The effects of poverty are easy to see in the center of Moscow. Americans' pension plans may be shrinking, and some now wonder if they can buy that new car. In East Asia, Russia and Latin America, global economic contagion has erased jobs, cut food supplies and dimmed children's futures. The child in Bangkok, now condemned to work the streets, a child no longer. Beggars fill the streets and sit outside the doors of restaurants and shopping malls.
Children plead for food.
You see that they are suffering, they are starving. In Indonesia the crisis has been compounded by drought and political turmoil. Once a roaring tiger in Asia's boom years, Indonesia will see its economic output fall an estimated 15 percent this year. Prices will skyrocket a projected 60 percent. In Russia, the story is much the same.