A Rant On How To Help The Developing World

I decided today would be the day that I would sit down and explain something so acutely simple that it will be completely ignored. If the temporal displacement of my ideas remains constant, I believe someone important will make this a cause in 5 years. I have hopes that it may happen sooner, but I have become a jaded idealist when it comes to good ideas being found, even on the Internet, and implemented.

Enough foreplay. The way to help the developing world is to get the worlds financial system to allow sending and receiving money throughout the world at a low cost that would encourage micropayments.

It's really that simple. You see, by allowing people in the developing world to receive money, the developing world can subsidize its own development. How? Why, the same way that the developed world did it - hopefully the developing world will even learning from the mistakes that the developed world has made. If you're more comfortable talking about the Global North and the Global South, go for it.

As it is, you see, just about all the money that enters the developing world comes through the hands of middle men. These middle men, be they philanthropists or the puppets of philanthropists, be they government employees or non-profits, are just taking way too much money to get money to the developing world. And it should be able to done much easier.

After all, we have a global banking system with some really sharp people - so sharp that they sold bad debts to other smart people and bubbled it while playing the economic version of ping pong. The more volleys, the bigger the bubble. The bigger the bubble, the more noticeable the burst. The more noticeable the burst - and here's where I show how dumb I am - the more likely American taxpayers will bail out the smart people who obviously saw the whole thing coming and expected the U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill. Genius! The banking system strategy has always been to use other people's money - and there it was again. They deserve those fat bonuses because they are true jedi when it comes to making money off of other people's money - and you, poor sods, deserve to be bent over and mined endoscopically (spell-check says that isn't a word. Friggy diggy.) for your valuables.

So the banking system, globally and all the way down to the lowly credit union, needs to become aligned with Web 2.0. Aligning with Web 1.0 might be a good start, but lets jump to Web 2.0. In social media speak, developing nations are completely 1.0 with developing nations: They broadcast but do not discuss. It's actually quite common on the internet as well, but I'm writing about money. Developed nations find ways to receive money from developing nations but they haven't worked too hard on ways of sending money to developed nations. We could take PayPal as an example, but it's larger than Paypal.

Random question: Where are the largest banks in the world headquartered? Think about it. Look at this list. If these banks were doing their jobs, Paypal wouldn't even be in business! Imagine that.

But year after year, decade after decade, without even considering why administrative costs for funneling money to the developing world is so high, another group of geniuses intent on tax breaks and a warm fuzzy feeling continue to send and spend money to... help the developing world. But by ignoring the problem, they do not allow the developing world to subsidize its own development.

I'm not saying that everyone in the developing world will make things that people in the developed nations will want - that's impossible. But there's a good chance that some will. And suddenly new markets will open, perhaps small niche markets will be the majority, but there may be a few big markets that open up.

But all the worlds bankers, philanthropists, liberals, vegans (might as well toss them in), conservatives, non-profits, governments and whoever else stare at this problem every day and haven't actually done anything about it. Bill Gates can spend a bazillion dollars on paying IV to zap mosquitoes with a laser in a fish tank based on their species (really!), but what has he done for assuring that people can send and receive micropayments? That's just one example.

The global financial system should be as equal to people as their human rights are supposed to be. But since this isn't the case, the genius bankers keep getting big bonuses, the developing world provides employment to developed nations and the developing nations trail behind at the mercy of the banks.

So maybe in 5 years, someone will bring this up at an important meeting. And maybe someone will get it then.

Until then, I suppose the best thing for people in developing nations to do is move to the developed world and start non-profits. At least that way they can collect micropayments. Maybe even... disburse them. There's a big hint.