Global Poverty Declining?

There is no one definition of poverty. Poverty in the US is defined by the federal government and what you are calling "real" poverty is really defined in economics as "Absolute" poverty. Just because someone doesn't fit the definition of absolute poverty does not mean that they do not live in poverty. In fact the article talks about wages and not accounting for anything like people selling public trash or bottles. It is talking about people who earn less than $2 a day. With minimum wage laws, we cannot earn less than $2 a day without earning nothing and because of these laws, many people who could be paid more than that are kept in poverty earning nothing except what is received from charity.

One fact about the world that is not nearly well-known enough is how much things are improving across most of the developing world, and how fast. China alone has lifted several hundred million people - more than the entire population of the U.S. - out of extreme poverty, and even more into the middle class. India continues to do so as well. Most of the fastest-growing economies in the world are actually in Africa, where living standards are rising rapidly. Permanent, structural improvement does not happen in great leaps. It happens over time, with slow, gradual growth, with hiccups along the way. That's how it happened in every developed country in its own history. That's how it's happening today in countries that are just now developing. And their development is a win-win for them and us. Don't be seduced by the foolish "us or them" economic growth narrative - as India, China and Brazil thrive, their newly open markets provide opportunities for us as well. Good news.

[Economist]

How "The Pirate Bay" Operates

The Pirate Bay doesn't operate by actually hosting the files, yet neither did Napster and look where they ended up. The Pirate Bay was designed for people who actively go looking for free copyrighted material and actively encourages it.The Pirate Bay is a platform for people to search for pirated material. There's a big difference between most torrent sites and TPB: most sites use ad revenue to pay for hardware costs, and have little left over for anything else; TPB is commercial site that uses others IP's for its own profit, and solely for its own profit. It's made a business out of duping people into believing that it agrees with their "cause".

I am not trying to defend the record or production companies. I think their business models are completely useless, they are slow moving and the way they treat their low-profile artists is really bad. However, I do not condone piracy. Although, unless the record and production companies start to pull their weight and work with companies such as Apple who are innovative and who do understand the internet or invest money in creating a service themselves then they are just going to keep shooting themselves in the foot. Piracy will never be dead, but the majority of people will pay for content or accept advertising if it is easy to get to, it is a reasonable price and there is plenty of content without any restrictions so people can move their media around to the devices they choose. DRM is just ridiculous, it's a restricting way to limit use of content and only hurts the people with only good intentions. The people that want to share it for free ARE going to find a way. The war on piracy and thepiratebay will be, in my opinion, an eternal one.

Trade With North Korea. Beneficial?

While many people see North Korea as a horrible country, businesses may not, cost of labor would be cheaper than China and North Korea is supposedly rich in natural resources so mining companies could benefit. From a business point of view North Korea is fantastic, here you have a bunch of citizens who don't have a minimum wage, don't have safety requirements, and have no idea what's going on in the outside world. To a business this means extremely low wages, cheap quality equipment, and no possibility of uprising. While this may sound sadistic, it's unofficially/unfortunate that that is how many companies think. So my opinion is yes, Trade with North Korea would be beneficial

Trade inevitably opens lines of communication between cultures. History shows many examples. At one time we had isolated ourselves from all of Eastern Europe and China. Once we began to interact commercially, slowly our peoples began to become less fearful of one another and the changes that occurred you can see today. I don't see anything positive in isolating North Korea. Their starving people are unwilling or unable to overthrow their government. Letting them see how the rest of the world lives will bring the changes we seek. Cuba is another example of how economic isolation accomplished nothing of value. You'd think we'd learn but here we go again with Iran.

igolder.com

Quote Taken from "Not A Zero Some Game" by Manuel F. Ayau
"...comparative advantage is fundamental to any human economy-not just to market economies or only to international trade, but to human society itself."(15)