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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.

The article argues that the Indian government should replace the nation's welfare schemes with a universal basic income (UBI) single payment plan as of 2017, and it mentions how India offers subsidized food, fuel, and electricity to the country's poor residents. The impacts that artificial intelligence and automation are having on employment in places such as India are examined, along with India's economic conditions and the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), and bank accounts.

The article looks at the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2012 decision to uphold the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, focusing on the impact on poor Americans. Topics include the changes to the Medicaid health programme, states' concerns that the law is unfairly coercive, subsidies available from the federal government for the uninsured to buy insurance on newly-created health exchanges.

The author argues that government subsidies and protections for rice farmers in places such as Asia actually cause harm to the poorest people in the world, and it mentions data released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development regarding financial aid for rice and maize (corn) farmers. Tariffs, state monopolies, and the efforts to stimulate domestic production in Asian countries are also examined. Consumers in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines are assessed.

Judged by their rhetoric, rich countries are falling over themselves to help the world's poorest. The current multilateral round of trade negotiations is called the Doha Development Round, because it is meant specifically to help poor countries. France's to-do list includes a moratorium on subsidies on exports to Africa, trade concessions and new efforts to stabilise commodity prices. George Bush, who in 2002 proposed a 50% increase in America's aid budget over three years, this year offered to triple spending to combat AIDS in Africa. Promises aside, which rich countries actually have policies that help the poor? The traditional gauge of a country's commitment to development is foreign aid. Total aid flows rose in 2002, by 4.8% after inflation. America is the biggest donor in absolute terms, but the stingiest relative to the size of its economy, spending only 0.12% of its GDP. A new index drawn up by the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington think-tank, with Foreign Policy magazine, attempts to rank 21 rich countries by averaging their scores in six development-related policies: aid, trade, the environment, migration, investment and peacekeeping. America scores well on trade but badly on everything else, and so is ranked second-bottom, above only Japan.