Friday, July 17, 2009

Pssst…wanna be a millionaire (or, where are Bill Gates's dollars going)?

First, you set up a small charity, and pretend to help the poor. After a year or so, you set up a central committee…consisting entirely of your family members (make sure your cousins have different last names)…then you wait another year.

Then you approach an NGO like ActionAid and ask for a small donation. The donor obliges, since you are tight with the staff.


Here comes the beauty part: then, using your modest capital, you buy controlling shares in a company: you may not own the company, but you are effectively the owner.

So now you control a lot more capital than before: of course it helps no end if you are already the top man at the company, but that's not always important.

Now, with control over the firms' capital, you buy the controlling shares in another company, and acquire control of more capital.

Meanwhile, you and your relatives take out very modest salaries on your little NGO…but are making enormous money on the side.


That's where Bill Gates's money comes in. Naturally, there are many entrepreneurs – I mean, philanthropists – like you by now. You form a net, a network.
Bill (or whoever the idiot may be) has no option but to operate through the mafia…I mean the network.

Voila!

The number of NGOs getting into commercial activity is beginning to be significant. I once checked into a hotel where I had often been before…and then I found that the unit had been taken over by an NGO called TMSS (Thangamari Mahila Sabuj Sangha). The tariff had gone up…and the service had jumped off a cliff.

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