This blog post is dedicated to a person who gets far too little attention for its amazing efforts. Recently, it was written a letter explaining the three myths that block the progress of the poor.
The myths that block for the poor
1) Poor countries are doomed to stay poor
According to the letter, it’s a myth that the rich countries are getting richer and poor countries stay poor. The letter states:
A quick Web search will turn up dozens of headlines and book titles such as ‘How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor.’ Thankfully these books are not bestsellers, because the basic premise is false.
2) Foreign aid is a big waste
Many articles about foreign aid that are filled with big generalizations based on small examples. The letter states:
Some news articles tend to cite anecdotes about waste in some program and suggest that foreign aid is a waste. If you hear enough of these stories, it’s easy to get the impression that aid just doesn’t work.
3) Saving lives leads to overpopulation
The anxiety over the size of the world population has a high risk to override concern for the human beings who make up this population, according to the author.
Read the letter in its entirety →
The author
The author of the letter today works full time with a foundation that supports over 100 countries, has over 1,000 employees and has paid out over $28 billion in grants. He is a philanthropist who has never sacrificed his financial situation.
He says that the real philanthropists are those who move to Africa to help the people there, or who work nights and weekends as volunteers, or donate portions of their salary to charity. He himself has never sacrificed anything like that, according to himself.
He also started a campaign called The Giving Pledge, an organization that currently has over 113 billionaires who pledged to give away at least half their wealth to charity.
You probably guessed who the person is by now, it is the world’s richest man, Bill Gates.
Mr Gates
Thank you for your superb work to inspire so many people. Amazing that you give most of your fortune to philanthropic causes (and that you got many others to do the same).
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