OMG, finally a billionaire with brains.
World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
111–120 of 164 posts
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#112Efficient use of capital doesn't entail a jobs program for a billion of the worlds poor or providing them with education and healthcare for nothing in return.
The goal of capital is to create capital. Diverting capital for the purpose of job creation is charity (when done by individuals) or welfare (when done by governments).
Sims approach helps some of the unemployed, but few of the unemployable people in the world.
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#113It seems strange that someone with the business acumen to become the world's richest man would not look on the inefficient and broken charity and aid systems as an opportunity to create a better solution. There won't be good new jobs in places where there isn't reliable electricity or clean drinking water. Like most aging industries, the "making the world better" industry is definitely in need of some disruption. We…
The article mentioned that he donated to the Gates foundation, which in fact uses capitalist principles to help third world countries.
Here are the Gates Foundation guiding principles:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/guiding-principle...
I don't see anything capitalist in them.
Nor in "All Lives have equal value."
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, that's a load of non-sequiturs. Monopoly is a side effect of the massive corruption plaguing Mexico. Microsoft doesn't even come close. As for aid in Africa, that's a specific charity you worked with in Africa. There are people who do good work there. Dismissing aid because people are bad at it is like dismissing software development because people are bad at it. One way or another it's necessary.
I went to a missionary conference once where an African princess came in and talked to us. Exactly the place where you'd expect a plea for more aid, right? Well, not really. She said we needed to mind our own business and let Africa take care of itself. Then a Bono video from his opulent mansion came on with some sort of campaign to end world poverty or something.
"Minding your own business" may be a loaded phrase there, though. Much of the misery in Africa is a direct result of western exploitation. That includes much misery the proximate cause of which is corrupt leaders. Guess who keeps many of them there.
She has a point that truly letting Africa "take care of itself" may be more effective than any aid. But that statement is not primarily about aid, and withdrawing aid doesn't help with the subjacent problems.
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. Bill Gates was convicted of being a monopolist and checks were put on what his company could and could not do. That does not happen in Mexico. In more extreme cases, look at John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Rockefeller used to be the wealthiest person in the world (according to some, if you inflation adjust his money, he may have been the wealthiest person in the last 200 years). His company was…
> In more extreme cases, look at John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Rockefeller used to be the wealthiest person in the world ... We have checks in place to curb the anti-competitive forces of certain companies. If anyone is curious about John Rockefeller, I'd very strongly recommend "Titan" by Ron Chernow, which is a very detailed and fair biography of Rockefeller. It's one of the more important biographies I've re…
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Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#116The US decided to do some charity work and supply Haiti with rice after the earthquake. Now the rice market is collapsing in Haiti. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11472874
The subsidies which destroyed the rice market predate the earthquake. As does the story.
Here's the same sort of story from Al-Jazeera in 2008.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insideusa/2008/07/20...
Here's the same information in a report from 2004: http://www1.american.edu/TED/haitirice.htm
Here's a copy of a Washington Post article from 2000 (original behind paywall) http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/217.html
The story is getting traction today for the same reason as the one about Sims...journalistic sloppiness.
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rich in irony as well -- Slim's purchase of Telmex, the state-controlled telephone monopoly, meant that he could stifle competition and charge exorbitant rates. That's pretty much as far as you can get from encouraging employment for the poor.
“Purchase” is a pretty rich description, too. Slim paid an obscenely low price for Telmex – it was making $1.1 billion yearly profit, and Slim’s company paid less than $900 million for a 10% stake, which money came from loans Slim got on letters of credit (i.e. it wasn’t even his own money). Telmex was and is a near monopoly, with the kinds of monopolistic pricing that goes along with that. Basically, Slim’s fortune…
> Slim paid an obscenely low price for Telmex – it was making $1.1 billion yearly profit, and Slim’s company paid less than $900 million for a 10% stake
So he paid $900 million for $110 annual profits? So a P/E of around 8? That's not an obscenely low price, especially if they already had complete market share and premium pricing. The only way to go from there is down, and it's a high capital business that'd most like need lots of capital improvements to stay competitive. For comparison, AT&T is trading a 12 times earnings, but that's in a much more healthy and stable market than Mexico.
I guess getting a 10% stake at 8 times earnings is an okay deal, but it doesn't jump out to me as a great deal. Would you be excited to buy a stake at that price in a high capital Mexican business with no growth potential because it's tapped out? I wouldn't.
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#118I'm paying 30% income tax. Am I giving charity to Govt?
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#119The last statement in the article is interesting. "Has philanthropy solved any major social problems in the past 50 years?" Can philanthropy solve social problems in the first place? It feels like charity is more effective when it is a short term issue, like meeting the needs of population hit by an earthquake. Longer and bigger social problems? Anybody know any positive examples out there?
Re: World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything'
#120I think you need to look more specifically at what exactly the Gates Foundation does if you want to answer the questiona at the end of the article. They're known for fighting disease, primarily; disease in third-world countries is a major barrier to industrial expansion into these countries. Further, charity has achieved at least one major victory: the eradication of smallpox, perhaps the greatest achievement in huma…
First time I hear a claim that charity is responsible for smallpox eradication.
Sure, charities did help a lot, but it took Worldwide coordinated effort by WHO with primary donors being UN member states to achieve full eradication.