Reflections on the essence of poverty

When it comes to poverty, our first reaction is: no money.

Before listening to the book, I always thought that the book "The Essence of Poverty" would teach us how to get rid of poverty, but after listening to it, I had another feeling: the poor are more likely to be poor, and the rich are more likely to be rich. This seems to be less relevant to the answer we are looking for, and even a little disappointed. Is it really impossible to find a way to make the poor rich?

We often think that poverty is due to laziness. Huawei used to have a manager who went to Kenya on business. At that time, the project needed some people to help dig ditches. He met local people and asked him to borrow a ruler, wondering what they were going to do. After lending them a ruler, I found that they contracted a ditch of 5 meters, but they were unwilling to dig 5 meters (they can dig 5 meters a day). They want to dig 25 meters each, and they don't have a ruler, for fear that the quantity will not be allowed to suffer. So I watched them each measure 2.5 meters, and then began to work. After half a day's digging, they got enough money to buy a day's bread for their family. This story shocked me very much. Too lazy. Digging 5 meters is not enough for two days? Given the opportunity to work, they still work like monks every day. Is that poverty caused by laziness?

I don't know how many of us are rural children now. I still deeply remember that when I was a child, my uncles and aunts in our village were busy in the fields all year round and harvested twice a year. Besides planting, they also do many other jobs, such as raising pigs, cows, chickens and ducks, carpentry, weaving basket chairs and bricklayers. They are famous for their diligence, but a year later, many families still can't make up the tuition for their children.

Teacher Fan Deng also talked about a rich man in Hong Kong. He thought that the poor should start their own businesses and start from the bottom. However, a few months later, he collapsed. He has no spare money to make any investment at all, and even has difficulty in surviving. His time is occupied by the problem of survival and he is under heavy pressure every day. He has been working hard, but he still can't get rid of this vicious circle of poverty trap.

Obviously, laziness may be the cause of people's poverty, but diligence is not necessarily the way to get rid of poverty.

This book explores several reasons why people are poor for us:

1, the poor lack access to information.

Asymmetric information will lead to the gap between the rich and the poor, and the rich will have more opportunities to get rich. They are avant-garde, superior in material environment and rich in network resources. Rich people are more likely to become partners and friends of rich people because they can bring value to each other. In the world of the poor, their information is blocked and their resources are unwilling to share. They don't know what the vaccine does. They don't know whether education can bring good news to their poverty. They don't understand that poverty is not a state, but a cycle. (Moonlight clan, credit repayment)

2. The poor advocate "Life is short, eat, drink and be merry" and make mistakes.

select

This kind of thinking that "life is too short to eat, drink and be merry in time" makes the poor more irrational, superficial and unplanned. We can see a phenomenon mentioned by the author: when the poor choose food, they pay more attention to the happiness brought by food rather than nutrition, which leads to malnutrition, emaciation, inability to work and meager income because of the wrong choice of food. The poor will not choose cheap prevention, but spend money on expensive treatment. When choosing a commodity, the poor consider not its practical value, but whether it has entertainment value. As the book says, you can have TV sets, mobile phones and other products to enjoy when you are not full.

The world is more unfriendly to the poor.

Banks can't lend to the poor, because the poor's credit can't be guaranteed, and the loan may go bad every minute; However, the needs of the poor are still there, and small-scale operations also need capital. Therefore, various usury companies targeting the poor have taken root everywhere, with an annualized rate of 40% low, but they still don't trust their customers. As the article said, you borrowed $5, but after a year of fermentation, you need to repay nearly 1 100 million.

So how can we get rid of poverty? According to the logic in the book, I summarized the following three points.

1, strengthen confidence.

I believe that only by believing can it be realized. Just as we must believe in love, only by believing can we have love. There is a joke that Wang Sicong's father gave him 500 million yuan, and he earned 4 billion yuan, an increase of 8 times. My dad gave me 5 yuan, I bought a pair of gloves and earned 200 yuan, 40 times! Then am I not more forced than Wang Si? Jin Ran is a pen. But what can be proved is that we should hold our dreams, strengthen our confidence and work hard for them. What if one day our dreams come true?

2. Diligence and thrift.

Wealth needs to be accumulated, and only after a certain primitive accumulation can money accelerate the generation of money. Just as the poor like to buy some worthless luxury goods, it is better to delay our happiness than to enjoy the infinite flow in the later period too early.

3. Improve yourself and broaden your horizons.

The book says that education is possible to get rid of poverty. Of course, self-improvement depends not only on academic qualifications, but also on a self-driven heart. Whether it is knowledge, health or interpersonal skills, we strive for it ourselves. If we don't study, we will be ignorant. If we don't exercise, we will get sick. If we don't make friends.

I have finished my personal views. Thank the organizers for their hard work, and thank the book lovers for their patience.