John Le Carré was right, several years ago, to call this "planned penury".
Across the road, in an abandoned house that has been turned into a community centre, a group of women bake bread, while others make children's clothes from old jeans.Such is the penury to which this once-grand city, known as the "Chicago of Argentina", has been reduced.
There is one grand exception to this rule of penury.
Pakistanis – in other words, most of the 150 million men and women who live in penury in this nuclear state – simply no longer believe in the authorities who claim to govern them.
(In a recession, if everyone's income is declining, the official poverty rate could be stagnant or even falling, even though in practice many more people are being thrown into penury).But this is a kind of absolute measure of poverty, not a relative one.
Check Your Career At The Door" on TechCrunch warns of mass penury for this generation and the next as the dual horseman of the techno-apocalypse, robots and software, strip humans of their ability to make a living.
I'm just glad to be repeatedly reminded of my penury at this point.
The road to the border with the Dominican Republic is being paved, and plans are afoot to pave the highway to Port-au-Prince, the capital, as well.But this air of possibility amidst penury is in peril.
News of the survey has brought lamentations from the Society of Authors this weekend and tales of penury from several well-known writers, including the Carnegie medal-winning writer Mal Peet, who described his income from sales as "literally abject".
Might such penury return?In this section The Bolivarian patient If Hugo goes Never-ending Too little, too late Reprints Related items Politics in Venezuela: The Bolivarian patientJul 7th 2011Were Mr Chávez's opponents to take power in Venezuela, they would almost certainly cut aid to Cuba, not least since they face pressing needs at home.
