The Grameen Bank, which founded the concept of micro loans to empower small businesses run by the poorest in the world, is a superb choice for the award. With the current Omidyar Foundation funding it will be interesting to see if this approach to development can be scaled up in even more dramatic fashion.
The Clinton Global Initiative is tackling the world’s major problems. It’s a great effort with the backing of one of the world’s most effective superpower schmoozers, Bill Clinton. Although I’d suggest that the Copenhagen Consensus is a more rational way to prioritize spending, Clinton’s group is far more likely to bring big money and big corporations and Government interests to the table.
Today’s announcement is that Richard Branson will donate 3 billion towards reduction of Global Warming via the Clinton Global Initiative. Although I’d much rather see the group put more towards current catastrophes at least this donation is consistent with the notion that big providers of greenhouse gasses like Branson’s many transportation interests should do the most to alleviate the effects of those gasses on the environment.
Perhaps my friend Linda was right to suggest that some people will support Global Warming initiatives in ways they won’t get behind those confronting global poverty. If we can do it all that’s great and for the first time in my life I do think there is a great, driving force on the part of most people, policy makers, and even Governments to initiate “Global Improvements”. Let’s do it!
Yesterday I learned that the USA is the top donor to 1) Sudan and 2) Palestinian Territories.
(I already knew we were the top funder of the U.N.) This did not surprise me, but I’m always struck by how generous our Government is in areas where we are despised.
I’m not opposed to generosity – in fact I think we should send more money to poor and war-torn areas even if it means raising my already usurous income taxes, but it pisses me off that we don’t get a lot more credit for it because credit for all this generosity is deserved and, far more importantly, it is a strategic imperative in the fight against those who fight against us. I doubt the Palestinian or North Korean kids eating food provided by the USA are even aware of the source. They should be.
Given that the results of the “wars on terror” all over the globe are yielding dubious results – perhaps even solidifying the resolve of a new generation of “America Haters” – I propose we do what any good business would do at a time like this. We should reallocate our dubious spending toward something more likely to yield positive results.
My proposal is to establish a highly funded global marketing campaign by reallocating military spending to something that works better. The campaign’s goal will be to restore to the USA the type of international respect we had back in the 60’s. Then, Peace Corps folks would go into the hut of an African or Indonesian villager and find a poster of JFK rather than an arms cache. Why? Obviously not a simple equation, but the 1960’s villager saw the USA’s prosperity and and global influence as a blueprint for their own future prosperity and freedom. Now, a generation later, that villager is more likely to see the USA as exploiting him far more than offering hope.
The sad irony is that exploitation of poor countries is largely a mythology concocted by left wing intellectuals to justify their narrow world view that corporations don’t work well to raise the standards for most of the participants in societies that embrace the corporate capitalist model of development. Corporations do raise standards, and excellent examples abound of the contrast between non-corporate and corporate models of development.
The South Korean villager did in fact become very prosperous and lives in a society with a very high standard of living and reasonable freedoms, while his brother in North Korea struggles just to eat. The poverty in Africa is characterized by a *lack* of corporate capitalist participation, not by an excess amount of it as we’d expect with a “USA as exploiter” world view.
Cuba? Isn’t that the same guy in charge who has been there for forty five years? Has Cuba thrived by pulling themselves out of the corporate capitalist game for half a century? Hardly.
This is not to suggest that there is not exploitation by US corporations. There are plenty of examples, and one person’s exploitation may be seen by someone less fortunate as a road to prosperity. However I’d suggest that most forms of “capitalistic exploitation” are the exception not the rule, partly for the entirely selfish reason that the capitalist model seeks higher profits and this requires more consumers living at higher standards. Global prosperity is not a zero sum economic game, and in this fact lies the key to the success of the corporate capitalist model of development and the bankruptcy of most socialist paradigms.
Thanks to forces of “negative marketing” from self-serving and corrupt Governments, combined with many legitimate grievances against the USA’s imperial stance in global politics, the USA’s reputation appears at an all time low. Strategically this is leading to more terror and more terrorists. If we continue to respond militarily we 1) continue to kill innocent people, our own soldiers, and destroy infrastucture and 2) expend resources that could be put to better use.
Better use? Marketing the USA as a friend not an enemy.
Budget: $109,825,000,000 (25% of proposed 2007 military spend of 439.3 billion)
The US Military approach has failed to win the hearts and minds of the globe, and this puts us at increasing strategic risk. We live in the world’s most sophisticated marketing empire and it’s time we acted like it. Let’s just do it.
I finally got to see “An Inconvenient Truth” On the upside I think Al Gore comes off like the fine, sincere, bright fellow he is. A movie like this around election 2000 would have given Florida, and the Presidency, to Al Gore. The film’s creative use of graphics and video is also very impressive. This is educational media used in compelling fashion and all presenters should take note of this approach which cleverly blends animation, video, and lecture.
Unfortunately the fundamental premise of this film – that global catastrophe is looming just around the corner – is misguided and not supported by the science Gore claims he holds so dear. As the film suggests, global warming is well established and it has become clear that much of that warming is a result of human processes (anthropogenic warming). However, the film strongly implies that castastrophic sea level rises and weather conditions are “likely” when science says only that they are “possible”. Many things are possible and it’s very foolish to allocate resources without addressing “how likely is this to happen?”.
The science Gore abuses to support the wild claims comes mostly from IPCC reports which actually suggest that sea levels will probably rise at most a few feet *over the next century*. The best estimates suggest that global climate change is not creating catastrophic sea level rises and killer storms.
What is certain is that we have many current global catastrophes. They are the hunger, disease, and bad water supplies that plague hundreds of millions of people on earth right now, killing tens of thousands of people *daily*.
First let’s solve those problems, which are much cheaper and easier to solve than global warming and have much clearer and immediate positive benefits.
Clear thinking people should work towards prioritizing issues of global concern and then solving as many of those significant global concerns as possible given the constraints of money, politics, and human ignorance. Drive less? Sure. Support wise resource use? Of course. We should apply common sense principles to all problems and wiser use of resources is important. It’s just not the world’s most pressing problem. Not by a long shot.
Rather than simply jump on another alarmist bandwagon of the many that litter the historical landscape I’d hope folks will ask themselves “If I could allocate a billion dollars to solving some global problems, what would be the best use of that money?”
Need a hint? It’s been done here: Copenhagen Consensus
It's great to see CNN and FOX covering this story live at the press conference though unfortunate that commentators are more interested in the cash and personalities than what this means to global health.
37 Billion to Charity = Thirty Seven Thousand … Million dollar donations. This appears to be history's greatest act of philanthropy. CNN suggests this is true even if you look at Carnagie and Rockerfeller's huge giving and adjust for inflation. Also important is that those early foundations did not focus on third world problems where the money can be far more effective.
Buffett and the Gates' may prove to be the most powerful global welfare partnerships in history as Buffett, with his remarkable ability to evaluate companies, joins the Gates on the board. For the many who see corporate America as a threat to the welfare of humanity this should also be a wake up call. Gates and Buffett are redistributing wealth from the richest to the poorest far more effectively than any Government progressive tax scheme could ever dream to do, and they are applying their substantial abilities to solving the world's most significant problems.
I'd suggest that Governments and taxation plans tend to redistribute from wealthy and moderatly weathly to the middle and lower middle classes – ie it shifts wealth a few notches down, rather than the far more desirable type of redistribution which moves money from the richest to the poorest as this type of philanthropy tends to do.
Melinda Gates explains that the gift is "unprecedented" and that the new funding will allow the foundation to expand their priority list of diseases so they can fight more than just the "big three diseases" Malaria, Tuberculosis, and HIV / AIDS.
Buffett said he's always expected his billions to go to charity but originally thought it would be his wife who would distribute his wealth after he died. However his wife died first, and his friendship with and respect for Bill and Melinda Gates has inspired him to start giving away his money during his lifetime, feeling that they, and a few other foundations his money will support, have created great mechanisms for distributing his wealth where it will do huge social good.
Bravo Warren Buffett, Bravo!
Warren Buffett will give almost all of his fortune – one of the greatest in history – to charity. Most most will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to accelerate its fantastic efforts towards global health and education. Buffett, the Sage of Omaha and arguably one of the world's sharpest businessmen, will join the Gates' on the board of a foundation already credited with saving over a *million* lives.
I'd guess that this amazing convergence of wealth and entrepreneurial style development will go down as a pivotal moment in history, and it is wonderful and inspiring to see the mega rich turn to mega philanthropy.
Apparently IKEA, more as tax avoidance than altruism, is technically the world's largest charitable foundation, though clearly Gates foundation, at 29 billion, is the world'd largest "real" charitable endeavor. Gates reported yesterday that he's leaving Microsoft over the next 2 years to devote full time to Gates Foundation activities.
One of my greatest disappointments is to hear far too many technology people absurdly suggest that Gates' motivations are other than the obvious – spearheading one of the greatest philanthropic efforts of all time that primarily serve the two most significant challenges of humanity – health and education.
No, not from the Indonesian earthquake – indeed a terrible tragedy. Global warming? Ha – not even the most alarmist proponents make this claim. Nope, not from terrorism, which tragically took perhaps 5 or even 10 lives today despite *trillions* of dollars spent fighting wars and providing security across thousands of first world venues.
Malaria killed the 5000. Today. And yesterday. And tomorrow. 1-3 Million per year with some indications the count has been historically too low on this disease.
But let's not worry about Malaria because the cost to dramatically reduce transmission is …. $2.50 for nets that protect people while they sleep. $5.50 for the really good nets that can protect people for 5 years.
More death news you won't see on CNN or FOX. Yet today (nor yesterday or the days before) I didn't see anything on CNN or FOX about this ongoing life and death battle with parasitic diseases where the death toll eclipses that of *all wars ever fought for all time*.
CNN did, however, have a long report lamenting the fact that that about 100 people per week die waiting for organ transplants. We better get to work on that, because why spend $2.50 for a net to save a kid's life when you can spend $250,000.00 giving a rich guy a extra few years?
News Item:
David Sharp, 34, died apparently of oxygen deficiency while descending from the summit during a solo climb last week.
More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and almost all continued to the summit without offering assistance.
Our first reaction is to be appalled at the lack of concern and I'm anxious to hear from those who passed him by to hear their rationalizations. A Semper Fi sensibility hardly seems to apply to the new Everest hiking crowd. Sir Edmund Hillary observed this in his harsh criticism of the decision to put the summit above saving a life.
YET don't we ALL do this every day when we choose to distance ourselves from far more pressing global concerns where saving lives requires nothing like the efforts needed in this case? The key difference is proximity rather than ability to help. A modest Unicef contribution is more likely to save a life than attending to an oxygen deprived climber at 27000 feet in 80 below zero weather. Yet we don't have to look the malnourished kid in the face and thus we condemn and abhor the feelings of those who passed by the climber but absolve ourselves of what are probably more justified feelings of guilt for doing little in the face of great need.
It's a cruel world, right?
Joe Duck 