One of the things I always mean to do on this blog is write about the books I read. Unfortunately, I seem to finish one book and pick up another and totally forget about writing. But I am still trying.
I have just finished The End of Poverty, Economic Possibilities for our Time, by Jeffrey D. Sachs. If you read Time Magazine, you may have seen an excerpt in their March 14th edition.
Sachs lays out not only how bad the problem of poverty and disease is in third world countries (eight million people die each year worldwide simply because they are too poor for the basic necessities of life[1]) he also lays out a plan to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and basically eliminate it by 2025.
What is fascinating about Sachs is that he is not just a pie in the sky dreamer. He is a world renowned economist who had looked into the clinical economics of poverty and determined what is needed to get the poorest countries out of the poverty trap and onto the first rung of economic development.
If you have heard about or read about the ONE Campaign (there is a link on the right side of this weblog) you may have heard about the Millennium Development Goals that Sachs supports. I know that there are some who disagree with this particular plan to end poverty, but it is really hard to ignore the catastrophic problem of extreme poverty when there is something that can be done.
I really recommend this book. Even is Sachs doesnÂ’t convince you of his plan, you will learn a lot about the economic of poverty.
peace,
[1] Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, Economic Possibilities for our Time, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2005) 1
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