Friday, September 28, 2007

Modern Day Homesteading and Economic Development

I came across a blog about a modern day homesteader, she and her family live off of $6000 a year. This translates to about $5.50 a day per person. In East Asia and the Pacific 50% of people live on less than $2 a day, 85% in Southeast Asia 23% in Northern Africa, 75% in Subsaran Africa, 20% in Latin America (more information). It is worth noting this $2 a day is adjusted for differences in prices in each of these countries.

I’m not criticizing the modern homesteader, it is just worth realizing that a large part of the world lives within these economic means.


Next week I will do an analysis of retirement savings for people in their mid 20s, based of of a recent NBER paper.

2 comments:

poet~lover~rebel~spy said...

Here's the real question Seth: what would all the people living on $2/day accomplish with triple their present income? Would they do better or worse than the American homesteaders?

Anonymous said...

Well. The quote of "not criticizing the modern homesteader" is rather strange. Criticize for what?

Truth is - the deception and misconceptions about Money as the subject matter are prevailing today in people's minds. It seems to me that majority of folks in good ol' USA are knocked off quite well with all the flouride in their water, toxic chemicals in their food including GMOs and constant propaganda bombardement from US media by Murdock. And drugs precribed by their doctors on top of it.

Why is it that in Russia 70% of population live in cities, but have a very reasonable access to their "dachas" on weekends via public transportation to grow their own vegetables? This type of modern homesteading has been in place for quite sometime and works perfectly. That is why Americans get shocked to learn about 40-dollars pension in Russia. 1.3 dollars a day. Because they do not NEED more. They have ENOUGH.

American Dream - is "NEVER enough."