We should celebrate 3.5 billion poor because it's good motivation for everyone to aspire to be in the one percent.
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"Globalization has made the world a more equal place, lifting the economic fortunes of billions of poor people over the last quarter century. Here's the rub: At the same time, it has made richer countries more unequal--squeezing the incomes of the poor and the middle class...Branko Milanovic, a former World Bank economist now with the City University of New York, says data from household surveys show that, from 1988 to 2008, real incomes of the poorest 50% in the U.S. grew just 23%. Their counterparts in the bottom 50% in Germany and Japan fared worse, the poorest Japanese seeing their real incomes fall by 2% in real terms. Meanwhile, incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew 113%, a figure that other studies suggest may be an underestimate."Stephen Fidler in The Wall Street Journal.
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"Globalization has made the world a more equal place, lifting the economic fortunes of billions of poor people over the last quarter century. Here's the rub: At the same time, it has made richer countries more unequal--squeezing the incomes of the poor and the middle class...Branko Milanovic, a former World Bank economist now with the City University of New York, says data from household surveys show that, from 1988 to 2008, real incomes of the poorest 50% in the U.S. grew just 23%. Their counterparts in the bottom 50% in Germany and Japan fared worse, the poorest Japanese seeing their real incomes fall by 2% in real terms. Meanwhile, incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew 113%, a figure that other studies suggest may be an underestimate."Stephen Fidler in The Wall Street Journal.