Monday, April 16, 2007

Poverty isn't solved with donations

Business is a means of raising our collective consciousness,and it has the power to change social ills especially in Africa. Not only does business raises up the business person, it raises the community up as well.

Currently in the news is the information that Carlos Slim of Mexico has surpassed Warren Buffett as the second richest person in the world.
However, beyond the news more interesting is the man.

Carlos Slim doesn't believe in handouts.., however he has infused $1.8Bil into his moribound foundation
He thinks business can solve the ills of society
He has been accused of being a "monopolist" however he is surely a tough business man
The basis of his wealth included buying a goverment owned monopolist

Lessons
Ignore the goverment, and use business as an element of social change
Business is hard and tough however it can bring "good' to society
Capitalism is not near perfect or even fair, however it is the best the world has know so far, for economic properity - unless Cuba proves Russia or China wrong :)

The BBC has a series of stories with pictures talking about the real plight of Nigerians living on less that $1 a day. For example -
1. The roadside chef from Markurdi
2. The barber from Abuja
This I hope will make the statistics real and motivates us to change the world with business.

CNBC Recap- Top 16% with an 8.1% return on investments.

4 comments:

umc said...

Correct.

t said...

Referring to the BBC photo series:
I hope to help - a lot.
I know y'all want to help as well.
Let's keep caring.

Thank you for posting, Shola.

t said...

"Raising collective consciousness" in your first sentence...cool way of putting it.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Shola...charity does go beyond donations...
ngozi

Previously on UpNaira

 

Followers