the highest levels ever reached. This decline has not been just a recent phenomenon. Sadly, almost twenty countries reached their maximum per capita income in 1960 or before, and fifty more reached theirs in the 1960s and 1970s. By 2006, the world found itself in the sad situation in which its twenty richest countries had per capita incomes of more than US$30,000, while the sixty poorest countries had per capita incomes o less than $3,000 per year. Another way of looking at the problem is that the assets of the three wealthiest people in the world total about the same as the total GDP of the poorest forty-seven nations. e same time that many countries have become poorer, there have been a smaller number of economic winners, some of whom have enjoyed remarkable success. While the traditional "fat cat" countries of the Old Core have maintained their economic growth, they have been joined by many hundreds of millions of people who live in New Core countries. The most notable of these New Core countries are China and India, whose economies have been growing at enormously fast rates. In each of these countries, hundreds of millions of people have benefited from rising standards of living, although even more people remain dreadfully poor. Supporters of globalization have used a metaphor to explain how it should work: They say that "a rising tide lifts all boats." Critics of globalization would change the metaphor to "a rising tide drowns those who do not own boats." Some observers say that what seems to have happened is not that poorer countries are being harmed by globalization, but rather, they are being ignored. Extreme Poverty in the World Hundreds of millions of people live on a few dollars or less per day. The United Nations calls this situation extreme poverty. Compare this amount to how much you spend to go to a movie or buy a new pair of jeans. More than 900 million people have to survive for a day on less than what you might spend for popcorn at a movie theater Causes of Economic Disparity The causes of the world's economic disparity are complex. As you look at the reasons that follow, remember that economic disparity between countries is often a product of poor or unfair political and economic decisions in the past, rather than a result of fundamental differences in the richness of the resource base of different countries. The obvious solution for the future would be to make better decisions.