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*How true.....look at us...*
Great article! So parents, make sure you don't spoil your children by giving
them too much. Spend your children's inheritence if your children are all
independent and working.
*Read this more to understand Bumiputra in Malaysia*
*Compare this with Singapore.*
*Why Israel wasn't blessed with an abundance of oil*
Jews used to joke in a semi-serious sigh, if only Moses would've had a
better sense of direction and turned right instead of left, we could have
been heirs to all those precious oilfields in the Middle East . Instead we
got Israel , and the most even God could say about it is that it's a land
flowing with milk and honey.
If we are really God's chosen people, why did He allot the most valuable
natural resources to our neighbors? Why did the Arabs get the oil while we
got stuck with so much sand and desert?
It's a puzzle that has perplexed us for years. But thanks to some remarkable
findings by economists and social scientists, we've discovered an answer: it
was divine providence that protected us from what Richard Auty labels “the
curse of natural resources.”
It seems, as a great deal of research now proves, countries rich in natural
resources bear a burden that ends up stifling real growth and prosperity for
its people. As counter intuitive as it may seem, there is a link between
abundance of natural resources and poor economic development. Petroleum
producing countries are an excellent example. From 1965 to 1998 gross
national product per capita in OPEC countries decreased on average by 1.3%
while in the rest of the developing world per capita growth was on average
2.2%.
It is precisely in the countries that are beneficiaries of the largest
resources that poverty and misery reign as war and violence run rampant.
Oxford professor and World Bank economist Paul Collier has calculated the
probability of civil war in such countries. His conclusion is that in a
country that doesn't dispose of substantial natural resources, the risk is
only as high as a half-percent. In countries that depend mainly on natural
resources, on the other hand, the probability rises to 23 percent. Raw
materials are "the most significant risk factor" for a community, according
to Collie! r -- mor e important than historical, geographic or ethnic
factors.
Terry Lynn Karl, a political science professor at Stanford University and
the author of *The Paradox of Plenty *shows how the populations of poor
countries like Nigeria often get poorer after oil is discovered and a tiny
elite benefits. “Countries with a history of conflict,” he writes, “have
perverse effects from mineral wealth -- more war, more corruption, less
democracy and more inequality.”
In the past few weeks commentators have discussed the effects of this “curse
of plenty” as it looms in the future for Afghanistan . Taking everyone by
surprise it's just been discovered that there is approximately a $1 trillion
worth of minerals beneath this seeming wasteland. So what does this mean for
the country and its inhabitants? Many experts in third world resource
politics argue that almost certainly it portends only bad things to come.
Warlords and tribal chieftains will almost surely now have reason to fight
for many decades to come because the treasures of victory are so enticing. A
land flowing with titanium is not destined for tranquility.
And it isn't only conflict over newfound wealth that explains why a surfeit
of natural resources so often ends up being a curse instead of a blessing.
When countries have riches readily available just for the taking under their
feet they are not really motivated to make maximum use of their brains.
Ingenuity is the product of need; resourcefulness, initiative and
inventiveness are the ways people who have to struggle for prosperity grow
to greatness.
Countries are a lot like people. Children born into extreme wealth, never
having had to exert themselves to be surrounded by luxury, all too often end
up as nonproductive playboys who contribute nothing to the world round about
them. They live life as parasites, reaping the benefits of unearned riches
without feeling the need to make any pe personal payments or contributions
in return. Small wonder that two of the richest men in the world, Warren
Buffett and Bill Gates, have made clear they want to give away most of their
fortunes during their lifetime so that they do not burden their children
with what they've called “the curse of having too much.”
So too, countries whose gifts of natural resources are so plentiful that not
much is expected of its inhabitants don't encourage their people to develop
as productive human beings. Their wealth dooms them to human stagnation.
Easy money creates lazy people. Affluence without effort is a surefire
recipe for the decline of a people, a culture and a civilization.
Just imagine if in 1948 Jews would have come to a land welcoming them with
the oil reserves of their neighboring Saudi Arabia . We would never have
seen the creation of the country that is a world leader in so many areas of
scientific achievement, of medical breakthroughs, of pioneering
accomplishments that are nothing short of miraculous. Without oil, Israelis
realized that they had to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows --
and their brows of course were the place they kept their brains.
*
MILK AND HONEY*
That's why, in retrospect, the greatest blessing of Israel is that it wasn't
cursed with an overabundance of resources that would make intelligence and
brainpower unnecessary. All God chose to give us were milk and honey. Not
because these are the two most valuable items in the world but because they
are the metaphors for the true blessings of life.
Milk is the first food we imbibed from our mothers. It came as an expression
of the greatest love possible, a gift of self. And what it gave us that made
it so precious was that it fulfilled our most basic wants. As a child every
one of us was content with milk. Only as we grew older did we confuse greed
with need. God gave us a land “flowing with milk” to remind us that out of
his great love He made sure we wouldn't ever be deprived of what is really
essential for our well-being.
And then God made the Promised Land grant his people the gift of abundant
honey -- the symbol of sweetness that makes life worth living. Material
blessings don't necessarily bring joy. Millions of dollars don't
automatically assure blissful lives. The land of Israel however was granted
the divine ability to make its inhabitants happy.
*
Human need of meaning. Sweet lives are the result of spiritual fulfillment.
So God promises us that he will nurse us with the milk of his mother love
and sustain us with the honeyed sweetness of his constant care and concern.*
And who wouldn't trade that for all the oil in the world?
