On one hand, I do think American culture in generally is overly materialistic and we all have too much junk. We are buying our first home, a short sale which has been almost impossible given the hurdles built into the process and the bureaucracy, and now we are preparing to move - and I am looking around and saying to myself where did I get all this junk? And a lot of it is just that. I tend to pick up stuff that others abandon because I see a potential use for it - but the truth is that I will never use a great deal of this junk. On the other hand, this guy has to be the biggest hypocrite or clown around. I am happy he has been so successful in acquiring things but I have a suggestion fo him - and since he went to Davos he might just be thinking along these lines (let us pray). Why does he sell off some of those big toy things he has and donate it to some worthwhile charitable or social venture enterprises? Has he taken the Gates challenge? Charity Navigator is a great place to get information on how much of what you give actually reaches those who need help. It is always preferable to help others by teaching them how to innovate and revolutionize and/or build a whole new fishing industry rather than to simply create dependencies by giving them a fish. When people who have this much give, for that matter when anyone gives, they should do research into the cause to which they are giving? For example, there is a frequent advertiser on Facebook selling tee-shirts and giving giving away Harleys to supposedly aid disable vets. Even when you look at the 1099s on Charity Navigator, they are deceptive in that you get the impression that a very substantial amount of what you spend on these - granted graphically pleasing - tee-shirts actually reaches disabled vets. Now this really irks me because as much as I dislike war and do not want to see our troops put in harms way, let alone having their legs blown off stepping on land mines, I do not like to see people use the image of a wounded vet to evoke a humantarian response largely for their personal gain. Several reports of different investigations of where the money for this charity acutally goes reveal that the bulk of the money goes to pay one doctor who happens to married to the chair of this charity. And that he is amassing millions of dollars in fees for treating wounded vets and there is substantial doubt that wounded vets are deriving anywhere near the care you think they are when you donate by buying their tee-shirt. This is a sham. Most of the phone call solicitations I receive for charitable contributions are also pretty shady. Whereas there are a lot of charities that are run by folks with much more integrity and are very worthwhile. One better way to help our vets is to support charities or social venture enterprises that aim to prevent injury in the first place. For example, a fellow named Bart Weejuns has a really great program where he has taught very large African rats with incredible olfactory senses to sniff out landmines - and this particular Tanzanian rat is very good at this. The same rat species is faster and more reliable at sniffing out tubercolosis and many other diseases and Bart has been successful in traing these Hero Rats to do a truly do truly incredible things. Google Hero Rats or just watch some of their videos on YouTube. And Weejuns is wholly dedicated to innovation and to solving some major problems - not to making money from his work. He is the perfect example of someone we would call a social entrepreneur. I guess if that with billionaires at Davos telling folks our culture is too materialistic and we place too much emphasis on money and should do with less things, it comes down to the same thing. You have those who are truly motivated by greed and you have those who are truly motivated by altruism. It is wise to figure out the difference.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 11:19:09 +0000
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