Can there be a global solution?

"Today, 193 million people are out of work and 1.4 billion more are in vulnerable employment," wrote W Byanyima. "Around 300 million workers globally live in extreme poverty, including 40% of all workers in developing countries. Last year billionaire fortunes increased by $2.5 billion a day while the bottom half of humanity -- 3.8 billion people -- got poorer, by $500 million a day." Women suffer more because of unpaid household work. "Governments can change this by providing universal public services such as health, education and water, child support and child care." How to pay for all that? By taxing the rich, who are avoiding taxes, and giving rights and a living wage to workers. Trouble is, there are nations with very low rates of tax so large corporations can easily avoid taxes by registering their headquarters in those countries. The Finance Minister of Ireland defended his country's corporate tax rate of 12.5%, when the rate in Belgium is 33.9%, in Austria 25% and in Greece it is 29%. It may seem like "stealing" but if Ireland can provide the same social services with a low tax rate then it means it has good governance which other countries should emulate, rather than complain about it. The European Union publishes a list of countries that encourage tax avoidance, but do not include European nations, like Luxembourg or Malta. A massive debate exploded when billionaire Bill Gates tweeted a chart showing that extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day, has fallen from 94.4% in 1820 to 9.6% by 2015. Bill Gates also advocates higher taxes on the rich but is it definite that politicians will use the extra money for poverty alleviation? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had arranged a nice little junket to Belgium, Egypt and Afghanistan even while 800,000 people did not receive their paychecks because of a partial government shutdown. If workers become too expensive companies may choose to spend money on automation, thus making humans redundant. Most of the growth today is in e-commerce which has created a large gig economy, with lots of jobs but with no job security or social safety nets. High taxes on the rich may stop innovation and future job creation. The fourth industrial revolution is changing the global economy faster than at any time in history. As people get left behind it is up to governments to create conditions for an increase in good jobs. One way is to re-skill workers regularly so that they can keep up with technological change and the other is to give tax incentives to companies to employ more labor rather than spending on automation, wrote Prof D Rodrik. Everyone agrees that poverty is unacceptable, but politicians are responsible for their own citizens. There is no global solution. The world is too large.