Quoting Geoff Teale <tealeg@member.fsf.org>:

> What those publications never tell
> you is that these people live in those conditions _because_ we live in a land
> of great wealth.  I'll repeat that.  The majority of people on this planet
> live in poverty BECAUSE we in the minority live in comfort and wealth. For
> the average joe on this list we're talking about 20-30 people living in
> poverty, but if you're Bill Gates or Larry Ellison we're talking about
> millions of people living in poverty directly because they have gained great
> wealth.  

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? Specifically, do you have 
comparisons of the average incomes (in terms of calories, water content etc) of 
third world countries PRIOR to the 19th Century?

> The value of money is linked to the value of the raw produce of a
> country.   

... erm, except it isn't. It's linked to the TOTAL produce of a country.

> The net value of any sum of currency is in proportion to the total
> amount of that currency in circulation and the GDP and balance of trading of
> the country in question - thus there is finite value in the world.  

Finite yes, constant no.

> Britain
> produces next to nothing these days, most third world countries produce
> massive amounts of food and raw materials, so how come we are wealthy and
> they are not?  

Really? Britain produces nothing? I'm fascinated to learn that... certainly it 
flies in the face of the World Trade Organisation's figures... ah, but you only 
seem to think that raw materials count.

Britain sustains its economic position by ADDING value. 

... The value of 500kilos of raw iron ore is low. The value of an assembled 
Jaguar is much higher. 

... The value of 100grammes of sand, and a pinch of gallium is a few dollars. 
The value of a PentiumIII processor is higher (no heckling, substitue SPARC or 
PowerPC if you will.) 

The thing that changes this value is the effort of development, and 
engineering. British, or more recently British-trained engineers are involved 
in everything from the Hong Kong airport to village-scale water purification 
schemes in Africa.

Regards,

Mark