When it comes to fixing the world’s worst problems, it’s easy to pretend that we’re helpless.

We tell ourselves that global poverty is just too big, too distant, and too intractable an issue for us to solve. If the world could afford to solve it, or something like hunger, then surely somebody else would have done it already.

But, it turns out, that’s simply not true. According to a new report by a group of anti-poverty researchers that uses AI tools to achieve unusually granular data of the picture on the ground, the price tag for completely ending extreme poverty would be just $318 billion per year. Using targeted direct cash transfers, it would cost around 0.3 percent of global GDP to ensure that virtually everyone has enough to pay for the absolute basics — the food, shelter, and medicine they need to survive each day.

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$318 billion might sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. Americans will spend over three times as much on their holiday shopping this year alone. Elon Musk could foot the entire bill for a year and still have over more than $300 billion to spare.

Or, getting creative here, “if everybody in the world [who drinks alcohol] took one day off of drinking a week, that would generate........

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