Give reasons why the poor remain poor. Can you suggest solutions to this?

Last year, the world observes a healthy 5.1 per cent in the global economic growth rate. However, this seems to be solely contributed by the rich group and the poor remain poor. The world is changing at a fast pace but the poorer nations are often unable to catch up with the changes due to lack of technology and capitals. They are thus forced to remain backwards. As a result, aid from richer nations is essential in bringing the poorer nations out of poverty. Unfortunately, many richer nations refuse to help. Poverty remains also due to high unemployment rate in poorer nations. This problem is compounded by underemployment problem as well as inequality of opportunities in workforce, where only the rich has the reach to better jobs, keeping the poorer bunch remain in poverty.

Richer nations have the technology and capitals to carry out investment projects of large scale and hence, are able to remain rich or become wealthier. However, the poorer groups have little access to technology and capitals. Thus, it is difficult for them to keep up with the progress of the world that they remain in poor state no matter how hard they try. We thus need the richer one to offer some sorts of momentum and activation energy to the poorer one so that they would be able to join the global economic race and leave the cycle of poverty. Foreign aid is a necessity in achieving this. However, many richer nations are not willing to extent their helping hands. In 1961, a commitment was achieved in the rich world to provide aid to the poorest countries equal to 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP). However, by the early 1990s, official development assistance was still around 0.33 per cent, and by 20000s, it declined to around 0.22 per cent. Countries like USA are not keeping to their commitment. USA is a leading power in the world and is supposed to serve as role model for the rest to follow. Sad enough, its contribution is just 0.15 per cent of it GNP, less than one quarter of the global target. Rich nations are unwilling to assist the poorer bunch and allowing them to suffer in their respective stagnant economy.

Another reason why the poor remains poor is that there is a lack of jobs. Unemployment problem is a common sight in poorer nations like Cambodia. The world population is growing, but certainly not the job market, as according to UN, the official unemployment has grown by 26 per cent in the past 10 years. One reason could be the lacking of investment and factories in the nations. In poorer nations, the priority is to feed the people. They are unlikely to have extra capital to investment to create jobs. As a result, they are likely to remain in poverty.

At national level, the inequality of opportunities in workforce keeps the poor in poverty. In nations like China, the richer tends to get richer and the poor tend to get poorer. The rich often have power and affiliation with authorities to exploit the poorer group to benefit them. For instance, the pay for a boy, who transports a wicker basket of raw coal all the way from the mine to the refinery plant, which is often miles away, is merely 1 RMB (S$0.20). Many are under employed because of this inequality that they earn less than they should. In China, the poor university undergraduates are more prone to unemployment than the rich ones, who may be from a less renowned university or have a lower degree.

In my opinion, in order to pull poor nations out of poverty, the richer nations have to keep to their promises and offer assistance in forms of technology and capitals. They can also invest in those poorer countries so as to make it a win-win situation. It helps to create jobs in poorer nations and at same time, create revenue for themselves. Food aid is a necessity for nations that are suffer from famine. By doing so, the nations can focus on economic development instead of worrying about how to feed their people. At the national level, the government should adopt a policy of meritocracy to ensure a level play in the workforce to give the poor equal opportunity in achieving a higher standard of living. Another solution would be to encourage entrepreneurship. By motivating people to be enterprises, together with foreign investment, a vast pool of jobs would be created for the mass.

Education in Asia

Education has always been regarded as a door to success and a higher standard of living. It is highly revered in Asian nations like China and South Korea because there is a traditional belief that only educated people are able to be at a more elevated level of society. Also, due to Asia’s perennial concerns over familial honor and personal face, parents in Asia are doing their utmost to push their children forwards academically. In China, all students have the responsibility to GUANG ZONG YAO ZU (which means bring glory upon their respective family and their ancestors) by none other than making it to a prestigious school and scoring straight “A”s. Nowadays, as people are getting increasingly affluent, parents in Asia are having another powerful reason and means to drive their children—they can afford more enrichment courses. In big cities like Shanghai, it is a norm for parents to arrangement numerous extra-curriculum activities such piano lessons and Chinese literature remedial for their kids. And all these start at a shockingly young age of three, when children are still at a playing age! When accused of being too obsessed with grades and cruel to their children by exploring their leisure time to make accommodation for unreasonably many enrichment courses, many of them protest that it is a social criterion for good parenthood and only the most insouciant parents neglect to sent their children to cram school. They are right in the sense that everybody in society is doing exactly the same thing. According to Time, a renowned magazine, an estimated 90% Singaporean families arrange extra tuition for their children. It has become a duty for parents to drive their children towards a “brighter” future and they risk social disapproval if they do not fill their kids’ every waking hour with study or academic related activities. Sometimes, the population policies of a nation do have an impact on this trend. For example, due to China’s one child policy, families are only allowed to have one kid. As a result, parents are eager to ensure that their only child is well educated and nurtured. All the love and concern, which would have otherwise been divided among several children, is now concentrated on the only child. This explains the extraordinarily acute stress that Chinese students are feeling nowadays.

So, are parents in Asia doing the right thing? It is a controversial issue for discussion. They are doing this all out of a pure and good intension of securing a better life for their children. On the other hand, we are constantly informed of emotionally broken prepubescent and student commit suicide due to ferocious pressure they are imposed on by their parents. In fact, most parents know this, yet the majority of them believe that the goals are worth the risks. In my opinion, parents should not be so concerned about their children’s grade. Students will not be able to grasp knowledge well for they are forced to study for the sake of study. An appropriate amount of pressure can motivate one to excel however, too much of it would likely backfire. Teenagers are likely to experience depression and have high tendency to think pessimistically. Early this month, one student from one of the top Junior College in Singapore committed suicide because he felt that his private part is too small. We all know that this is too ridiculous a reason for one to take his own life. The actual reason behind could likely be the amount of pressure he was facing from his study. Stress compelled him to adopt the negative kind of perception of thinks around him and took drastic actions. This is just a tip of the iceberg. Such kind of tragedies is prevalent in many Asian countries like China and Japan. In China, the suicide rate is the highest during both the period when the third year Senior Middle students are busy preparing for university entrance examination and the period when the results are released. Society should not place too much emphasis on grades. We have to mind the holistic development of a student. Good grade is not necessarily equivalent to the ability to survive in the current globalized world where innovation, creativity and ability to communicate are highly demanded. The stress should be on the need to give children the ability to learn independently, rather than just stuffing them with information. Leisure and work should be in balance; blindly feeding the teenagers may not produce expected results.

It has been said that taken as a whole, the problem with world population usually manifested in the shortage of resources is not due to population growth as such but to the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources. What are your views?


Many not so well-to-do countries often cite inequitable distribution of wealth and resources as a reason to their sluggish, if not backward, development. In my opinion, that is one of the most irresponsible alibis. First of all, what equitable distribution of wealth and resources really mean? Does it mean that if one nation has more trees, it will be in an advantaged state? Or does it mean that all nations should have an equal amount of annual income regardless of their effort in striving for a higher standard of living for their respective people? or does it mean that if I have a bigger population, I will have the right to ask for a bigger piece of land from others? Of course not! It is a fact that certain nation has a greater share of certain kinds of natural resources but it is solely due to their geographical location and nobody can deny this fact and no body has the ability to alter it. So, what is the point of talking about equitable distribution of resources? In this era, population problems across the globe are diverse. In developing nations like India, over-population is a tough issue; in developed nations like France, under-population, being coupled by ageing population, is threatening the nation’s sustainability. Certainly, the former is mainly due to speedy population growth but not inequitable distribution of wealth and resources. As for the latter, it is due to slow population growth mainly because of changes in social values and higher standard of living, nothing to do with distribution of wealth and resources.

The problem with world population is often manifested in the shortage of resources when taken as a whole. Naturally, food and other basic necessities would be demanded in great quantity, if one has a huge population. A large amount of resource would have to be channeled to feed and take care of the population. This is mainly due to population growth. India is a big nation with a big reserviour of natural resources. Yet, it is facing the problem of over-population. It would be unfair to say that India’s population problem is due to inequitable distribution of wealth and resources because its government is not poor, considering the progress in its economic development in recent years. In my view, the government has not reacted prompt enough to curb the high population growth. A bigger population does not entitled one to declare a greater share of the world resources. The government knows the best the amount of resource available in its nation, thus it is the government’s responsibility to ensure a healthy population growth for the country so that it will be able to survive and sustain. If the distribution of resources of wealth and resources is determined by the size of a nation’s population, I believe many nations would come out with absurd and desperate policies to boost their own population in order to have a bigger share of the Earth’s resource. That is unthinkable! Resources would soon be depleted and the problem of population and environment would be greatly aggravated in the end.

In many developing nations, the problem of population is mainly defined by ageing population and under-population. As standard of living increase, people tend to have less children or delay their parenthood because they do not need many children to ensure security during their old age as they are likely to have savings. Due to advancement in medical science, infant motility rate has been lowered, which further reduce the need to have more children to ensure survival. In addition, women in many developed are recognized for their ability to contribute to the nation’s economy. Many of them tend to view career as a priority in life and reluctant to be fettered by house chores, hence, delay their marriage. As the younger population starts to dwindle and people’s life expectancy starts to increase, ageing population is resulted in many developed nations like America. For example, more than 16% of Pittsburgh’s population is above the official retirement age of 65. This problem is due to slow population growth and has nothing to do with inequitable distribution of wealth and resources!

The problem of population in the world today is mainly due to either too high or too slow the rate of population growth. It is not because of inequitable distribution of wealth and resources.

Comment on http://differentpersonalities.blogspot.com , titled “how far an individual should be allowed to exercise his freedom of speech?”

You mentioned that when freedom of speech comes with a heavy price, only larger nations have a choice as to whether to allow this freedom or not because they are able to withstand the economic blow, for example, the Denmark was able to survive happily in the wave of economic sanction and boycott placed on it by Muslim nations. However, we may not know how long this boycott will last. This may pose a threat to a nation’s long-term benefit. Denmark only has the support from its European counterparts; in fact, many nations outside Europe are in disapproval to its act of mocking the leader of the world’s largest religion, for example, Britain and many Asian nations. This kind of freedom of speech is definitely not desirable and the right is not being exercised responsibly and correctly. It also did not benefit the nation or “improve Denmark society”. In fact, it destabilizes the entire global community by giving terrorists a new solid reason to launch more attacks on human civilization. Another example is the stepping down of Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The opposition parties used freedom of speech as a tool to bring out all sorts of so-called corrupt acts that his family members have committed to light. He was then forced to resign. People against him may say isn’t that good that he stepped down because he is so corrupted? However, we must not forget that Thailand’s economic achieve has soared to record high under his power. Removing him may terminate this high economic performance. What people want is a stable life with good income. There is apparently little benefit to be gained by sacking the Prime Minister. Thus, freedom of speech may not bring healthy changes and improvement to a society. I believe that an individual should be allowed to exercise his freedom of speech to a small extent. In the case of whistle blowing, if an individual were enabled to bring down one organization by telling the “the truth”, laws that used to protect whistleblowers may cause system instability. That is the reason why many democratic nations like New Zealand restrict whistle-blowing activities by setting up a system that would ensure that any whistleblower is likely to have just a weak case should he sue for reinstatement and damages. Their aim is to discourage whistleblowers. The benefits of the entire nation are paramount.