Orders of magnitude

Every once in a while, statistics help put things in perspective. Most people have heard that more than one billion people live on a dollar a day. To me, that’s not that useful because I rarely calculate how much my daily life costs. When discussing our finances, we usually speak in terms of how much we earn.

The other night, a friend and I were having sushi (I know – ridiculous), and we were discussing the ongoing efforts to reform Liberia’s civil service.

“How much do government employees make here?” I asked.

“I think about $50, or maybe $80,” he said.

That’s pretty good, I thought. Here, most of the expat consultants charge $200-$400 a day, so while $50 is relatively low, the cost of living here is also much cheaper than it is at home…

“Per month.”

“Oh.”

I felt a bit sick, thinking about the number of times I’ve spent more on a single dinner than a Liberian civil servant makes in a month. A month.

Given those statistics, is it really surprising that so many of them rush home to run other businesses?