刚读完"Poor Economics"。 作者是2个MIT的经济学教授,这本书是2012年出版, 两位作者2015年结婚,夫妻俩获得2019年的诺贝尔经济奖。
读完这本书后, 才意识到全球的贫困率这么高,比如说:
1. 10% of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day
2. 60% of the world's population gets running water. 40% not
3. Diarrhea diseases account for 1 in 9 child deaths worldwide.
他们这些案例是用了15年时间从每天生活费用<1美元的地区考察和收集的, 大多是在印度,或其他南亚国家, 或者非洲国家。书里读到太多几乎不可想象的事情。
比如说:
1. 印度政府公立学校里,老师经常不来上课
2. 印度政府派去下乡的护士,经常不来上班。 印度政府的医生是让你自我诊断, 然后根据你的自我诊断给你开药
3. 印度公立学校的孩子们上了几年学后, 近一半还不能读一个小故事。(原因是公立教育质量太差)
4. 印度/非洲贫民要自己每天给饮用水加消毒剂。 他们开个银行账户居然要收费,
我们几乎用不着自己有限的自控及决断能力,而穷人则需要不断运用这种能力。
那么贫穷的原因是什么呢? 这本书的结论之一是: 你穷,是因为你父母很穷。
引用作者的原话结尾:
The poor seem to be trapped by the same kind of problems that afflict the rest of us—lack of information, weak beliefs and procrastination among them. It is true that we who are not poor are somewhat better educated and informed, but the difference is small because, in the end, we actually know very little, and almost surely less than we imagine.
Our real advantage comes from the many things that we take as given. We live in houses where clean water gets piped in. The sewage goes away on its own. We can (mostly) trust our doctors to do the best they can and can trust the public health system. We have no choice but to get our children immunized—public schools will not take them if they aren’t. And perhaps most important, most of us do not have to worry where our next meal will come from. We rarely need to draw upon our limited endowment of self-control and decisiveness, while the poor are