The Financial Crisis and Its Relative Insignificance To International Poverty

Are the financial crisis, recession, mortgage foreclosures from a false safety in the investment of real estate and the U.S. debt to China, the result of our desires for instant gratification and unwillingness to follow the rules of basic money management? Is get now and pay later, still the majority of American cultural philosophy? How about other developed countries? Do most people want what they want, right away and ignore the consequences of spoiled behaviors? It seems so many of us behave like the college student with their first credit card.

With the government focus on cutting spending and the recent bill that eliminates Wisconsin's collective bargaining rights, I thought about the republican philosophies which stem from the concepts of less government and a stronger power to the individual. This may sound good, but what it ends up becoming is an invitation to greed and selfish neglect of those in need. I began to think about alternatives, like a tax increase on gasoline. So I read and read and studied this topic as much as my schedule allowed. 

Some ideas I have heard and read sound best. Create an alternative currency that deflates the value of the US dollar, individuals start saving, export more than we import, spend government savings when in crisis and save when doing well. It’s what we were taught when we opened our first checkbook. Right?

So, rather than focus on the U.S. financial crisis, I have decided to reflect on global socio-economics, international issues of poverty and the use of technology for bottom-up economic development. 

In my early twenties I was interested in the bohemian lifestyle of the “La Vida” community of squatters that occupied a building on thirteenth street between Avenue A and Avenue B in Manhattan. In my delayed adolescence, I looked at this lifestyle as chosen and somehow, "cool". The magnitude of the world’s poverty issues had never once entered my thoughts. I was content with my stomp around Loisada and disinterested in the world beyond my own foot. The next video clip is from NY Times reporters, Simon Romero and Maria Eugenia Diaz. It puts, “La Vida” on the level of a penthouse. 

Here is a link to a beautiful slide show from another region of our world. I wonder how much it would cost for President Hugo Chaves to install solar panels on the roof of Venezuela's, “Tower of David”?

 Sustainable NRG Transforms Lives

Of course how I receive information is always relative to my current state of emotion; still right now, this next link may be one of the top ten articles I have ever read. I offer you read it and check out what cell phones mean to the people living in our impoverished communities around the world.

 Connecting the Unconnected

Even in Tumsifu, Kenya, a community where cow poop is fuel, their use of cell phones reveals the important of staying connected. People may not have indoor plumbing, but they are using cell phones! Cell phones empower us with an abundance of knowledge, right at our fingertips, all day, every day.

I suppose I do put communication on the same level as running water. I rather die in the arms of a beloved than live a life time disconnected. Nokia is paying attention. Is anyone else?

According to the United Nations Human Settlements Program, at the current rates of migration, one-quarter of the earth’s population by 2020 will be living in slums. And with the increased rate of natural disasters, the numbers of those immune to this tragedy is decreasing. Where do you see yourself in 2020? Will you be in a possition to help others? Are you now?