Yunus versus Rumsfeld

I was listening to a speech given by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. He spoke of a brilliant model, a business that is created with its first priority being social responsibility.

Through microcredit he is lifting the people of Bangladesh out of poverty, one person at a time.

Later I heard Bush praising Rumsfeld on his final day at the Pentagon.

Bush to Rumsfeld, "you're the man"

excerpt: "Ours is also a world of many friends and allies, but sadly, realistically, friends and allies with declining defense investment and declining capabilities and, I would add, as a result, with increasing vulnerabilities," Rumsfeld said. "All of which requires that the United States of America invest more."

Could there possibly be a more glaring contrast in aspirations from two people, investment for social responsibility and bringing people out of poverty versus investment for defense.

The US military budget is in the range of $500 billion per year. Because other countries are not spending more on military budgets, according to Rumsfeld that means the US needs to spend more.

One simple model that people can easily understand about military spending goes like this. You build a bomb. Fine, the technicians are paid, engineers are paid, designers are paid, etc etc, but the bomb just sits there, it doesn't generate anything else on the investment. A bomb is sort of a dead end investment.

Now you take the money that is spent on building a bomb and you spend it on educating the poor. Those people grow and move into society with skills that produce endless benefits. The investment is multiplied many times over.

To be continued...