How to spend $700,000?<\/p>\n
There was once a minister in the federal government of a country.\u00a0 He had a wealthy friend.\u00a0 There was also a retired provincial legislator in the same country.\u00a0 Collectively they had about $700,000 (the minister $100,000; the friend $400,000, and the legislator $200,000) to spend and wanted to find that special something that would give the best return.<\/p>\n
They looked into real estate.\u00a0 The global economy was down. \u00a0Almost anywhere in the world, one could find bargain properties at 25%-50% of what they were going for 2 to 3 years ago.\u00a0 Land was still the most secure investment, and prices were bound to rise again \u2013 all part of the natural 10-12 year cycle. \u00a0But they realized they already had extensive real estate portfolio.\u00a0 They were in a quandary.<\/p>\n
What to do?\u00a0 As they brainstormed, one of them blurted out \u2013 we should consider supporting some sort of humanitarian cause.\u00a0 Everyone looked at him strangely.\u00a0 What would be the return on that?\u00a0 Well, maybe not so tangible, and not so overt.\u00a0 But it could make a dent in the seemingly hopeless efforts to improve and better develop the foundations of the society they lived in.<\/p>\n
Why would we want to do that? The others asked at first, but somehow ended up also getting infected.\u00a0 In a moment of weakness, they felt the pain of their country in their hearts.\u00a0 As they shared some kind of trance, number and statistics danced in front of their eyes. \u00a0The per capita income of $1,256 in 2011-12, slightly up from $1,207 in 2010-11.\u00a0 The \u2018official\u2019 19% inflation rate in 2011.\u00a0 The average life expectancy of 65 years.\u00a0 The infant mortality rate of 59 per thousand births.\u00a0 It brought a single, powerful, collective tear to their eyes.<\/p>\n
Unable to stop themselves, they started talking about the NGOs that could benefit from the $700,000.\u00a0 But which one?\u00a0 They looked at Wikipedia and found over 500 listed.\u00a0 They were overwhelmed and gave up when many on the list did not even have active links.\u00a0 Their hearts were burdened even more.\u00a0 (I know it is incredulous, but please stay with me).<\/p>\n
A flash of light.\u00a0 The Edhi foundation!\u00a0 They could cover 70% of the cost of the additional Edhi homes for the destitute and orphans to be built over the next few years.\u00a0 Or they could spend $500,000 and fully cover the cost of the additional rehab centers and ambulances the foundation needed.\u00a0 Well, it was a good idea, but they argued that the Edhi foundation was too big and well known.\u00a0 Their names would just be lost against Edhi\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Who else could they help?\u00a0 They could donate the $700,000 to the SOS Children\u2019s village to cover 70% of the cost of building a village of 15 families.\u00a0 Or they could give it to Developments In Literacy, and provide education for 7000 children for a year.\u00a0 They were on the site, ready to make a donation.\u00a0 They just had to press enter.<\/p>\n
That is when one of them brought up the crude, deragatory movie that what\u2019s-his-name made in California. \u00a0We need to do something about that, he said.\u00a0 We cannot let them get away with it. \u00a0They all agreed.\u00a0 But what can we do?\u00a0 They have insulted our prophet and our religion.\u00a0 We must get satisfaction!\u00a0 How about we use the $700,000 to put a bounty on the guy who made the movie. \u00a0\u00a0What a great idea!\u00a0 They all slapped each other on the backs.\u00a0 Let\u2019s do it.\u00a0 It\u2019s fool-proof!\u00a0 We will be all over the newspapers, people won\u2019t be able to stop talking about us (ironic, isn\u2019t it?), we will never have to spend that money, and after all this is the best way to honor our religion, and to educate the world about who we are and what we stand for.\u00a0 And certainly, there is no doubt that God will be pleased with this and will give us more rewards than we can count.<\/p>\n
Right.\u00a0 That is what God would want.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to spend $700,000? There was once a minister in the federal government of a country.\u00a0 He had a wealthy friend.\u00a0 There was also a retired provincial legislator in the same country.\u00a0 Collectively they had about $700,000 (the minister $100,000; the friend $400,000, and the legislator $200,000) to spend and wanted to find that special […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zulfiqarblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}