It is heartening to learn that Asia’s middle class is growing by leaps and bounds and that their numbers have now reached 274 million in India and a whopping 817 million in China (Study unveils Asia’s booming middle class, Bangkok Post, August 21, 2010). It is sobering to learn, however, that to get these rosy numbers it was necessary to count people consuming at least $2 per day as middle class. This consumption rate is just a dollar per day above the usual definition of extreme poverty. The falling dollar may also have contributed to the rise of the middle class in Asia by allowing many millions to be re-classified by virtue of nothing more than a change in the exchange rate. Thank God for statistics.

Cha-am Jamal

Thailand