**The Wealth (and Poverty) of Nations **The global economic pie may be expanding, but the poor are getting an even smaller slice NEW YORK: Cheer up, all you Marxists. Communism may have collapsed, but you were right about one thing: The rich are still getting richer and the poor are still getting shortchanged. The United Nations Human Development Report released Wednesday found that while annual worldwide consumption of goods and services has reached a staggering $24 trillion, the rising tide is floating fewer and fewer boats. Fully 86 percent of those goods and services were consumed by the richest 20 percent of the earth's population, leaving the other 80 percent to fight over the rest. Surprisingly, one tenth of the more than 1 billion people living in poverty are found in the world's richest countries; 16.5 percent of Americans, for example, live below the poverty line. "These reports are what the United Nations does best," says TIME correspondent Marguerite Michaels. "They're thorough studies that remind us there's still a lot of work to be done." -- TONY KARON Time Magazine (www.time.com) Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
