PrintMarch 2, 2009
The Cure for Poverty
A generation or two of American school children have grown up without a clue about how wealth is created. If they ever think about the people who organize and create businesses, the people who actually create wealth and carry out the innovations that cause the rest of us to prosper, they think in terms of responsibility for bad things like pollution, discrimination, and other crimes.
Entrepreneurs are the heroes of capitalism, the brave risk takers who see a need and fill it. Most fail, but those who succeed provide jobs, products, innovation, and tax revenues to the rest of us. But because they are so little-understood, it is easy to portray entrepreneurs as a selfish and greedy lot. With a president in office who wants to spread the money around, we are in for open season on successful entrepreneurs, who often earn enough to become "rich" in the eyes of Obama & Co.
Fortunately, there is someone who can help begin to vanquish some of the illusions about wealth and its sources in a way everyone can understand. That man is Herb Meyer, the creator of The Siege of Western Civilization (see my review here), and How to Analyze Information. I admire Herb as a writer because he uses very concrete examples to explain complex concepts. Never pompous, never condescending, but straightforward and deeply grounded in reality and experience. He writes and speaks compellingly and clearly.
In his latest project, a website called The Cure for Poverty, Herb explains, in terms everyone can understand, the complex magic of entrepreneurship, and how dependent entrepreneurship is on certain minimum conditions being met. In a mere 6000 words, Herb can help almost anyone understand why the economic program put forth by President Obama will end in disaster.
Also available on the Cure for Poverty page are Mp3 and podcast versions of the essay, read by Herb, so those who rarely read can take in the narrative. It is just about the right length for a short jog or walk.
I strongly recommend the page for sending to friends, asking them to read it or listen to it, so you can talk about Obama's plans. It fills in a gaping gap intentionally left by the education system and media in America. The web address is a cinch to remember: thecureforpoverty.com. You can recommend it to a friend in just a few seconds.
Check it out.
Check it out.
