A few statistics

Trying to find statistics on it was like trying to tear teeth out of a polar bear on steroids, I have found serious inconsistencies in many places that I have not been able to figure out yet, but the total GDP of all the countries in the world is about 61 trillion dollars, one good sources said that people in the world spend 500 billion dollars per year on entertainment, and people in the world spend about 230 billion dollars per year on tobacco. 76.6% of the goods produced in the world are consumed by 20% of the world's population, 21.9% by 60%, and 1.5% by 20% (http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism). People from the U.S. spend $71 billion on bakery items, $382 billion on alcohol, $50 billion on pets, and $143 billion on entertainment every year. 'Developed' countries spend about .5 to 4 percent of their GDP on alcohol, so total spending worldwide is probably very roughly about 1 trillion. If you consider that a person, depending on their lifestyle, only needs 1 to 3 sets of clothes, and that people in China spend the equivalent of at lest 650 billion U.S. dollars on luxury clothes and people in the U.S. spend approximately 320 billion, replacing those with regular items, reducing the amount, and considering the number of countries in the world, again very roughly about another 1 trillion dollars are spent on unneeded clothing every year. While there are other issues related to it, people spend, and this is more accurate, 1.4 trillion dollars on marijuana every year.

1 million people die as a direct result of war every year. $1.2 trillion is spent on military budgets every year (Global Issues)

One estimate says that world hunger could be ended with $200 billion dollars per year (37 million people die of hunger every year and 1 billion are undernourished) (the World Food Programme). The world currently produces enough food to feed a quarter to twice again every person in the world, according to two reports (one from the U.N.). Only 2-3% of arable land in Africa, where about a third of the world's hungry people live, is under irrigation; with irrigation productivity has been found to increase 6-10 fold (findings from Kickstart).

67 million people die every year from vaccine preventable diseases, and many more become ill (I think the U.N.). $145 million could vaccinate children in at least 96 countries (http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/25/2/348)

1.2 billion people do not have access to clean water, and 3.5 million people die from unclean water every year.

1.6 billion people in the world do not have direct electricity.

This site has more great statistics and points: http://www.globalissues.org/


I am not suggesting extreme asceticism: human beings need to retain the capacity for celebration and bringing delight to each other. But excess is not appropriate. This boy's mother died from dehydration and starvation: