- Each day an estimated 2 billion people worldwide (1/3 of the planet's current 6 billion inhabitants) live in absolute abject poverty.
- 1.3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$1/day.
- 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
- to satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
- the assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
-the top 400 billionaires now enjoy a combined net worth equal to the poorest 2.5 billion people on the planet.
- the seven largest economies of the world- the US, Germany, Japan, Canada, France, Italy and the UK- which make up less than 12 percent of the world's population, consume 43% of the world's fossil fuels and 64% of the world's paper.
- The United States, the largest economy in the world, with less than 5% of the world's population, consumes nearly 1/4th of all fossil fuels, more than 1/3rd of all paper, while creating 50% of the world's solid waste.
- Americans spend US$8 billion a year on cosmetics- US$2 billion more than the estimated annual total needed to provide basic education to everyone in the world.
- Europeans spend US$11 billion a year on ice cream- US$2 billion more than the estimated annual total needed to provide clean water and safe sewers to the world's entire population.
- 1.5 billion people worldwide DO NOT have access to clean drinking water.
- 20 percent of people living in high-income countries consume 86% of all the world's good's and services. The poorest 20%, by contrast, consume just 1.3 percent.
- the world's 225 richest induviduals have a combined wealth of over US$1 trillion- equal to the annual income of the poorest 50% of the entire population of the planet.
- 59% of people living in poverty worldwide are women.
- debt relief for the poorest 20 countries would cost only US$5.5 billion- the cost of building one Disneyland/Paris.
- the world's forests are being cut down at the rate of 56 million acres a year. Desertification threatens 8 billion acres of land worldwide. All the world's 17 major fisheries are in decline and stand a decade away from total exaustion. 26 million tons of topsoil are lost to erosion and pollution every year worldwide.
- the world economy has grown by more than 5 times in the last 50 years.
- the US, the wealthiest nation on earth, now has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
- the battle against poverty is being lost: the gap between the poorest 1/5th of the world's people and the richest 1/5th has nearly tripled in this century alone.
- the world's seven richest men could wipe out poverty. Their combined wealth is more than enough to provide the basic needs of the poorest quarter of the world's population.
- the world population's basic need for food, drinking water, education and medical care could be covered by a levy of less than 4% of the accumulated wealth of the 225 richest induviduals.
- more than 80 countries have per capita incomes lower than they were a decade ago.
- 3 out of 4 people in the poorest countries on earth are NOT expected to reach their 50th birthday.
- 40% of the Russian population now lives in poverty.
- the world's richest nation's are home to more than 100 million people who live below the poverty line.
- 2 billion people worldwide have NO access to electrical power.
- the asset's controlled by the 200 wealthiest induviduals are greater than the GDP of the entire continent of Africa- home of 600 million people.
- In 1976, the wealthiest 1% of americans owned 19% of all private material wealth in the US. Today, they own over 40% of all wealth. Their share now exceeds the wealth owned by the bottom 92% of the US population.
- Since 1979 the income of the richest 10% has continually risen worldwide, while that of the poorest 10% has steadily fallen.
