If you believe social media and even mainstream media, things are really bad and getting worse, right? Well, wrong according to Kristoff’s Op-ed in the NYT. I’ve always wondered what the daily news would look like during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, or even the wild west. The nightly news seems to satisfy (if not promote) a lust for blood and guts type stuff. But the overall trend seems to truly be much better (though far from perfect).
“■ As recently as 1981, when I was finishing college, 44 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. Now the share is believed to be less than 10 percent and falling. “This is the best story in the world today,” says Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank.
“■ For the entire history of the human species until the 1960s, a majority of adults were illiterate. Now 85 percent of adults worldwide are literate and the share is rising.
“■ Although inequality has risen in America, the global trend is more encouraging: Internationally, inequality is on the decline because of gains by the poor in places like China and India.”