Better all the time.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: Third-world development - Bill Gates on the improving economies of poor countries - Brief article

"BY ALMOST any measure the world is better than it has ever been," begins Bill Gates' annual letter to his philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Though countries like Syria, Egypt, and most recently Ukraine have struggled with violence and bloodshed, Gates points out that the economic condition of most poor countries across the world has improved significantly since 1960.

Gates notes the rise of several countries into a mid-level area where--while they were not as wealthy as first-world nations-- personal incomes had dramatically increased. "Per-person incomes in Turkey and Chile are where the United States level was in i960," he writes. "Malaysia is nearly there, as is Gabon. And that no-man's-land between rich and poor countries has been filled...