How to Help the Poor

John Stossel on how rich business leaders can help the poor…

Great business creators like Duncan and Turner waste their skills if they just give money away. They do more for the world by creating businesses. Turner started with 12 employees. By the time he merged CNN with Time Warner, he employed 12,000 people.

Is there a better way to help the poor than by creating jobs — opportunities for self-improvement? And when businesses make useful products cheaper and more plentiful, that helps the poor more than charity. Discount retailers like Wal-Mart help low-income people tremendously. Would Sam Walton have done as much for the poor by giving all his money to charity? I don’t think so.

No doubt the left will continue to protest against John Stossel for his appeal to the proven benefits of the free-market economy and the Invisible Hand.