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The article discusses the Asian rice industry in relation to the author's claim that governments in places such as Indonesia cause their own citizens to become poorer by interfering in the rice market as of 2015. According to the article, the wholesale cost of rice is higher in Indonesia than Cambodia due to Indonesia's role as a net importer of rice and Cambodia's ability to grow more rice than the nation needs. Transportation costs, import subsidies, and tariffs are also examined.

Liberalism has brought sharp reductions in both poverty and international inequality. The past half-century can be seen as a long exploration of the power of liberal trade to raise living standards, not only in the rich world but among the poor too. The story begins with the growth that took place in western Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan once the two great scourges of economic activity--war and trade restrictions--were removed after 1945. The rest of the world--communist, socialist, or just plain poor--also grew, but more slowly: at 2.2% a year on average, or a threefold rise in income per head. Thus the gap between "the West and the rest", as Angus Maddison, an economic historian, described it in an OECD report in 2002 from which these figures are taken, has been widening. Though it does little to promote democracy, China is proving a spur to economic liberalization in other developing countries: fear that its growth will steal their markets or investment is prompting others to copy its reforms and to adopt international trade rules by joining the World Trade Organization.

The article discusses the efforts to eradicate poverty in the U.S. in relation to the costs that low-income Americans incur while conducting financial transactions with banking and non-bank financial services facilities. According to the article, there is a discrepancy between the costs of money orders issued by banks and U.S. post offices. Bank fees and the process of cashing a pay cheque at a credit union are examined, along with pre-paid debit card and credit card costs.

The article discusses the link between unhealthy eating and low income in the U.S. Topics include the problem of food deserts or areas without grocery stores, the impact of income inequality on public health patterns, and the influence of time constraints on the eating habits of poor people. The costs of health problems related to obesity are noted.

The article focuses on the calls for post office banking in the U.S. in 2014, which describes the offering of financial services to consumers by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Topics include how post office banking could offset revenue losses caused by the widespread use of electronic mail (e-mail), the number of Americans that are underbanked in 2014, meaning that they lack a bank account, and how post office banking could increase financial services for low-income or distressed Americans.

The article discusses the economic success for the black people in the U.S. It highlights the increase number of student protests due to the poor handling of racist incidents and racial tensions between the blacks and the whites. It also examines the influence of discrimination to the educational failure of blacks that could reflect to drop out of the black students from poor families.

The article focuses on U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign aid program known as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). George W. Bush's flagship foreign-aid programme is under fire. Since 2002, when the president promised to set it up, the Millennium Challenge Corporation has found only four relatively small poor countries to give money to. Last week, the MCC's chief executive, Paul Applegarth, announced that he was quitting. The MCC is unloved by both left and right. A Republican-led House of Representatives sub-committee has just recommended nearly halving its budget, to $1.75 billion next year. American liberals suspect it is part of Bush's conspiracy to conservatise the world. And Europeans mock the MCC as slower, meaner and more ideological than their own aid programmes.

The article discusses the potential impact of "commitment-savings accounts" (CSAs) on the economic conditions of poor people in developing nations such as Uganda and Malawi, focusing on a lack of demand for CSAs in Kenya, and information about punitive fees and investments in livestock.

The article discusses a report on the relation between poverty and the rule of law. The article describes how a United Nations (UN) report claims that legal empowerment can help fight poverty. Details are provided regarding the role property rights, legal accessibility, labour rights, and business rights in the elimination of poverty.

The article discusses an announcement by the World Bank that 986 million people lived on the equivalent of less than one dollar per day in 2004. The number living at this poverty level is below one billion for the first time. Researchers have determined that the poor do have consumer choices, and could spend more on food if they did not devote so much income to alcohol, tobacco, and entertainments.

This article discusses the plight of some of Indonesia's poorest people. The article suggests that the number of poor people in Indonesia has reportedly increased from previous years. The Urban Poor Consortium believes that the number of people falling into poverty in Jakarta, Indonesia, has risen by almost twice as much as reported in government statements. A report on the subject, being prepared by the World Bank, argues that artificially high rice prices are much more to blame than the effects of the fuel price increase.

The article reports that disgruntled people in Hong Kong have taken to throwing trash out their windows to relieve their emotions. A number of people have been taken to emergency rooms with scissors lodged in their skulls. Everything from cigarette butts to matresses have been seen flying from the windows of housing estates. The windows themselves are also falling, as the post-SARS economic recovery has failed to improve the lot of the poor.

The article focuses on the growth of homelessness in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most Vancouverites love it when, as frequently happens, their city gets rated as one of the nicest places in the world in which to live. But to its poorer residents such seals of approval can seem like a sick joke. The Downtown Eastside, a scene of battered and boarded-up buildings, is the most concentrated pocket of poverty and crime in Canada. Vancouver's homelessness rate, though lower per person than in some of British Columbia's other cities, has doubled in the past three years: in summer up to 1,800 people are sleeping rough or in shelters, according to a plan presented by the city council's homelessness coordinator. Most critics blame British Columbia's Liberal government for social-service cuts in its three-year drive to eliminate its deficit.