Worldwide poverty

If you travel any amount you are sometimes amazed at the level of poverty that exists. You see it on the streets of New York City, in the less prosperous neighborhoods in London and Paris and in pretty much in every country in the world to some degree or another. I was pretty shocked when I first went to Sri Lanka and I can only imagine what exists in sub-Saharan Africa (I’ve not yet made it there)

While there is poverty here in Kazakhstan I’ve actually see fewer homeless and less evidence of it that might be expected given that the entire ex-Soviet union went through a pretty bad spell when it broke up. It is obvious not everyone is living well but generally people seem to be getting by – even outside of the city core where there is less in the way of facilities. The rich natural resources of this country are more than likely helping.

Of course those of us from the West shouldn’t ever point fingers as things are pretty bleak back home as well. From a recent article in The Independent:

“Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.”

Anytime anyone gets self righteous around me I simply point them to pictures from the aftermath of Katrina. Definitely a case of “fix your own problems first”.