Newsblaze.com recently published an article that says child hunger costs Central America billions of dollars annually. I include an excerpt:
Child undernutrition cost the economies of Central America and the Dominican Republic almost $7 billion – or 6.4 per cent of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) – in 2004, according to a new joint study by two United Nations agencies today.
“This study is a wake up call to the international community that widespread child hunger is not only a moral and humanitarian issue, but it has economic consequences as well,” WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said. “Clearly, we will not be able to eradicate poverty in the region or in the world for that matter, until we take effective steps to tackle hunger and malnutrition.”
Of course, hunger hurts the economy everywhere. With child hunger costing us all (the people of the world) so much, why do we fail to invest more into fighting it. It would cost less to just end hunger than accept the billions of dollars it costs. Just in Central America, child hunger has caused losses of $7 billion a year. We could end hunger worldwide for less than $6 billion more a year.
It seems that the people in power want world hunger to remain. Perhaps, they need hunger to scare the working-class into obedience. Perhaps the people in power realize that the working-class might stop letting the upper-class rob them, if only the working-class people didn’t fear going hungry. Due to their fear over hunger and poverty, the working-class obediently go to their jobs, even though they get underpaid and overworked.
The powers that be do a good job scaring the working-class. For example, in any given 10-year-period, 40% of United States citizens fall into poverty.