taking a nation from a dollar-a-day income to $11,670 a year per capita, the US poverty level for a single-person household, would require about four decades at a sustained breakneck growth rate of 10 percent a year.56 In comparison, it only takes twenty years to raise a new generation. Speed is relative. China and the East Asian tigers pulled themselves up in a matter of decades, thanks in great part to widespread investments in high-quality universal education.
