RICH AWED BY POOR'S ABILITY TO LIVE LIKE THAT -SatireWire

[Tac]

RICH AWED BY POOR'S ABILITY TO LIVE LIKE THAT
"No Way We Could Do It," Say Leaders of Wealthy Nations

Monterrey, Mexico (SatireWire.com) — At a United Nations conference last week to address world poverty, dozens of leaders from the planet's wealthiest nations concluded they were "totally in awe" of the 1.2 billion people who reportedly live on less than $1 a day.

 
   With no medicine, sanitation, or food, the poor do it anyway.  
"Lord knows I couldn't do it," U.S. President George W. Bush told a roundtable of colleagues Friday. "The mortgage on my ranch alone is $5,500 a month."

"I think the hardest part would be keeping it up," added South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. "Every now and then I'd have to sneak out for a nice meal with my wife, or maybe a movie."

But truly poor people, several delegates noted in wonder, never do that.

"How often do you see a really poor person splurge for a steak dinner, or an upgrade to first class on an airliner?" said French President Jacques Chirac. "I tell you, these people are incredible."

Said Bush, after a momentary pause: "I'd like to propose that the world doesn't just have a billion poor people, it's got a billion heroes."

However, some attending the International Conference on Financing for Development respectfully suggested the leaders, while apparently no longer indifferent, were missing the point.

"The poor don't have mortgages. They don't have houses," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "Most days, they don't even have food."

"Oh heavens no, I'd have to eat," replied World Trade Organization chief Michael Moore. "I could maybe skimp on dessert, but that's it."

As the meeting adjourned, a spokesman for the World Development Movement announced that almost half the earth's population — 2.8 billion people — lives on less than $2 a day. The attendees stood in unison to cheer until it was explained to them that these people wanted money.

[easymo]

I read about a study once that claimed that people grew more discontented,ie less happy, as they gained wealth.  The findings were, that everyone thought they would be happier with a 20% increase in income. For the poorer people, this appeared more atainable. So they tended to be more contented.

[Tac]

I love the last sentence of that article

[MrBill]

PERSPECTIVE One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people can be. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?" "It was great, Dad." "Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked. "Oh Yeah" said the son. "So what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father. The son answered, "I saw that we have one dog and they had four." "We have a pool that
reaches to the middle of our garden and they have
a creek that has no end." "We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night." "We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight." "We buy our food, but they grow theirs." "We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them." With this the boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks dad for showing me how poor we are." Too many
times we forget what we have and concentrate on what we don't have. It is all based on one's perspective. Take joy in ALL you have, espcially your friends.

[capt. apathy]

I make roughly 6 times what I made when I first got married.
I'm now just as broke, but on a grander scale.