Why would I need a citation? GDP has grown a lot, and yet there are more extremely poor people in the US. It is self-evident that were policy the same or similar now to the time before welfare "reform", that the proportion of people in extreme poverty would be similar. That's the thrust of your link, to boot. That's a policy problem if I've ever seen one.

China has a lot of problems, for sure. But what's the alternative? Even Nick Kristof has acknowledged that sweat shops represent a step in the right direction when your only other means of survival is garbage picking. Growth pangs of a modern economy hurt. I don't envy anyone who has to work in those conditions, but I'm sure they do it because they feel like it will provide a better life for their families.

I hope that going forward that labor standards and environmental protection become much more serious issues in Asia. I would love to see a day when goods cost the real cost, and not the highly externalized price that Walmart sells us shit for. But that's still a policy issue. Real economic development is a good thing for poor people. One doesn't have to be an adherent of trickle down economics to believe that.