In 88 poor countries for which we have data, in each and every one of the 88, the PPP for food shows that poor people can buy less food than you would expect from the PPP that the World Bank is using. The reason for this is obvious on reflection. It has to do with the fact that most foodstuffs are tradable commodities: basic foodstuffs, such as rice, flour and beans, can easily be conveyed across national borders and their prices will therefore roughly mirror the exchange rates among currencies.

The World Bank is the monopoly provider of poverty data and, partly due to a leadership change there, the World Bank's reporting has been heavily on the rosy side since about 2000. The Bank's cultivation of an upbeat picture affords a very interesting lesson in statistics and how you can, depending on which numbers you present and how you present them, create a more positive or more negative impression of the evolution of poverty.

Economists operate with this image of the homo economicus, the rational economic agent, and while such agents are rare in the wider world, they are common in economics departments. Exemplifying the homo economicus paradigm, economists typically choose their research projects and hypotheses so as to promote their own careers, to maximize their lifetime income. This explains the astonishing pressures toward conformity in academic economics: how deviant views (except those by a few who have already achieved stardom) get crushed by an army of conformists.

In 88 poor countries for which we have data, in each and every one of the 88, the PPP for food shows that poor people can buy less food than you would expect from the PPP that the World Bank is using. The reason for this is obvious on reflection. It has to do with the fact that most foodstuffs are tradable commodities: basic foodstuffs, such as rice, flour and beans, can easily be conveyed across national borders and their prices will therefore roughly mirror the exchange rates among currencies.

Countries compete in offering easy working conditions to their banks. In many jurisdictions, you can deposit money anonymously with no questions asked, even if the accepting bank knows that it derives from criminal activities.

Our Supreme Court has lifted the practice of buying legislation to the level of a constitutional principle by repeatedly protecting corporate spending for and against political candidates, as well as promises and threats of such spending to bribe and blackmail such candidates, by appeal to the free-speech clause of the First Amendment.

I think that many citizens understand how our system works, or rather, fails to work, for structural reasons. But who has the capacity and the incentives to bring change? The banks and other corporations love the system because it allows them to buy legislation that serves their own interests even at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. Incumbent politicians love the system because it allows them to raise millions of dollars toward defending their seats.