An Awesome Dip In The Waters Of The South Atlantic
No trip to a nearly-coastal city would be complete without a trip to the beach!Guaruja is 2 hours northeast of Sao Paulo, on the other side of some beautiful mountain ranges (and a valley of steel mills reminiscent of our own lovely Gary, Indiana, in between).
Left to Right: Ireni, baby Daniel Mota (in the stroller), Perry, Mrs. Mota (Paulo’s mother), Alan, Melody, and Laura holding Tiffany (Jimenez)
The beach was beautiful, the sky was clear, The moon was full, the tide was at its highest, and huge salty waves came rolling in with chaotic regularity.
(And it was 36 degrees F back home in Chicago.)
The coast had nearly white sand and was lined with tall condos and hotels.Food vendors, selling coca-cola, beer, Guarana (a popular Brazilian soft drink), coconut milk, pastels (doughy bread pockets filled with cheese, fried) and shrimp were stationed there.One of them helped us set up our umbrellas and lawn chairs in exchange for our promise to buy our drinks only from him. Another guy came buy with a can full of hot coals and roasted a chunk of salty white cheese until it was golden brown. He charged $1.20 and it was better than anything I’ve had at TGI Fridays!
Getting To Know Some Business Owners In Brazil
I spent Thursday night and most of Friday meeting with some business customers in Brazil and got their view of life. Both of them are successful and one of them also owns a business in the US.We talked about the differences between the two countries and about industry and the economy. The (couple) who owns businesses in both countries (He’s from Brazil and she’s from the US) each almost have a love/hate relationship with both countries, you could say.Brazilians are so wonderfully friendly yet so undependable. It’s so hard to get things done, she says, but they’re not doing that to spite you.It’s just the way they are. For him, doing business in the US: "Those stupid, cold-hearted gringos!!! so competent and efficient yet so…" and on it goes.Nobody’s perfect, eh?
Visit to an Orphanage
On Saturday we decided to visit an orphanage near Embu-Guacu which is a short distance south of SP. Alan and Melody told us that anything we could bring with us in terms of supplies would be welcome and useful.So we went to a grocery store and grabbed school supplies, toiletries and a few other miscellaneous items and went to the orphanage. They care for about 20 kids there (ranging from 4 years old to upper teens) and are operated by a Christian organization called BSF. They were quite happy to get everything we brought as they are only funded by private donations.It looked like a pleasant place and the kids were loved and well taken care of. But it ain’t like having real parents, though!
Corruption in Brazil: Bill Clinton’s A Choirboy Compared To These People!
We heard interesting stories about corruption in Brazil.For example, the former President’s wife embezzled 1 BILLION (!!!) dollars from none other than a children’s relief fund and deposited it in foreign banks. As I understand, the same couple is still active in Brazilian politics and is now the governor of a state.Alan told me about a bus driver, making $600 a month, whose wife was elected to the city council and had responsibility for security in public buildings. She fired the incumbent security companies and her husband started one and was given the contract, while still working as a bus driver. During the first year they took in $2 million. He played his hand too freely and got it slapped. When interviewed by reporters, and asked how he got all that money, he simply replied, "I made all that money by working really really hard driving my bus."
In Brazil everyone’s on the take and that’s simply what everyone expects.The current President is considered to be a pretty good guy, despite the fact that he’s made out with at least $100 million of public funds. As long as he shows reasonable respect and concern for the people, most of the time, he’s operating within normal bounds for a Brazilian politician. If he takes something for himself that’s par for the course.
This thinking permeates every level of society.And of course when everyone takes as much as they can get away with, no wonder you have fabulously rich people living in high-rises, with a patchwork slums built around them and a fairly small ‘middle class’.It also explains why, despite the extreme friendliness and hospitatlity of Brazilians (even the poor people we visited offered us things to eat and drink) there are 22 murders per day.
Are Brazilians Poor Because Americans Are "Rich"?
A decade ago I was well aware that many people lived in poverty etc.etc. and I sort of thought that they were poor because I was ‘rich.’ But that is not true.Let me explain why.
Many (most?) people think that business economics is a "zero sum game" where every time someone wins, somebody else loses.I think this belief is really at the root of socialism.But think about this: Today we have telephones, cars, computers, modern agriculture and medicine, skyscrapers, and everything else that comprises the modern world. We didn’t have any of this stuff 100 years ago.
So who did we steal it from?
We didn’t steal it from anyone.
It was created, purely by the imagination and tools of creative and industrious people. And every one of those things enables people, in one way or another, to do more with less effort– Instead of using their own effort or even using someone else’s effort.
Dividing Up The Existing Pie vs. Baking A New One
Intel makes Pentium chips out of sand. They turn around and sell the chips for $500.00, and I promise you nobody misses the sand.You might say they’re a "value added distributor of sand." They take something that’s nearly worthless and scratch patterns into the crystals and suddenly it’s worth $500.They create wealth. And They don’t take anything from anyone, per se, to do so.
The amazing thing is that a person who has a computer with that chip in it can do a zillion things faster and more easily than without. He or she can send emails to 50 people instantly with the touch of a button or publish something on the web (like I’m doing now) and never waste a single piece of paper. It multiplies productivity. More results for less effort.
Poor people either don’t have tools or don’t know how to use them. They always get less results with more effort.The people who do succeed, succeed at their expense. But the real issue is: The old saying about giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish.
So just because you or I have things does not harm those who don’t.Actually, if you and I were poor they would probably be even poorer. Everyone talks about how terrible the 20th century is, but in actual fact the world has never been better off. We just have this problem of how to help those who are on the bottom of the heap help themselves.