Duncan Green puts the American bailout in international perspective:
To put the proposed Wall Street bailout into perspective. $700bn:
- Would clear the accumulated debt of the 49 poorest countries in the world ($375bn) twice over
- Is almost 5 times the annual amount of extra aid needed to achieve all the Millennium Development Goals on poverty, health, education etc ($150bn a year)
- Is about 7 years of current global aid levels ($104bn in 2007)
- Is enough to eradicate all world poverty for over two years (UNDP calculates it would take $300bn to get the entire world population over the $1 a day poverty line).
On the other hand it's
- only a quarter of the cost of the Iraq war ($3 trillion on Joseph Stiglitz' calculation )
- a half of annual global military spending ($1339 bn)
Those at the World Bank's AfricaCan blog are also speculating on the impact of the crisis on Africa. To this I would add that the current crisis has put China in a rather advantageous position vis-a-vis its African 'friends' - at least for now.