"You don't expect the income of the middle class in Africa to be the same as the United States, but it shouldn't be so overstretched that it may lose its meaning, " he adds, noting that the African middle class should define itself not only in relation to the continent but also in relation to international standards of consumption.

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Among its proposed powers will be the responsibility for monitoring the safety and standards of all food for human consumption.

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None of this should surprise environmentalists: Fuel-efficiency standards sparked the boom in the ultimate symbol of wasteful consumption, the sport utility vehicle.

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Consumption of chicken meat in Malaysia is high by global standards, with per-capita consumption around 77 pounds, reflecting in part subsidies and price controls.

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The broadest and most accurate measure of living standards is real per capita consumption.

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Working through grantees, it has had significant impact on promoting adoption of state and federal vehicle efficiency standards, more stringent residential and commercial building codes to reduce energy consumption, and development of renewable energy technology.

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Under this President, we have put in place historic fuel-efficiency standards that will do more to reduce our consumption of oil and, therefore, our dependence on foreign oil than a whole host of proposals that others have put out there, which they pretend will somehow lower the price at the pump next week.

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Most of the world's people are not even on the consumption bandwagon yet, but they desperately want to achieve western standards of living.

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The economy is sprinting along by Western standards, but China faces a hard adjustment to wean itself off excessive investment and exports in favour of more reliance on consumption.

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