If there is a superhighway up and down the East coast of the United States, people in India don't benefit from it. Does that make it less of a "superhighway"?

If there is a village-like effect produced by the internet that encompasses all corners of the globe... would it make you feel better if they called it an 'international village' effect?

It'd be nice to get more financially unfortunate people dialed-in. I can agree with you there. That point seems to be masked under what I have to see as an argument of semantics.

A great many of those people need food not computers.

So true, but if some of the political tyrants and immensely wealthy were to more evenly distribute resources, then perhaps they could have access to both, as well as clothing, clean water, elecricity and housing.

It's not that the World doesn't have enough resources, it's because their availability and access lie in the hands of a very few, while the majority do without. And let's not have that argument that we need the rich to support industry and etc. There are millionaires and billionaires with huge financial assets just sitting in bank accounts doing nothing, except generating interest and income for the banks. And how often do we hear about some super rich person dying and leaving their entire fortune to a pet or a dogs home...just for some greed ridden executor to pocket a large portion of the funds to enjoy the high life while millions are starving.

Generating profit to sustain industry and employment is one thing, but generating profit at exorbitant prices to become and remain super rich is pure greed, which to me is obnoxious and repulsive. How about some of these filthy rich bastards use some of their wealth to aid in the clearing of land mines that kill and main men, women and children.....to put food in the mouth of millions of starving people....to help provide clean drinking water, electricity and housing to those who live in refugee camps devoid of everything we of the 'so-called' civilised world take for granted.

But in getting back to the original question, yes, there is a global village, super info highway....just ask a few of the aforementioned scrooges as to why its not available to more people, especially those in poorer nations.

In a nutshell. it's because the rich keep getting richer while the poor keeep getting poorer....and quite often, those who are willing to lend a hand simply don't have the resources behind them to be truly effective.

If that has continued to happen since the invention of that phrase, wouldn't the poor have nothing by now? Or did *those* poor die off, generating a new class of poor (the ones who had enough to live on)?

Yes, we could play with words/semantics, even pretend the poor don't exist, but the fact remains that the gap between the World's wealthy and those much less well off is getting bigger all the time....hence the saying.

When the quality of life is not just measured by luxuries and how much cash one has, but also by access to amenities such a clean drinking water, electricity, housing and three square meals per day, then annually there's a growing number of people worldwide who are living well below the poverty line....and strangely enough, that growing number doesn't all reside in the 'third world'.

There's a number of purportedly wealthy nations in the 'so called' Western world with disproprtionate numbers of citizens living well below gov't indexed poverty lines....yeah, there's those who can afford a roof over their heads, but then have to scavenge in dumpsters to eat....or there's those families who have food and rooves over their heads, but that roof has no furniture under it and is housing a family of six in the two rooms, with a communal bathroom down the hallway.

Then of course there's the growing number of homeless persons in these purportedly civilized areas of the Western world...those with nothing and have become so run down, disheveled looking they are unemployable and thus unable to extricate themselves from their impoverished conditions. However, the media relishes in reporting on the wealthy and high profile stars and celebrities, not the street dwellers...thus the plight of the impoverished is swept under the carpet and those living in their homely comfort zones are largely ignorant of its extent, or they just don't want to know so keep their head firmly entrenched so far up their arse so they don't have to see it.

No, I'm not that poor myself (not wealthy, either), but I've lived in Australian cities where I've seen people who'd have been a darned sight better off in a 'third world nation where missionaries and aid workers are providing some support....simply because, in the big cities, they're just an ugly blemish on the fabric of society and everybody steers clear of them, totally disinterested in their circumstances or how they may help in some small way.

Geldoff's 'Feed the World' campaign was a wonderous effort because several nations combined to help end famine and starvation in Africa (let's just hope those needy persons actually received the contributions), but, and it's a big but, there has never been such a concerted effort to assist the equally needy in our own societies.

And something I noticed when volunteer collecting for 'Feed the World", couldn't help but notice when so many of the affluent doors got slammed in my face, that it was those with the least to give who gave the most. In fact, the wealthier people were not only tight fisted, they were quite often arrogant and rude about it when saying no and telling me/us to piss off. My wife (of the time) and I put $25 in the collection tin, which amounted to $21.50 more than we collected from all of the affluent doors we knocked on....another reason I dislike wealthy selfish bastards who reside in luxurious mansions and continue to get wealthier while so many impoverished children are dying of starvation through no fault of their own.

So yeah, given the increasing number living well below the poverty line, the fact that the gap between them and the wealthy is also ever widening, the rich are most definitely getting richer....the poorest of people are just growing in numbers.