Joseph Stiglitz in Making Globalization Work writes,

The average European cown gets a subsidy of $2 a day (the World Bank Measure of poverty); more than half of the people in the developing world live on less than that. It appears that it is better to be a cow in Europe than to be a poor person in a developing country (p. 85).

I read this last night and my jaws dropped. Is this true? This is unbelievable. Sure, I’ve heard the fact that most of the world is poor. But when juxtapositioned next to a cow – a creature I most certainly take for granted – the comparison makes the data more meaningful for me. My first thought was the parable of the Prodigal Son – when the son realizes his condition as he eats next to hogs his thought is, “the servants at my father’s place eat and enjoy pleasures better than I do right now.”

Trying to make sense of global economics, trade liberation, how services (skilled and unskilled) fit into the big picture.