towards education
$13,200 would go towards health care

In the period 1990-2004, the (inflation adjusted) income of the bottom 90% of taxpayers (yes, 9-0), rose by 2% overall (not 2% per year). The income of the top 1% grew up 57% and the income of the top one tenth of one percent (.1) grew by 85%.