10 Ways to Get Rich

I had a brief exchange with brianitus a while back about women in the Philippines, and how women in the cities have more liberated values than women in rural areas. In the cities, many husbands and wives both work, achieving a little better stability in case one loses a job, and improving their income. If they are both professionals, they can build a very good, modern lifestyle

Indeed, this is a perfect example of the Philippines THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. With people being resourceful and thoughtful and modern. Women who accept that they need not be baby factories. Men who accept that the wife is a partner, not a property.

The discussion led me to ponder exactly how poor Filipinos can climb out of poverty on their own initiative. Here’s my list:

1. Pursue a husband/wife partnership with dual income and modern standards of gender equality, family size and education.

2. Study hard in school and supplement the rote education with mind-bending reading that will modernize the way you introspect and organize the way you act.

3. Attend church for spiritual and moral enrichment but use birth control to avoid being dragged down by too many kids. Go to confession once the kids are grown: "Father, I have sinned mightily for the past 20 years . . ."

4. Get a well-to-do foreigner to live next door; the entire neighborhood will somehow step up one rung. Hell, get your daughter to marry one. Or nail an old-timer of your own. He won't live long and he'll give his money to you.

5. Get an education in something that is needed, like call center management or engineering, not hotel and restaurant management or nursing or computers.

6. Form or join a cooperative that employs modern methods of production (like, uses equipment). This applies not only to agriculture, but to construction, fishing and retailing. Get bigger than a Mom and Pop enterprise as fast as you can and make real money.

7. Go to Canada to work. It’s cold but you don’t have to deal with a suppressive culture, and it is a worker’s market, not an employer’s market. That is, you’ll get paid real money. And you will rid yourself of the suppression of the depression of poverty that overlays the Philippines like killer kelp in a warm bay.

8. Learn how to run a business the way Americans do. Planning. Risk assessment. Efficiency. Marketing. Then find a market, a product and an investor. If you are on Biliran Island and have a crisp business plan, contact Joe America for investment backing.

9. Rally to get the Philippines to pass a Fair Employment Act that bans the hiring and promoting of friends, family and favorites over capability. That way you can build a career with promotions and salary increases that recognize the value of your work.

10. Find Yamashita’s treasure or a sunken Spanish galleon.