onPoverty = action()
Today is Blog action day and bloggers around the globe are asked to write about poverty. Well, as the invitation to the day already says, there are no easy solutions for a problem like this, but here are some things that have been bothering me for a while when it comes to thinking about poverty.
Poverty is not that far away from us than we think
When it comes to world poverty we always get the mass media pictures of children starving and people not having any shelter and it makes us feel uneasy as it is something we just don’t want to consider when we have to decide wether to buy the new macbook or get a good home theatre.
Fact is though that poverty is not that far from us in our own surroundings. Part of why I left my old job and moved to where I am now is that we started doing IT projects for mortgage and debt consolidation companies. Despite the IT work being boring I also felt dirty every single day I had to deal with this.
Emails came in of people asking for debt consolidation (as the company was too stingy to set up a database but wanted an unencrypted form mailer instead) and they ranged from “I bought too many things” to “my wife has cancer and the operation and medication bills are piling up”. What really got me though was that for the system all these people were numbers and pre-defined decision trees – how you got into debt was of no consequence.
A friend of mine just last week had to rustle up 8000 Euros for her father’s operation. The father lives in southern Europe and it seems there is no way to get a proper hospital service without bribing the nurses and doctors as they get underpaid, too. These are expenses that come out of the blue and you can’t prepare for them. What would you do? Hope that dad is OK even with bad service? (I am not judging here, I am just reporting what has been said).
Try to disrupt the cycle of consumption as often as possible
One thing that really ticks me off is that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is becoming more and more reality. One thing described in this amazing book is that it is a sin to repair things – buy new ones instead.
If you look into our market now then you come to realize that this is where we already are. Trying to get a camera or a personal media player repaired is more expensive than getting the newer version. I remember that when I bought something as a teenager it was an investment – you could re-sell the Vinyl, walkman, CDs, cool jacket or shoes to your mates when you wanted. Nowadays this is not the case any longer. Yes, you can put things on ebay and battle the myriads of power sellers with automated bidding or – and I find myself doing this increasingly – give the things you don’t want any longer to a charity shop.
With the credit crunch and all coming I am sure there’ll be a renaissance of shops that repair things for you. I am lucky to live in a part of London that still has those and make sure to have them have a go at repairing things that broke before replacing them. We will have to do that sooner or later anyways.
One of the coolest things I’ve seen in this regard was when I was in India in 2004 and saw this man:
He cycles from village to village and sharpens and repairs people’s knifes and kitchen scissors with this modified bicycle. This is entrepreneurship, not showing another cool app to calculate your carbon footprint and ask for $$$ of VC funding.
Stop believing the hype about money
One last thing I am just not getting is that everybody in the west is wealthy by living off borrowed money. I’ve never had a loan and I never had an overdraft on my account – I just can’t do it. I was brought up by parents who scratch the magnetic stripe on their bank cards as they don’t trust computers or don’t want to be able to spend money they don’t have. Both grew up during the second world war and learnt the hard way how to get on with what they have.
When I wanted to have some superfluous stuff as a teenager or kid I was asked to do some chores and later on my dad got me little jobs (bricklaying, packing in a chainsaw factory, sorting out recycleable materials from people’s rubbish) to make the money myself to be able to afford them. I hated them for this – now I am very happy that they brought me up this way.
Money does not grow on trees, and by now we are so far into a world of virtual richness that the figures we play with are not even backed up any longer by real valuables – gold for example. The biggest losers of the whole credit crunch and recession will be the people who helped us get to where we are now – pensioners.
So what’s my conclusion?
I don’t have any solution for poverty – otherwise I’d be much more famous and in politics (or assassinated as people hate solutions for problems that actually can be turned into a profit if you have no scruples). All I want to say is that in order to think about poverty it is a great idea to see how you live, what you spend money on and especially keep in contact with people who got you where you are now. Of course we need to battle world poverty, but first and foremost it is time to make sure that people we owe a lot to should not have to live below the standard they deserve because some other people love to play with numbers on the stock market. Giving money to the third world is a nice thing to do and gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling, but changing our immediate surrounding or really getting into helping on the ground has a much larger impact.
Tags: blogactionday, creditcrunch, poverty
October 15th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Brilliant conclusion and, as you point out, more and more this money seems to be spent on goods that are as solid as the source of it.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I focused my contribution to this cause on the underlying cause of poverty: greed. The whole borrowing thing you bring up is closely related really.
If you HAVE money you have power over people who don’t by borrowing them money at ridiculous interest rates 25% APR anyone? Give me a break.
This means you’re earning money at the expense of people who already don’t have anything, resulting in these people collapsing under their debt and therefore: more poverty.
October 15th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Thanks for this inspiring article.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Another aspect of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” was forced labor. Poverty does that to a region. And, because they don’t pay them enough to be able to afford the very items they produce, the government exports those items!
This is a great perspective. Thanks for sharing it!
Cheers,
Mitch
October 15th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Taking the bait! And The LIE is swallowed, hook, line and sinker ;-(
Someone had written: “When I talk about people buying or being sold ‘absolute crap’ I’m not only talking about the material but also about the ideological. We are ’sold’ on consumerism, the wars (Iraq), elections (the presidency), all manner of things. Unfortunately, so few people see that just because these ideas are on sale, that they don’t actually have to buy them!”
Sadly, the multitudes have bought The LIE ;-(
The multitudes have taken the bait which is “ease of life”, so-called, and The LIE was swallowed(believed),
hook(money),
line(education/religion),
and sinker(technology) ;-(
This place they call the u.s. of a. is the “bait”master and they catch their “fish” in every nation of this world ;-( Yet in england, france, germany, japan, etc, in all nations of this wicked world, there are those who have become disciples of the “bait”master and they also have found other “waters” in which to catch their “fish” ;-(
And so it is that today there are multitudes in every nation under the sun that have taken the bait(ease of life), and swallowed(believed) the hook(money), the line(education/religion) and the sinker(technology) ;-(
Tempted, hooked, reeled in, and held captive as they but serve “time” in the
prison that is this wicked world ;-(
Simply, they could not withstand the media blitz(krieg), and their “imag”ination got the best of them ;-(
Some two thousand years past The Truth bore witness to the fact that, “the WHOLE world is under the control of the evil one”! (1John5:19) Yet, the “fish” continue to seek out that “good” place in the world, when in Truth the world today is but the product of mankind’s “imag”ination, a dry and thirsty land of mirages, nothing but shadows ;-(
And in this wicked world, “image”s abound and are worshipped ;-(
So why receive that which is of mankind’s “imag”ination?
Even when such is supposedly “free” there will always be a price to pay, for mankind’s “imag”ination is destroying the earth(land, air, water, vegetation, creatures) and perverting that which is Spirit(Light, Life, Truth, Love, Peace, Hope, Grace, Faith, etc.) ;-(
Consider the time when there were no radio’s, no tv’s, no movies, no newspapers, a time when there was no way yet “imag”ined and then manufactured, that would allow someone to publish or display the vain “imag”inations of mankind to the “masses”. Sadly those who rule in this wicked world, and who control the “media”, consider the “masses” to be but the M in E=MC;-(
And yet today, here i am publishing(sharing) that which i believe to be from the heart, The Spirit within, not the vain “imag”inations of my fleshly mind. i can but hope that which i share is from The ONE whose voice i have heard and whose Power i have experienced in The Miracles of deliverance that set me free, free from the “I” in me!
The ONE who revealed the lies that are of this world, it’s ‘god’, and it’s systems of religion, as i received evermore “a love of The Truth”. The ONE WHOM i know and believe is the Giver of Life, The Only True GOD and Father(Creator) of ALL!
Father Help! and HE does…….
Do you feel as i feel?
Do you wonder just what’s real?
Do you see the little child?
Do you see them running wild?
i see their doubts and i see their fears,
i see their hurts and i see their tears.
Now could be that’s what i look to see,
Yet what i see is real to me.
Now am i alone to care and cry?
Or must i close these eyes and surely die?
Sadly, the children, or those who once were called children, today are referred to as “kids” ;-(
Sadder yet, the reference is true ;-(
Baby goats abound because their ‘parents’ feed them all sorts of “trash”, and so it is that as they grow, they “eat” any and all things, no matter the dis-eases(no-peace) that causes them to be pill pushers, peer pleasers, or worse yet slaves of the media ;-(
“Where have all the children gone? long time pa-as-sing” ;-(
Progress? Yes things are getting progressively worse and worse ;-(
The Hopi people of AZ once believed “A Simple and Spiritual Life is the only Life that will survive”.
Sadly, not long ago, it seems the last “hostile” Hopi, “hostile” meaning against “progress” so-called! The last “hostile” Hopi passed away a short time ago, and the remaining hopi, remain in name only, for they have given up and given in to “progress” ;-(
Hope is there are yet hopi who still believe they will once again “see” their “True White Brother”, Whom i believe to be The Messiah.
Thankfully Hope IS Alive!
For Miracles do happen!
Hope is there would be those who would take heed unto The Call of Our Father(Creator) and “Come Out” of this wicked world and it’s systems of religion, for they will no longer have their portion with those who are destroying the earth(land, air, water, vegetation, creatures) and perverting that which is Spirit(Light, Life, Truth, Love, Peace, Hope, Grace, Faith, etc.) ;-(
And for those who have embraced “mother earth”?
Hope is they would also experience ONEness as they embrace Their Father, The Only True GOD, HE WHO is Creator(Father) of ALL!
Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(no-peace) that is of this wicked world and it’s systems of religion, for “the WHOLE world is under the control of the evil one”(1John5:19) indeed and Truth…….
Truth is never ending…….
October 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
In fact, your post is so good that I cited you on mine.
October 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I don’t know which country do you refer as Souther Europe but I must tell you that the spanish health system is one of the best in the worl. With universal full coverage of any issue you might have, even If you are not from Spain but happen to be in Spain when something happens to you. Also there is a new phenomenom in Spain called Health Tourism where people from countries like yours come here to sunbath and by the way get medical treatment for free.
October 17th, 2008 at 1:03 am
@felix: I deliberately didn’t state any country, and I am sure the system in Spain is amazing. Frankly I was shocked to hear that story myself, but as stated, I am just reporting it. England has good, free health service, too, but seeing what people are paid I’d say it is a shame. These are people who have the life of other people in their hands, and they should get great pay. The same way that people who teach and know their stuff should get more money than those who just know their stuff. Sadly enough our society and markets don’t work that way.