congratulations you won the lottery and
made $1,000,000 the first thing you will
do is buy yourself a nice car but the
second thing you will do is take some of
that money and donate it to the poor
because you are a good human being you
buy some clothes and some food you ship
them to Africa and you feel good about
it and that is exactly the problem with
charity what I'm about to say might not
be politically correct but it must be
said we need to rethink charity see in
today's world it feels good to send food
to poor countries it feels good to
volunteer with kids and take that selfie
it feels good to help and I know how it
feels because I did it too
two years ago are donated to one
thousand kids in the slums of the
Philippines
I bought them hamburgers and clothes and
I gave them out for free and I felt good
about it but little did I know that I
was doing more harm than good
when I bought the food what I did was
essentially pay lots of money to help
kids for three hours only until they are
hungry again the food I bought wasn't
local or healthy so every restaurant in
that area got less business when I gave
away clothes for free every clothing
shop in that area
god bless business and with my food I
created a dependence
every kid will grow up to expect free
food from tourists and with this cycle
of dependency the local businesses die
the local economies die and everybody
there is waiting at the bottom with no
job waiting for the tourists to come in
why would you learn how to fish when all
the fish is free this isn't just my
opinion this is a real problem
extensively documented on the internet
and backed by presidents we rich
countries that produce a lot of food
should sell it to poor countries and
relieve them of the burden lose their
own food so thank goodness they can lead
directly into the industrial era it has
not worked it has not worked so what's
the solution to poverty well there is no
simple answer but there are many ways we
can explore take Africa for example
Africa's main problem is not the famine
it's the fact that we exploit and
exclude it
so let's reverse that if you want to
help choose charities that employ locals
for locals if you want to travel travel
in Africa and support local tourism
if you want to hire hire from Africa
they have talent
it's flashy to give food and put it on
the Internet but don't just do the
flashy things because in reality these
places need better infrastructure better
healthcare better education better job
opportunities not rice not choose not
t-shirts made in the USA because in the
history of planet Earth no country has
ever developed from donations we've
tried it for a hundred years and it
doesn't work it's time for something new
obviously extreme disasters and famines
are the exception but the rule is simple
you and I both have good intentions and
we need to give more and more but let us
give in a smarter way and let us never
forget that even the road to hell is
paved with good intentions see you next
week
you