In 2006, I was surprised to find myself sitting at a formal dinner in the middle of a 200-year-old debating society at Cambridge University in England. In a few minutes I, and five others were about to engage in a debate over the usefulness of the United Nations. But here, for a few minutes longer, at the long dinner table with the crisp, white tablecloth, I was sitting next to one of my fellow debaters, Salis Shetty, the head of the UN’s Millennium Project. I had ignored him through most of the dinner, but with just a few minutes left before the debate I finally turned to him and said, “You realize you don’t have a prayer, don’t you?” He looked at me and asked, “About what?” I replied, “Ending poverty by 2015 through the use of redistribution of wealth.” (That was one of the eight listed goals of the ...
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