“The average salary in Russia is based on the premise that one person earns RUB 2 million while the other 99 earn RUB 8000 per month. So taken together they earn RUB 27,000 on average. Simply put, Petya has 10 apples and Vasya has no apples. So on the average, […]

Far beyond the aggregated numbers of an urban economy lies a silent and untraceable population working everyday to sustain entire families, doing whatever is humanly possible to get out of poverty. From the woman picking up garbage to housemaids, prostitutes, newspaper sellers, housewives and “viene vienes” (those who illegally rent […]

Seven years ago, I had a conversation with some colleagues in the Gaza Strip. As I recall, the conversation ended in an argument about marriage, specifically, early marriage and the type of girl that each one wanted to marry. Most of them wanted to marry a girl who worked for […]

In economics there’s a saying that a rising tide lifts all boats. However, this old adage, which implies that a flourishing economy financially benefits all  participants, does not necessarily hold true for Indigenous communities in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.   For the past four decades, Australia has experienced […]

During my visit to the Philippines in early August, I noticed very many differences between the lives of the poor in Asia, the Caribbean and Europe. Growing up, I had always found it very difficult to understand the widely different lives people led. Of course, as you grow older you […]