Sir, - While the US has less than 5 per cent of the planet's population, it has been estimated that it consumes 30 per cent of the earth's resources. Why, then, is that country failing so badly in taking proper care of its people? If capitalism does not work there, where in the world is it likely to succeed?
"At the peak of the longest economic boom in our history, over 30 million people live in households that experience hunger and food insecurity - about the same number as four years ago." This is according to Larry Brown, director of the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Tufts University, Massachusetts. Some 20 per cent to 30 per cent of workers earn so little that "they're making choices between rent and medical bill and adequate diet". Minimum wages have not kept up with inflation, he says, and many jobs no longer include paid benefits. Children are disproportionately burdened by hunger: 15.2 per cent of all households with children are hungry and 16.3 per cent of households with children under six years do not have enough to eat.
Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College says: "What do we know about the great economic `boom' we are living in the midst of? The income of the average wage-earning workers in 1997 was 3.1 per cent lower than it was in 1989. Median family income was $1,000 less in 1997 than in 1989. The typical couple worked 270 more hours in 1997 than in 1989." He points out: "The richest 1 per cent of Americans have almost 50 per cent of the nation's wealth. The next 9 per cent have about a third. And the remaining 90 per cent have about a sixth." Prof Schwartz concludes that the United States has the highest poverty rate of any developed nation, and uses government income transfers less than any developed nation.
Meanwhile, back here in Little America, our leaders continue blindly to follow the US model, notwithstanding that country's extreme poverty and obscene income inequality. Is that what we really want? Say it isn't so! - Yours, etc.,
Myles Crowe, Old Brewery Lane, Clonakilty, Co Cork.