These new estimates (PDF), released by the International Comparison Project, examine how much a dollar could buy you in Bhutan, Botswana, and Bolivia, along with a hundred-plus countries in between. A haircut might cost $15 at Supercuts in Washington or 50 rupees in Bangalore. An orange might be 50 cents at a D.C. Whole Foods and 5 rupees in India. The ICP looks at what people buy and how much it costs them around the world and uses that to calculate income statistics that account for the different prices paid for the same goods and services. These “purchasing power parity” numbers are widely considered the best measure for comparing global incomes. The new price survey—the first since 2005—suggests we’ve been underestimating many countries’ purchasing power. And that means we’ve been underestimating their GDP, too.
The top three spots in terms of world’s largest economies didn’t change—the U.S. comes first, China second, and India third. But China and India have closed the gap. Using the old numbers, China’s 2011 GDP was 72 percent the value of U.S. GDP. Under the new numbers, it’s 87 percent. That moved up the forecast for when China will become the world’s largest economy to sometime around the end of this year. India’s 2011 GDP, meanwhile, was estimated to be 29 percent of U.S. output last Tuesday, which increased to 37 percent by Wednesday. India’s 2011 GDP per capita estimate climbed from $3,677 to $4,735.
The numbers for India and China reflect something broader: Poor countries as a whole look richer under the new numbers than they did under the old. Almost two-thirds of countries, home to more than three-quarters of the global population, saw their GDP estimates climb by 1 percent or more. Bangladesh’s GDP per capita estimate increased from $1,733 to $2,800, Nigeria’s from $2,485 to $3,146. Indonesia’s GDP is 85 percent larger than we previously estimated, Ghana’s is 84 percent larger, and Pakistan’s 70 percent.
Countries with income per capita under about $1,000 using market exchange rates—the traditional definition of a low-income economy—saw an average GDP increase of about 35 percent. Countries with incomes per head above $1,000 but below $13,000 using market exchange rates—a little above the traditional high-income threshold—saw an average GDP increase of about 27 percent. The remaining rich countries only increased in size by about 2 percent thanks to the revisions—many saw their purchasing power estimates go completely unchanged. That includes the U.S., because what the dollar can buy in the U.S. acts as a benchmark for the purchasing power calculations.
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Because the revisions were largest in the world’s poorest countries, the new purchasing power numbers had a particularly dramatic impact on indicators of global poverty. Estimates made by the Center for Global Development suggest that the number of people in the developing world living below $1.25—the international absolute poverty line—fell from more than 1 billion to about 600 million as a result of the revisions. The number of absolute poor in India in 2010 was thought to be around 396 million people on Tuesday; by Wednesday a better estimate was 148 million. The number of poor people in Nigeria went from 88 million to 60 million.
It’s debatable what the new purchasing power numbers should mean for estimates of growth over the last few years. But using the preferred Penn World Tables approach, the purchasing power revisions are likely to suggest the developing world has been growing faster than we thought since 2005. The last 10 years already saw global convergence using the old income data—in other words, poor countries have been growing faster than rich ones for the first time in decades. That this trend is probably even more pronounced than we’d assumed is particularly impressive.
Since the end of Angola’s civil war [1975-2002], Chinese oil-backed credit lines – Angola is China’s No. 1 oil supplier – have fueled an impressive building and infrastructure boom. Angola’s 8% growth rate this year is lower than usual, but the country is expecting to return to double-digit growth rates in the foreseeable future while European markets decline. On top of that, Angola has a huge demand for skilled labor.
The large majority of Angolans, however, have not profited from Angola’s growth. According to economist Manual Rocha, around 2.5% of Angolans are (extremely) rich, and around 10% can be considered middle class. The rest struggle to make ends meet.
Single mother of four Maria Jose Fransisco (30) sells fruit and vegetables every day together with her female colleagues outside one of Luanda’s cheaper supermarkets, Martal. “Sometimes we earn something, sometimes we don’t,” Maria told This is Africa. “There are days when we make 10 or 15 dollars.” They sleep on a mattress, on the floor. “I pay $100 USD rent per month for one room.” “We buy our products far from here, in Viana,” Lucinda Domingo (23) adds. “Taking them and us here by candungeiro [minivan taxi] costs 10 dollars per person.”
A little further down the road, Victor Vieiras Alfonso Jose (28) and his friend sell cheap clothes outside, at the edge of a slum. He studies Engineering at a private university, paid by his parents. “I usually don’t work here,” he said. “I’m a candungueiro driver. Per month, I earn $100 USD.” Victor works from 5:30 till 18:00 and studies at night. There are very few jobs for people his age, his says. He rents a room in a slum for $80 USD per month, including water and electricity. “Per day, I spend more than $10 USD on food alone. Life is very difficult,” he said.
Angola ranks 148 out of 187 countries on the UN Development Index. More than a quarter of the population is officially unemployed. The official minimum wage, around $120 USD, is comparatively speaking extremely low. Especially given the fact that although inflation is decreasing rapidly, it still stands at 10%. Around 87% of urban Angolans live in shanty towns. In Luanda, “only” 1 in 12 live below the poverty line of around $47 USD per month (in rural areas, poverty reaches 58%). The question is what this poverty line means in a country where prices are up to 4 times as high as in Western Europe, and how on earth Luanda’s poor manage to get by.
A brief look at costs and incomes may provide a clue. According to UNICEF, Luanda’s poor earn a monthly income of between $17 USD and $328 USD. The average Angolan, of course, does not shop at Casa dos Frescos. Around 87% of Angolans reportedly buy their groceries in the informal sector, but prices at local markets are also significantly higher than those in other sub-Saharan capital cities.
In Europe and the US, people spend between 10 and 15% of their income on food. In Angola’s urban areas, people have to spend a staggering 50% of their income on food, 12% on rent and 9% on water, electricity and gas. Four percent is spent on health and 5% on transport. Only 1% is spent on alcoholic drinks, tobacco and education. (Note: beer at $1 USD a can and cigarettes at $1.50 USD a packet are among the cheapest items you can get in Angola).
At Most ordinary people buy their food from the informal sector. Typical prices: Eggplant: $1 USD; four onions: $2; five or six small tomatoes: $; head of lettuce: $4 USD. Lunch in a cheap musseque eatery costs about $4.00 USD.
Judging by the media they share in social networks, netizens throughout the North Caucasus tend to read online news in Russian—indeed, it is the working language of most information outlets in the region. Only in Dagestan has there been a concerted effort to develop outlets not based in Russian. Two of the most prominent outlets are the local Radio Liberty branch and Ria-News division, both working in the Avar language. Additionally, a new online video portal, AVAR TV, recently launched, which offers netizens channels for self-expression in the opportunity to produce original content in Avar.
When I informally surveyed several bloggers active in the North Caucasus, many explained the choice to blog in Russian as the most efficient means of reaching a wider audience—particularly as a way to speak to other bloggers in the region’s neighboring republics.
Timur Agirov, known on LiveJournal as Timag82, has done groundbreaking work to quantify the presence of non-Russian blogging in the North Caucasus, compiling a personal archive of statistics to map the various language enclaves. Of the top one hundred bloggers on Agirov’s list, every single one writes exclusively in Russian.
The language barriers that necessitate the use of Russian as a lingua franca across the North Caucasus are also present within individual republics. In Dagestan, for instance, there are over thirty unique languages spoken by different groups of the population.The blogosphere in Chechnya resembles Dagestan’s, though there are a few notable exceptions that do feature non-Russian writing, like bilingual work by Gilani Lamaro, LiveJournal user svd-1986, and Mukhammed Yusupov.
In Ingushetia, bloggers use the native language even less frequently. One rare example of mixed-language blogging includes Abu-Umar Sakhabi’s LiveJournal. Bloggers in Circassia also favor Russian, though you can find exceptions there, too, like Circassian-language blogging by Astemir Shibzukho and Avraham Shmulevich.
Today, there is an ever growing awareness regarding the bad as well as the good memory. Public actions, perhaps not so numerous, but certainly momentous, are building up at all levels. So far unhampered by the authorities, they primarily rely on voluntary citizens' initiatives. These memory works take place in four major areas: academia and publishing; individual and collective memory search; public awareness and visibility; religious and cultural discovery.
Regarding academic interest, following pioneering publishers, many publishing houses now produce works in connection with the painful memory, but also in relation to the rich cosmopolitan past of the Ottoman Empire.
On the individual and collective memory search, many people proudly seek, discover or rediscover ancestors of non-Muslim origin in their families.
Public awareness and visibility is growing by the day. Non-Muslims literally discover themselves and are "discovered" by the society. Since 2010, April 24 is commemorated in more and more cities. Moreover, accounts on righteous people who saved their neighbours' lives, descendants of Armenians who had to convert to Islam to save their lives are made public.
On religious and cultural area, remnants of monuments that survived are painstakingly taken care of, masses are celebrated again in Anatolia and the cultural heritage is dealt with.
It should be noted that the emergence of this process wasn't due exclusively to the external push and the government's early reformism. The society has paid a substantial price for it, probably symbolised by the murder of Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink. Social maturation and empowerment is Turkey's key to facing the challenges of the aching past.
Loaded behind the wheel of his Cadillac Escalade, high on his Jimmy Kimmel interview, Mayor Rob Ford is winding through the streets of his city.
It’s two days after Ford’s celebrated appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, two months before rehab.
In the course of this March 5 night, Ford will bring together two of his closest felon friends, beating one and accepting drugs from another; go on a racist tirade; and boast that he often has sex with “girls” in front of his wife, according to an account of the evening. He will suggest one man could have sex with her, a source has told the Star, recalling Ford’s words.
The information for this story comes from interviews and from the Star’s review of audio tape that captures a portion of the evening. The Star did not pay for the tape. Ford could not be reached by the Star for comment, as has been the case since the Star began its investigation more than a year ago. His lawyer Dennis Morris would not comment on the majority of the allegations in this story.
[. . .]
What follows is an account from people present of Ford’s behaviour on a chilly but not freezing night soon after the mayor’s chartered jet returns him from Los Angeles to Toronto:
Ford’s perpetually shiny Escalade is moving through icy streets with Ford at the wheel. Ford is wasted; on what, is unclear. It’s about 8 p.m.
Beside him in the car is Bruno Bellissimo, Ford’s friend from high school. Close by in the neighbourhood is Sandro Lisi. In one of the many fascinating turns of the Ford story, these three men were back where they started a year previous, during the infamous Garrison Ball incident of Feb. 23, 2013. On that night, Ford, Lisi and Bellissimo headed down to the military ball with Ford’s young children in the backseat. His choice of companions then included Lisi, with a record of threatening to kill young women, and Bellissimo, a crack addict, who shortly after the ball beat up his mother and was convicted of assault and threatening death. Ford was ejected from that year’s Garrison Ball for being impaired.
Back to March 5, 2014, two days after Kimmel.
Ford is behind the wheel and hammered. One constituent he calls that night recalls Ford slurring his words.
The Star has heard audio of Ford and Bellissimo talking and both are slurring. (The Star has interviewed people who say it is nothing for Ford to down a 40-ouncer of vodka. The man who recorded the audio of Ford at Sully Gorman’s bar two weeks ago told the Star Ford’s ability to drink shots of tequila is “incredible.”)
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