Rich Man Poor Man

By Anunay Kumar

The writing style borders on tongue-in-cheek rather than preachy. While reeling out hard facts and figures, problems, and solutions. Rich Man Poor Man engages you with facts and figures and creative use of language to keep you glued. Moreover, it encourages you to study the different solutions to the problems we face and their resolution in the judiciary, Rich, Poor disparity, education, and jobs.

If you are engaged with India and want to reflect, resolve, or even mull over the issues facing India in short 200 pages. This is the book for you, for your organization—the issues and solutions stare at us from the pages of this book.

How did the world operate without Money??
How did Money become a necessity of life??
How did forms of money change with time?
Why were some people able to have it all while others couldn’t?
Why has the gulf not narrowed down between the rich and poor?

Some simple actions can REVERSE the slide of the poor into poverty and misery. Author Anunay Kumar presents Hard facts, answering all possible questions – why, how, & when, with critical analysis and simple solutions. Rich Man, Poor Man

There is extreme poverty, and there is extreme money. This book is about how to use one to mitigate the other. The data used in this book are based on published facts and figures. The solutions offered are simple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zorba Books
• Release date: Jul 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9789395217866

Anunay Kumar

The author was born in 1946 in an affluent doctors family. He led a typical Indian dream life with education in Engineering and management, training abroad, experience in India and abroad, travelled widely, and career culminated in several board level placements.He is happily married and has a son and a daughter who along with their spouses are doing extremely well.

Book preview

Introduction

R ich man, poor man, beggar man, thief—

This is how the nursery rhyme goes. This, sadly, is also how the human world tends to go.

Our world is engulfed, submerged, inundated, and overpowered by money.

Money has a universe of its own.

It is as complicated, massive, and in perpetual motion like our own Milky Way, where billions of money units in thousands of forms and currencies wheel incessantly across the human firmament causing immeasurable pleasures and unfathomable miseries to homo sapiens.

Money is all round us. Money is all-pervasive, all-encompassing, omniscient, a sword of the rich, and a shield of the poor. Sometimes it is the hyperactive capital and sometimes, the super-lazy wealth.

It was one of the greatest inventions of mankind and one of the greatest curses (for those lacking it).

It has driven entire societies, nations, continents, and civilizations into raptures and ruins. It is the master of the universe and the mistress of mischief. Created over thousands of years to serve homo sapiens, it has become a self-serving hydra-headed monster, a Bhasmasur [1] (monster of the Hindu mythology bent on destroying its creator) and enslaved the entire human race.

It has many names and forms, including physical, digital, metaphysical, and simply bizarre. Like Schrodinger’s cat, it is dead and alive at the same time.

It is generated here on this planet by the resources of this planet and should be available for the inhabitants of this planet. Not equally, of course. Perish the thought.

Money equality is unfair to the more intelligent, more industrious, more adventurous, more lucky, brilliant scamsters, captains of organized crime, presidents of Banana Republics, oligarchs, and last but not the least, lucky sperms. Equal distribution of money, capital, wealth, etc., does not exist, except in the wonderland of obscure Marxists who are now, all but extinct.

It is expected that the planet’s surplus be utilized for the poor, the deprived, the losers, the have-nots, and providing them with the basic requirements of human life as defined by Mr. Maslow, viz. food, clothing, and shelter.

There is a wide and unjust gap between zero-poverty Iceland (4.9% in 2021) and the grinding poverty of South Sudan (82–83%) or Equatorial Guinea (76.8%).

Can it be done? If yes, how? This is proposed in this book by and for amateurs since the professionals seem to have lost their way.

First of all, the rich have to be reassured that helping the poor will not impoverish them.

The rich are certainly entitled to their riches and all the luxuries this planet and outer space can provide. This book humbly talks about a miniscule amount which their accountants would not even notice. Their wealth meter would not even flicker, but there could be a flicker of life for the millions of the dispossessed.

When millions of children die of malaria, TB, and HIV every year, can the super-rich justify spending 500 million dollars to put their water closets in orbit? Or should these worthies spend millions of dollars to go into orbit for 20 minutes to watch the blue planet from outer space when NASA has put enough marvellous pictures on the web for all to see?

We, the universal citizens, should instil a sense of proportion between exorbitant wealth and abject poverty.

When the super-rich lose overnight, riches more than the entire GDP of entire nations, the planet feels some imbalance.

Of course, there are numerous super-rich who have given, and continue to give huge sums to the poor.

Giving cash is not enough. It should be finished products. Records show that out of the billions of dollars pouring in from international agencies, more than 65% money goes back to the donor country via payments to their own contractors, their own army of highly paid consultants, their own much more highly paid project managers, their own agents of kleptocracy (to be elaborated later).

It is well known that the super-rich are also super-achievers, super-managers, and organizational wizards.

Could there be a situation where a large amount is earmarked for spending in a poor country and the execution is also done by the super donor? Is it their business? I would beseech them to make it their business. It is the planet’s wealth and is being spent on its inhabitants.

There is no point in giving money for food if there is neither a food market, food warehouse, or supply chain. These have to be constructed elsewhere and road-transported or even air-lifted to the site where the government decides.

What it takes to rescue citizens out of the grinding poverty trap and how much it would cost has all been worked out in detail by some of the world’s most dedicated and erudite organizations.

This type of academics does not always work out. It could be interpreted in different ways. After all, facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable (Mark Twain).

The data used in this book are based on the published facts and figures. The author’s conclusions are based on the amateurish law of averages, thus avoiding complicated data

analysis, standard deviations, algorithms, boring spreadsheets, etc. When sophisticated studies have not achieved the desired result, maybe a down-to-earth, easily understood (or misrepresented as the case may be) recommendations could succeed. The figures may be out of date and/or constantly changing but the trends are true representations.

This may be wishful thinking but a sincere attempt. I apologize in advance for any misleading data.

Why India and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)? India is developing and represents one-fifth of the world’s population. I have lived here all my life and experienced triumphs and tragedies. Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge land mass with untold riches, human talent, and material resources. I have experienced this region for 20 years and interacted with a wide group of citizens, from the common labourer to the President. Unfortunately, these proud people have been brought to their knees due to several historical factors like colonial exploitation, bad governance, bad institutions, bad political systems, and downright kleptocracy. They deserve better.

Severe imbalances always result in cataclysmic events. Today, the developed world is perturbed and disturbed by an invasion of a handful of immigrants numbering from a dozen to a hundred. Developed nations are naturally worried about how these immigrants affect their standard of living, their health and education system, their way of life, etc. After all, resources are limited for even the developed nations.

The SSA population is about 450 million. The majority are poor, hungry, uneducated, bereft of health facilities, drinking water, and hope. Suppose, just suppose, that less than half a percent (i.e., 2 million) decide to walk en masse to Europe, Middle East, etc., instead of dying a slow death in their own country. This would take about 500 days.

In such an eventuality, what are the developed nations going to do? Shoot down 2 million people, put them in jail, airlift them back? Such an eventuality will lead to the collapse of societies and nations.

The rich and powerful have always been overconfident in their insularity, be it people, societies, or nations. They have too much confidence in their border fortifications, palisades, tall boundary walls, their dog squads, their police, defence forces, etc., in stopping unwanted elements. It is only a matter of time before they face unwanted elements that are desperate enough or numerous enough. They only must recollect what happened to Carthage, Rome, Persia, Istanbul, Eastern Europe, Sindhu Valley, China: all victims of this complacency and isolationist mindset.

Such desperate events can be stopped only by in-situ development of these desperately needy nations. The funds which are being spent on border controls and chain fences and refugees should be spent in the country where they come from.

Individuals, societies, nations must try to mitigate this situation before it gets too late. The planet’s wealth should be shared (to some extent) within the planet.

This concept does look impractical to start with but less than trying to settle a hundred thousand Afghans in Chelsea in the heart of Anglo-Saxon London or settling Syrian fundamentalists in liberal Norway.

Everyone has the right to choose their own style of living, but it will be best if it is in one’s own environment. Why use the ploy of poverty removal to impose on one another’s way of life and remove him geographically?

There is extreme poverty, and there is extreme money. This book is about how to use one to mitigate the other.

The poor of our planet are the most distressed, disturbed, neglected, enslaved, and exploited group. This is just not acceptable. While there are various organizations looking after the interests of even Ridley turtles, Blewitt’s owls, and other similar endangered species, there are none to look after the largest group in danger of vanishing, viz. the poor. This group of poor deserve large, influential, and moneyed groups to look after their upliftment.

If this book results in even a handful of our fellow humans getting out of the severe poverty trap, it will be worth it.

Chapter 1

A Brief History of Money

... to be rich is glorious.

– Deng Xiaoping

Money, capital, wealth, funds, currency, dough, etc., have been with human tribes, colonies, countries, societies, and civilizations for ages. Since humans stopped bartering their livestock or their freshly killed mastodons or their ill-tempered females for grains, slaves, homestead land, pottery, arrowheads, etc.

Money has been with us since the dawn of civilization, but it could not yet be fully understood except by the smart or the really crooked.

Money was absent at the beginning of the universe—which is why life was so monotonous and dangerous.

In the absence of money, our planet was just a boiling cauldron of the most obnoxious things. Then something happened (scientists would love to know what?) and life began.

This primarily consisted of some creepy-crawlies, some moss here, and some fungus there. This was a far cry from the beauties which adorn the planet today.

About 70,000 years ago (again the experts may be wrong by a few thousand years), life became biped and started running amok. They tried to control the larger four-footed life forms but sometimes got eaten for their efforts. They then concentrated on the meeker four-footed forms.

They also discovered that certain growths on the trees and their roots were eatable and sometimes were good enough for exchange with other two-footed groups without breaking each other’s heads, house, and hearth, etc.

Life was considered good except when it rained, and this was called living off the fat of the land. Unfortunately, this type of lifestyle went out of fashion and is used today only by the destitute or the filthy rich.

Gradually, the older generation got sick of following the sheep or cattle for grazing. This meant getting up early every morning, folding up the tents, and trudging after these brutes, irrespective of whether the bad-tempered wife had made coffee or not.

This type of wandering is not as glamorous or noble or exciting as made out by some morons trying to make it to some National Geographic TV show.

Firstly, it was dangerous with so many predators of the two and four-footed variety waiting in ambush. Secondly, it was very boring; one could never have a permanent address, which created another set of problems with the home delivery and pest control guys.

On one of these rainy days, some enterprising guys decided to dig in and stay put. It helped that most of these bipeds suffered from plantar fasciitis, arthritic knees, and spinal stenosis from constant wandering. This started the agriculture fashion about 7,000 years ago.