Poverty in Latin America

I think this index definitely gives people a better look into an area than GDP per capita. Not only does it take into account the money people make, it also shows us how many murders and thefts they are, are women likely to get hired and things of that nature. It produces a more accurate picture of an area than other statistical information and it's all in one place.

Why Argentina is not here,...simple, because if goverment provides the information, for sure they would be at a level of Singapore or something like that.
Come on!...after see the official data of Inflation, no one in their right mind could trust any official information from Argentina.

¿Why not Argentina? Because Argentina have two problems for this kind of rankings made by this kind of think-tank

Argentina will be at the top of every ranking, made in the way they want.

Argentina do non conventional things in economics matters and was successful, so for some "foundations" it don't like what Argentina made.

The solution? Don't measure the third Latinamerican economy, Something like to make a work about Europe, and remove France.

Many of the economies in central america have some bizarre inconsistencies. We wrote a recent article about it that seems to have touched a major chord with people. http://www.whatsupelsalvador.com/2011/07/employment-in-el-salvador-diffe...

I guess the "Vehicle Theft Rate" graph on page 13 is a bit flawed since it does not take into account the vehicle-per-capita ratio .. needless to say there are way more cars, in a per capita basis, in Chile than in Bolivia .. they should have taken this ratio into account and create a "composite theft rate"
Tomás Greene
Santiago, Chile

@EXPAT in El Salvador

My personal history is not important. I have never posted
anything personal in the Economist Magazine.

As for El Salvador, I have something interesting for you.
(1)Gold has being discovered there and in Guatemala.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/world/americas/26mine.html?pagewanted=all

(2)Peru also is experiencing a gold rush
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/12/amazon-gold-rush-peru-rain-fore...

(3)Brazil had a major gold rush in 1987 in an area called
Serra Pelada (see link for a major eye opener)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=serra+pelada&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw....
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/contributors/299887/60-minute...

(4)Contrast that with Mongolia's more developed world
approach to making things more 'even steven' for the masses.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-21/mineral-rich-people-poor-mongol...

Finally, Expat, since 14 Salvadorean families are known to control the wealth of El Salvador, do you really think the gold rush
will improve the lot of the masses there? or just some of those
14 families and the govt?

A few more questions to you.

Where is the gold from Serra Pelada, Brazil today?

Can you tell me why Brazil per capita income is inferior
to Australia given that both are the leading Iron Ore
exporters in the world, and Brazil is supposedly a much
larger economy (the so called 5th largest in the world).

Something to ponder on....

James: how many months or years have you spent living in Latin America BTW?
And how many different businesses have you started in Latin America?

We are in the process of building two. Hopefully our story will be different.

@Zerge,

Nope. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act in the U.S. busted the monopolies you talked about.

I recommend you look into what I said "Palanca" and "Q.I. " "Nao tem Campo" "No hay plaza"
Mexico and Brazil are too similar in this regard for comfort.

In the U.S., Compaq started in a donut shop, Apple in a garage, Google in a similar way.
How many companies can you name from Mexico or Brazil or Venezuela (who had oil
discoveries in the 30s) started in a similar fashion (modest means)????

In Latin America, one is either kissing the gov't a** or getting kicked by it.

Long live the U.S. and U.K. for the entrepreneurial way.

Because China, the US (www.shadowstats.org) and Europe do not doctor their statistics... The world has become a ridiculous place.

Look at immigration levels and automobile sales and you'll know what the richer countries are...

@ James AntiBr:

My dear sir,you do not seem to be familiar with the story of monopolies in the United States. The United States was highly monopolic through the 19th and most part of the 20th century. Just take AT&T as an example.
I recommend you read "The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires", by Tim Wu.

Latin America would have been a bonanza for developed nations
in terms of products and services if it had a real thriving middle class (US$30,000 GDP per capita).

Unfortunately, countries like Brazil, Mexico, etc. there are lots of petty politics,
lots of red tape and highly collaterized loans that hamper growth from the bottom.
Add to that the connections systems (Palanca in Mexico; Jeitinho/Q.I. in Brazil) and the
unwritten "Nao tem campo" (Brazil) "No hay plaza" which amounts to a "no way Jose" to
new ideas and Apple/HP like startups (from a humble garage to global business) are
some of the things that hamper a true global and two way global trade to take root.

Ideally, It would be great to see lots of Lotus Elises, etc throughout Latin America, and
Europeans wearing say a Latin American fashion statement brand. That would be truly a
global economy.

Unfortunately, the reality is that a few people like Carlos Slim and Eike Batista not only
leverage their government connections, but also hamper competition and entrepreneurship.
If you think both are great, how about letting the U.S. and U.K use a big chunk of their
respective taxpayers money to finance Donald Trump and Sir Richard Branson at the expense
of small entrepreneurs through a national bank like BNDES in Brazil. I seriously doubt that
Americans and Europeans would go for that. The same should have been in Mexico and Brazil.

FOR SURE things like GDP are useless when comparing most of Latin America against say the US or Europe. At elast this index attempts to paint a more complete picture. But still the real truth is that you can live like anywhere and achieve some level of life happiness if you want to. The cost of living in Central America can be very deceptive. Check out this article http://www.whatsupelsalvador.com/2011/06/cost-living-central-america/ its not a spreadsheet diatribe but more of a gut check.

I strongly agree with Ethos Poverty Index. A family in any country is poorer if they can’t use the neighborhood park when it’s contolled by drug pushers, when a single mother can’t get a better job because of her gender, or when a small entrepreneur is harassed and economically drained by corrupt officials.

Money, income and GDP per capita are important components of poverty but also environmental factors determine poverty and represent essential conditions to overcome it.

@jmsaley:

Here you can see updates stats on murder rates per capita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Mexico had 18 murders per 100,000 in 2010 (compared to 25 in Brazil).

What few people know is that Mexico's murder rate was sky high before the 1990s; by some accounts around 100 per 100,000. This was caused by farmers killing each other over land disputes; it didn't make fore headline news. The murder rate steadily went down thanks to law reforms (ejidos), all the way down to 10 in 2006. Then thanks to the war on drugs, it moved up to 18.

I haven’t had a real chance to go over the whole report since yesterday, but my initial observations were: 1) “Why isn’t Argentina here?” and now you’ve answered that (even though I still share the disappointment with bostoniensis) and 2) I was surprised and glad to see Mexico’s position on the Homicide rate per 100,000 table, only to find that the data came from a 2007 report…..things in Mexico have changed a lot since then. What do others think about this?

Understandable but disappointing that Argentina was excluded. A favored pastime of mine is to compare Uruguay, Argentina and Chile.