What’s your money worth

(I feel Budget in India is nothing of interest, for most of the middle class and below, except the direct tax exemptions)

I would like to rewrite here, the article of Ms Mohini Kent on Sunday Times, on the Budget eve.

WEALTH HAS BECOME THE YARDSTICK OF SUCCESS.

“If a man is wealthy,(it means)he is handsome and wise and he can sing well too” it is a Yiddish proverb but it could be applied anywhere in the world, with wealthy people expressing ‘strong’ opinions on everything under the sun. Money seems to confer the highest caste on people and they seen to hold the key to wisdom. we listen to them attentively, hoping some of the magic will rub off on to us.

It is been instrumental in improving our lives and made the world far more democratic because anyone can buy anything today in exchange for a few pieces of paper.

Today,the poor can afford what even the rich found difficult in the past – foreign travel, for instance.

It is one of the major energies of the world, along with sex, although in many cases, the two go together. Even remote tribal who still live in a moneyless world feel the force of money when outsiders use paper currency to buy their land and are granted the right to fell their forests.

So, what do we do? Make money, spend it and enjoy it. In the meantime, it is vital to recognize our relationship with money and how it colors our relationships with others, including those most dear to us. Money is not a piece of printed paper, it has acquired enormous emotional connotations and psychological hues.

Money spells power, control, comfort and security. Fawning friends and the envy of peers makes having money even more satisfying . It gives us a sense of superiority.

Sometimes it seem as if a man’s most enduring love affair is with money, his own money and that of others.

it is an obsession, almost an occult possession by another entity. In its pursuit, men and women can become ruthless, even evil.

Rich men use money to cheat death by trying to buy immortality . some of the foundations they run have less to do with compassion and more to do with their personal wish to perpetuate their names. It’s extremely rare for anyone voluntarily to give up money and power. Andrew Carnegie (Nov25,1835 – Aug 11,1919) was that rare individual. He wondered “what to do with the enormous wealth we have” and wrote that surplus wealth could be disposed off in three ways

1. Left it to the family
2. Bequeathed (willed) for a public purpose
3. Administered in one’s lifetime

Traditionally, people opt for for one of the first two but Carnegie concluded that an individual should “ set an example of unostentatious living; provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him: and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds” to be used for the good of the community. The man of wealth then becomes a trustee and agent for his poor fellowmen.

Carnegie knew all about poverty. He was born in a one-room cottage in Scotland. His family emigrated to America, where he took up his first job at 13 years in a cotton mill. In a classic rags-to-riches story, he built a profitable empire of steel (which later became US Steel) and became the world’s second richest man, after Rockefeller. After some time, Carnegie sold his company and devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy, building more than 3000 libraries, schools and universities in America. He wrote: “The man who dies rich dies disgraced”. By the time he died, he had given away the bulk of his vast fortune.In India JRD Tata did something similar.

Money can bring us joy; it can bring us misery; it can buy us attention, isolate us; binds families or split them. Everyone have to understand money, build a healthy relationship with it, realize its true value and purpose.

Thanks Sunday Times.

I feel In India, we have more Philanthropists. N R Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani come to my mind immediately.

Govt budget alone can not bring in welfare to all the citizens in any country. The rich and the Corporate have a duty to contribute MORE to the Nation.