Talk:Human Poverty Index

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Contents 1 World 2 HPI 3 Human Poverty Index and India 4 Misleading Information

[edit] World

A map showing world HOPI would be great... But I doubt there is... nonetheless... It can be calculated... Can't it?

[edit] HPI

are there two human poverty indexes? one for developed countries (the one refered to here) and one for lesser developed countries? http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/indicator/indic_16_2_2.html

This page says that the last Human Development Report came out in 2003 and shows HPI data for 2003. Isn't the HDR published annually, meaning the last report came out in 2005? Shouldn't this page be updated?

As of the time I'm writing this, the last report came out in 2006, and this page is still showing the 2003 data; so yes, this article really needs to be updated.

There, I've updated the page so it now shows the most recent data.

[edit] Human Poverty Index and India

One fifth of world population is in India. Many foreign Agents give gloomy pictures of India on various articles in Wikipedia and other encyclopedia. Is there any information for Human Poverty Index and India?

vkvora 04:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The table on the article needs to be fixed. Sweden is not under the country tab.

[edit] Misleading Information

re: this sentence in the article: "USA has one of the lowest scores for long-term unemployment, and they also lead the world in private ownership of homes and automobiles."

Use of the term "ownership" of homes in America is highly misleading. In fact, the overwhelming majority of "home owners" do not own their homes; they were merely making monthly payments on them.

That's a pretty universal definition of home ownership. What's the big deal?

The deal is that the wording implies those people "own" their homes, when in fact, they don't. Having a mortgage is no different from selling something to a pawn broker, except that the conditions are usually slightly different (with a pawn broker you usually have to buy the goods back within a certain period by paying more money than you received in return for the goods, with a mortgage you pay regular fees and the goods remain in your "posession" as long as you pay the fees).

That banks and other businesses making money through mortgages have introduced a different colloquial definition for "home ownership" doesn't mean "private ownership of homes" isn't ambiguous. Legally, the wording "private ownership" is plainly wrong: the majority of such homes are owned by banks and similar institutions. I think what the sentence attempts to explain is that in the US most homes are not rented, but sold to their respective "home owners" (who may lose legal ownership via mortgages). This means there are, relatively, less people living in rented homes, or more likely: apartment buildings.

I think that this is a pretty pointless observation as the amount of single-family houses in a country depends highly on the population density, and the US is only rivaled in lack of population density by the North Pole (I'm exaggerating, of course).

Also, the sentence is absolutely misleading in terms of POV. Of the countries listed, it has the highest HPI, the highest probability of not surviving to age 60, the third-highest rate of illiteracy and the highest percentage of population below 50% of meridian income. That's BAD. The sentence makes it sound as if the lack of long-term unemployment would be some kind of saving grace.

The lack of long-term unemployment is economically admirable, but does not seem to prevent any of the other problems. What's the point of having nigh-zero ltu if a whopping 17% makes sub-50% of the median income (that doesn't simply mean "less than average", it means "less than half the average" -- well, median, not average, but the point is the same)?

The fact it has the highest amount of people living in single-family homes and using cars (both of which they may legally own or not) may contrast this, but the phrase "lead the world" certainly doesn't apply here. That's like saying California leads the world in transexual film makers above the age of 50. It's interesting, it may make sense, but it's certainly not particularily noteworthy (especially if you consider the circumstances: it's nigh-impossible to live in the American suburbia without having access to at least one car per family).

If you don't believe me, consider the possibility of a correlation between the need to have motorised transport (lack of availability of public transport, low population density, concentration of retail stores and services in (urban) centers), the availability of motorised transport ("cheap" loans, wide-spread acceptance of credit cards, etc) and the number of people who will actually have a car under such circumstances. Same with homes (easily available mortgages, easily available homes and real estate). — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 18:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me to be an attempt to paint the US in a bad light, the HDI having failed in this respect. To claim that it's a "gold standard" is laughable to say the least.--Rotten 18:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, that's exactly why they do it. They made up the entire standard to make the US look bad. That's what the UN is all about after all, making the US look bad. Incidentally, this page should be updated with the information from the latest report (2006) [1]. If you'll read the report it says right there that the HPI-2 index is more suited for comparing highly developped countries[2]. Page 19, under 'HDI for high human development countries'. Berry2K 10:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)