The world’s poorest pay more than a day’s wages for a single plate of food | Hacker News Reader

The world’s poorest pay more than a day’s wages for a single plate of food

theguardian.com

38 pointsSQL221934 comments

> “Unless we stop the conflicts, unless we stop the migration of people from their homelands into neighbouring states, unless people have the means to either grow their own food or be able to afford to buy it, people will continue going hungry.”

That quote struck me as odd. What does the migration have to do with the price of food? If a meal really costs $320 in Sudan, I would imagine migration would be a much simpler solution to ending suffering. The migrant can just move to another country with better institutions and infrastructure where food is affordable. Migration may have other issues, but alleviating human suffering is one of the benefits.

Also, I'm not convinced there is a link between the percentage of food imported into a country and the price of food. If anything, food imports and trade would help decrease the price through specialization and trade.

I’m probably making a mistake here by commenting before reading the article, but I’ve seen many cases where issues with food prices and food supply have been diagnosed as long term effects of food aid or cheap imported food. What can happen is that local farmers go out of business or stop growing staple crops because prices collapse. When conditions change and the food aid stops or the price of imported food rises, there aren’t enough local farmers left to feed everyone. That will obviously cause food prices to go through the roof. It’s always something that has to be considered when planning aid to a country.

By all media accounts, most of the migrants are from some of the most productive demographics (by age). So migration might be slashing poor countries productive workforces.

Western countries talking about the benefits of immigration and multiculturalism - but when those immigrants are educated or skilled the west is robbing the poor countries of their only hope. This is why visas are better than residency/citizenship - the poor country person spends a few years in the advanced country then returns to the poor country with improved skills and knowledge.

What if a person doesn't want to live in their country of origin? Should we condemn them to live there anyway?

"Should we condemn them" - manipulatively dramatic language imho. Sometimes we have to step up and take on a burden we might prefer not to - it's done to improve a situation. You want the country's strong to abandon the country and its weak? Or do you want the whole population of every poor country to migrate, should they want?

I'm just considering a not unlikely scenario where a smart, capable person wants to get away from a country ruled by a corrupt or oppressive government. What if the majority of the people continually vote for such a government and this smart (strong, as you put it) person sees no chance of that changing in the foreseeable future, should that person be forced to live there even if they don't want to?

"forced to live there" is exactly the same manipulative language being used shamelessly here. You should really consider avoiding such use as it detracts from your argument.

On the other foot, should we be "forced" to accept people from corrupt nations? What is the test of character we give these incoming people to prevent the same "corruption-tolerant" people from ruining our own system of government?

Instead of grasping on semantics of his language, why don't you try understanding the meaning? At the end of the day what you propose limits human freedom for a greater collective "good". Good luck with that.

One man's freedom is another man's slavery. If having private property and, by extension, state borders is an infringement on freedom then I think we have larger ideals to collide than this small one we started with.

"forced to live there" is exactly the same manipulative language being used shamelessly here. You should really consider avoiding such use as it detracts from your argument.

Fair enough. What would be another way to say that a person is denied living in any country other than the one of their origin?

The natural result of having borders? If you think people should be able to live wherever they want then where do you draw the line? Can I come live in your house and sleep in your bed whenever I want?

Did you just compare countries with houses ? Do people still use this tired argument ? The line is pretty obvious, it's called property of usage, you can't be denied what you actually need to live a decent life as defined by your society, but arbitrary borders based on the arbitrary, random fact that someone was born at a random place in earth is one of the worst criteria we can use

Are people dieing en masse there or is more than half the food being provided as aid? I don't see how the title is possible without one of those as humans usually eat 3 times a day so they are earning <1/3rd of whats needed on average to just eat. You could eat less and still survive but that much of difference doesn't seem like someone could live through for very long

The article uses local market prices for food, but in very poor countries, most people are subsistence farmers and grow what they eat.

Also, yes, in South Sudan people are currently dying in masse, there's a vicious civil war in progress.

I understand they are using local prices. Local prices dont matter when you are comparing a day's wage though. That's how much money you earn in one day regardless of the number attached to it. If the amount of food you need in a day costs more than you can earn in a day I would assume this would quickly lead to starvation. I know about the civil war and deaths due to violence, I was curious if there was starvation happening as well

> humans usually eat 3 times a day

I have no contrary statistical evidence, but I suspect this assumption may be wrong - especially with regard to poverty-stricken countries.

I count myself as a relatively privileged individual and for more than half of my lifetime (since being responsible for my own meals) I have mostly chosen to eat two meals per day. I know a lot of similar people.

Three meals per day is more than is needed for sufficient nourishment.

right, like I said you could eat less. 3 meals isn't a hard and fast limit, its just common. Even if you got down to one meal a day though, the title is saying that it costs more than the income you make working that day. That is unsustainable

It could be sustainable if you are also growing food. That is, you would spend more than your entire day's earnings on food if not for the fact that you or your family produce most of the food you need. At least that is my take on how such a seemingly paradoxical situation can come about.

"average daily budget derived from national GDP per capita figures" sounds...erm...almost meaningless.

So what's the root cause? When we drive a truck full of food for the poor over the border, is it stopped and relieved of its contents by men with guns who sell the food and the truck to non-poor people so they can buy more guns?

Or is it because nobody wants to drive that truck full of food in the first place because the poor don't have anything worth trading for it?

Yet fertility rate in South Sudan is a staggering 4.9 vs 1.8 in USA.

I doubt anyone is raising children in NYC on beans and casava or rice.

What GP is trying to say: It's financially taxing to have 4+ children compared to 2 -- regardless of what type of food you have at your disposal.

Except in that context you don't just feed children they also work with you at a young age so... There's also an economic advantage to having children

Don't knock it, beans and rice is pretty tasty. I don't think many people in NYC eat quality food. If you actually look at the ingredients list for many of the expensive prepared foods, you'll find that they may well be worse and have cheaper ingredients than beans and rice.

Why would you even pretend you know how millions of people live?

I kinda thought the same thing, until I moved there. Lived next to a family of (at least) 6 living in an extremely cramped one-bedroom apt in central Harlem. Thousands of poor people living blocks away from thousands of wealthy people.

4.9 is not that high by historic standards. Not everyone lives long enough to have kids.

The second half of this may be BS but the difference in Africa from 1950-2010 is staggering. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate#/media/...

PS: For comparison the baby boomers are from US fertility rates over 3.5 in the late 1950's. http://www.prb.org/publications/datasheets/2012/world-popula...

You say "yet" but "and" would be more appropriate. The fertility rate is a symptom of, among other things, high child mortality and low access to birth control.

and religion. We need to face the fact that religion, often religion exported by the west, is killing people in these countries. Almost all missionary religions forbid birth control.

Protestant Christianity typically doesn't forbid birth control, as far as I know.

Evangelical protestant Christianity does. And the other forms of protestant Christianity rarely travel to Africa and other third world nations on mission trips.

As others pointed out, population growth is highest when people are poor. Complex issue, but something where you can wait to have kids and have just one or two if you know that the kids will survive and thrive. A life that seems not only temporarily unstable but has no possibility of stability is one where people have lots of kids to hedge their bets that some will survive and be okay — plus the lack of health care, contraception, education (esp. women's education and career prospects)…

http://www.gapminder.org/ for best perspectives on all this

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