Negative Effects Of Homeless On Wall Street

Homeless on Wall Street: Negative Impact of Economic Growth on Poverty

Last November, when I finally managed to squeeze one day from my compacted conference schedule for a tour in New York City, I decided to go to Wall Street first, simply to feel the embrace of finance, which is arguably the most powerful force in the modern world. However, the towering headquarters of financial corporations and the Wall Streeters with suits and briefcases could not keep me from noticing some homeless people lying by the stairs or sitting at the street corners, with only thin clothes on them in the cold late autumn weather. Why are many people still suffering from poverty despite rapid growing finance and global economic expansion? Although rapid growth of global economics may provide us more resources and opportunities in battling poverty, economic expansion does not warrant effective solutions to the

Strong economic growth often lead to expeditious wage rising and aggregate supply-needs imbalance, which in turn reduce the purchasing power of currency and cause poverty. Take the country of Pakistan as an example, in the 1960s, Pakistan maintained rapid GDP growth rate at above 5% for almost a decade; however, a nearly 30% inflation rate almost destructed the currency (Mubarik 37). Consequently, the massive currency turbulence generated strong negative impact on the effort of poverty reducing, and “inflation… [has] caused poverty in Pakistan” (Chani et al. 1061). Therefore, tightly monitoring inflation and currency stability would be extremely important in developing countries that have fragile financial systems. In development countries, although governments control inflation at low rates, the purchasing power of some currencies is still reducing nowadays due to the even lower rate of incoming increase, leading to the circumstance that numerous citizens are still struggling for their lives under the poverty