South Africa is enjoying the first budget surplus in a generation, and the first ever in recorded African history. Should a county have a budget surplus and low budget deficits, low inflation, no debts etc. in a country where you have 25% unemployment and lots of poverty? It's good to have a country's book's balance, but what if a majority is without food. What about the U.S. case where there are large deficits but people relatively well-off?

By Pranay Gupte

"Creative capitalism" was the phrase Bill Gates coined today at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. As if the vast body of literature on economic development didn't already overflow with warm, fuzzy concepts for growth in the 135 countries of what used to be called the Third World. As if catchy but mystifying phrases such as "sustainable human development" (is there "sustainable canine development"?) didn't already clog the playbooks of povertycrats.

"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well," the Microsoft founder, and one of the world's wealthiest people, said. "If we can spend the early decades of the 21st century finding approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce poverty in the world."

He added: "In the coming decades, we will have astonishing new abilities to diagnose illness, heal disease, educate the world's children, create opportunities for the poor, and harness the world's brightest minds to solve our most difficult problems."

Wait a minute. Haven't we heard all this before?

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Interview with Muhammad Yunus (Excerpts)
Managing Director, Grameen Bank
January 23, 2008

This interview was conducted and originally published by www.BigThink.com. View the full interview here.

Capitalism’s Strengths and Weaknesses

“I criticized capitalism for what is lacking in it, but I’m not saying that abundant capitalism . . . There is an alternative here. That’s not what I said. I said capitalism can be improved. I am not asked in my argument that you closed on something as a profit maximizing business, or philanthropy, or free market. I said everything is very positive, but some things missing in the whole structure; and that missing piece has to be installed. That way capitalism will be complete, and it can be a balanced theory fitting to the human nature. And it will address all the problems which is left behind by the incomplete capitalism. So I’m kind of moving from incomplete capitalism to the complete capitalism, or towards completion. Maybe there are other pieces missing. Other people will find it out. But I’m saying a big piece missing because of which we created a lot of problems. We created problems. Not only we created, we don’t have the ability to solve them. So if we complete the capitalism, at least to this stage – the second stage of completion – I will say we will not ___________ them. And existing ones can be addressed and removed.”

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