Can Your Idea Bring Thanksgiving Blessings To The World?

In the 1980s, Mr. Polak’s “new” idea was nearly heretical to the charitable aid community. His idea that business could play a role in undeveloped/developing nations to help lift people out of poverty met with plenty of cold shoulders. The view in the 1980s was that people needed charity in the form of food, sanitation, electricity, and medicine rather than simpler innovations that might lead to skills, jobs, and work. The old idea was that once the desperately poor of the world were provided adequate nutrition, health, and safety that the poor would eventually figure out how to support themselves and lift themselves out of poverty. The old view: it would be unseemly for anyone to make a profit while helping the world’s poorest citizens.

The new view is that so-called charitable food and medicine hand-out schemes are subject to criticism because the organizers of the charities see the needy as victims who are unable to ever support themselves, and who need perpetual care. Critics say that the emphasis on free aid in the developing world results in victims who are “made”, and the self-images that the free aid recipients develop breeds feelings of dependency and inability to help themselves. In contrast, the newer view is that business will treat poor people as workers and customers, empowering them to stand on their own two feet and provide for themselves.

Mr. Polak and Mr. Warwick’s book focuses on the particular challenge of trying to reduce poverty by building businesses that have products or innovations that might serve the 3 billion poorest people in the world—products and services which those people might buy with their own incomes. Polak and Warwick join other thinkers in this idea including a well-known work entitled “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” by C.K. Prahalad. Mr. Prahalad’s book also examined the idea of larger businesses making money while helping the poorest people of the world.

Mr. Polak’s innovations include concepts he calls “zero-based design” and “radical affordability” to appeal to people earning only a couple of dollars a day. The product or service sold need to be deliverable locally, as potential purchasers are unlikely to be on a postal route, let alone in an area with FedEx service. Polak also emphasizes that not only multinational corporations can play a role, but even individual entrepreneurs may have a place in helping the neediest people in the world.

Are You Called To Serve? Will You Act On Your Calling?

So what have you dreamed up that might be useful for the third world? An innovative and portable water filtration/purification method? A “super shoe” that is durable, comfortable, and long lasting? A smartphone application that teaches English? A solar food dehydrator? An affordable drip irrigation system for the small home-garden plot? An efficient, affordable, and durable light fencing material to keep marauding animals out of the subsistence farmer’s family food growing plot upon which the farmer’s family depends upon for much needed income?

If you believe that your idea is more than just an idle thought, and you want to try realize your dream as a real product or service, then one approach that you could take is to present your idea on “kickstarter.com“ in hopes of attracting sufficient “crowdfunding” from people interested in helping bring innovations to aid the world’s poor. I wrote a blog post about kickstarter.com not long ago that may interest you. Simply type “kickstarter” into this website’s search box to find it.

I remember from childhood Sunday School that in Mark 14:7 Jesus said “For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.”

There are 3 billion really poor people on the planet. Do you have an idea or innovation that might improve their lives? Today might be your day to “do good” for some of the world’s poorest citizens.

The Thanksgiving Holiday week is a special week to remember how we have been blessed. And also to think about how we might share our blessings with others.

As we all know, insurance companies want to make billions and billions of dollars. I mean, who doesn’t? What we don’t know is just how they do it. Yes; charge more in premiums and pay less in claims is the trick. But just how do they do that?

Tactic #1: Settle Fast and Cheap.

They push hard and fast—go to your home, take you to lunch, offer you $500 bucks—whatever. Just get a signature and then sit back and enjoy that you just saved them thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.

But if that doesn’t work, well then, welcome to 3D land!

Now I wish I could tell you that this is some sort of fun attraction like an IMAX 3D movie, but no! It’s a notorious way insurance companies wear out injured people and get them to settle their claim for sometimes pennies on the dollar.

Tactic #2: The 3Ds: Delay, Deny, Defend.

You’ve successfully resisted the “shock and awe”, “sign your life away” blitz of the insurance company. You’re feeling pretty good, but now the more devious of practices awaits—delay, delay, delay.

Life happens and the more the insurance company can delay, the tougher it is for you, the injured person, to resist settling for whatever the insurance company will offer. Work is missed, medical bills pile up, and collection notices arrive—all giving the insurance companies leverage to get you to sign on the dotted line.

But you persist, and make it past the delay phase. You’ve been valiant so far—only to find out that the next turn brings you into denial. Yep, they won’t pay your claim! They make up some ridiculous excuse of how you are at fault or were not hurt in the collision and then politely—or not so politely—deny your claim.

They’ve got you where they want you. You’re hurting and your only options are take the insurance companies low ball offer or bring a lawsuit. Yep, the billion dollar insurance company with its legions of lawyers is inviting, tempting you into its playground—the courtroom. “Come fight me, but beware I fight here every day. I know how to defend and defeat you.” This is where many cave and sign on the dotted line.

But that doesn’t have to be you. You don’t have to add to the insurance companies bottom line. When tragedy strikes, seek out a well-qualified injury lawyer and let your attorney take the fight to insurance company and get you what you deserve.

A professional athlete doesn’t go to bat and personally negotiate his own contract. The serious athlete hires a professional, as do musicians and artists, because they know that having a professional fighter on their side against a billion dollar industry is essential.

At the Law Offices of Harold D. Carr, P.S., we have been fighting insurance companies for over 25 years, and have handled more than 10,000 claims. We hold insurance companies responsible, and get injured people what they deserve.

If you are involved in a collision, call us at 800-700-8082 and let us even the playing field for you.