Poverty
Photo from UNIAN - caption is that girl collects money from fountain by the Sports Palace which tonight will present the Holiday concert which is being financially supported by President Yushchenko. Daytime temp. of Kyiv is close to freezing.
"Novynar, the Ukrainian-language sister publication of the Kyiv Post, named the top-15 Ukrainian philanthropists of 2007 in its first ever Philanthropist ratings published on Dec. 17. Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law to former president Leonid Kuchma, was rated as the most generous philanthropist of the year, giving a total of Hr 103.5 million ($20.7 million) to culture and health services charities.The list of the top 15 philanthropists included well-known business and entertainment figures, as well as politicians, who gave money for a range of charitable causes, including education, assistance to children, cultural preservation, health services and AIDS prevention. Others ranked in the top five included Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov (2), who gave Hr 78.8 million ($15.76 million) in 2007, industrialist Serhiy Taruta (3) with Hr 30 million ($6 million), lawmaker and businessman Oleksandr Feldman (4), with Hr 11 million ($2.2 million) and Kuchma’s daughter Olena Franchuk (5), with Hr 7.9 million ($1.58 million). Franchuk is married to Pinchuk." (Kyiv Post article entitled "Businesses Embrace Charity Despite Tax Hurdles")
This is interesting because whereas there is a movement in Western countries to rethink the politics of Caritas, generosity, welfare, etc. it is being lauded in Ukraine. But if it is based on corruption, connections, monopolism or theft is it charity? How much comes from the heart or is it an attempt to engage in a minute redistribution of wealth so that is protected from seizure by legal structures or to prevent tax reform?
IIU
"Dniproenergo", a company which is part of SCM Group received a 7,000 UAH fine (around $1,400) for being a monopoly. (UNIAN) btw Donbas Fuel and Energy Company (another company within SCM Group) just recently signed a memo of agreement with USAID to "providing methodical and consultative support to municipal councils of the cities hosting the company's enterprises in the drafting of strategic plans for economic development at the local level, and improvement of investment climate."
IIU
"Ukraine's highest financial court will look into a deal raising the stake of the country's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, in Dniproenergo DNEN.PFT, which had been overturned by a lower court, the power company said on Monday.
Shareholders in the country's leading electricity producer decided in August to increase its share capital, which would have effectively reduced the government's stake to 50 percent plus one share. Akhmetov stood to raise his stake to 40 percent." (Reuters)
IIU
in 01) Economics and Finance, 22) The Courts and Judicial Issues
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Reader Comments (12)
But continue to remind folks of how they can't take it with them and that to truly love their neighbors is to give them the right to have a voice in decision-making, potentially in opposition to yourself, and to compromise/love their opponents, particularly when they cd simply manipulate things to their advantage.
dlw
How much more could have been gained via livable wages, a thriving economy that allows for a rising middle class, ease of starting new businesses, a real fight on corruption, reforming the tax code, jailing criminals, etc.? Good governance is its own reward esp. to its own citizens. It provides the difference between living and just surviving.
But one can both cultivate social pressure on the wealthy to be philanthropic and press for the sorts of social reforms that you mentioned. The latter will generally require "less resistance" from the wealthy than they could give to be established.
dlw
If someone relieved you and your family of your worldly possessions and then gave you back 3 percent of their value, would you be glad about it? Would you be glad to work for a slave wage? If so, you can move to Ukraine anytime.
That does not change the fact that the rich will always be with us and that socialist european gov'ts have not succeeded in building utopias. We se in France that the practice of gov't strongly redistributing income has floundered.
My ideal approach is to love the sinner, hate the sin in hopes of mitigating class warfare over the capture of the state. In my view, politics/class warfare is something that the wealthy will always tend to have an advantage at. I think instead we shd target modest political reforms, not unlike those championed by John R Commons in the US in the early 20th ctry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Commons
I then think we must also persuade those who gained their wealth through theft to follow Zacchaeus(http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=49&chapter=19&verse=8&version=31&context=verse) in voluntarily redistributing their wealth.
So even if the philanthropy of these wealthy folks is a relative pittance, it is a start and something that can be built on, as honest folks like you continue to remember and point to how such wealth, though protected as private property in your developing legal system, was gained in ways that brought significant hardship to many.
dlw
dlw
And if all property is theft, then you should gradually get rid of the Ten Commandments and just about every other law you have in your country. Maybe that would give you a little taste of how glad I feel about your gradualism.
I never said how gradual, nor claimed I was the final word in this regard, and I've always believed in the need for long-term commitments to change/vigilance, but you are right it's your country and not mine...
dlw
If you moved to Kyiv as a professor of economics, you'd make about $400-500 a month. Which would not even buy you the dignity of a month's rent in a sleazy single-room apartment, assuming, of course, you'd like some junk food, too.
I'm sure that a similar job in Paris, Berlin, or Copenhagen would provide you with a more decent living.
So I stand reproved and still a believer that gradualism and changing hearts have been the only sustainable means of reform, though what is too much or not enough "change" is easily subject to selective perception and manipulation. I also agree that many who claim to be "philanthropists" are phonies who give back (somewhat) what they have taken with the one hand. My implied position above is that without the social pressure to philanthropy they wd still be thiefs and able to, by and large, get away with it.