March 10, 2019 Sunday
Bedtime Story
"There ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch"
Last night I had left you with the very
famous American saying, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
If there is one lesson that every parent
ought to teach his child or children first is this one as it is a universal
truth that will guide him/her till his/her very death.
While this idea is perhaps better known for
its core applicability in the economic sustainability our very universe
displays it all the time.
The universe as far as we know it is a
closed system thermodynamically.
What it means or rather how it applies to
the universe is that there is no source of matter, energy or light that draws
resources from something else which will not eventually be exhausted.
For this very reason even the so called
nonprofit organizations or not-for-profit organizations too have to make a
profit in order to be sustainable.
They need to be as fiscally prudent and
financially responsible as in other business with the only difference being
that they may claim to keep the mission motive on a higher plane than profit
motive or self interest.
Unlike business they may not seek to
maximize their profits but it would be to their benefit to do so as long as
their mission motive is not compromised.
It is always the balancing part between the
two that is a test of right balance between human greed and morality.
The other misconception that is commonly
held by the masses about nonprofit organizations is that they are run
completely by volunteers (which means they are not paid any salary or even a
compensation for their work).
This is once again as far from true as it
gets as most nonprofits employ staff that work for a company and are paid as any
company would do.
Any organization including the nonprofit
ones is under the pressure to be more businesslike.
As the American economist Milton Friedman
had put it - greed and self-interest are universal human traits.
One can even go further and state that self-interest
is a universal trait of any individual of any species.
Dawkins went even further and argued that “the
fundamental unit of selection, and therefore of self-interest, is not the
species, nor the group, nor even strictly the individual.
It is the gene, the unit of heredity.”
The national Board of Medical Examiners - in
the same vein – is a not-for-profit organization with lofty public goals still
has to run like a business.
And it seems to be doing so with great
success since its foundation in 1915.
The amount of money its president Donald E.
Melnick was paid as compensation would shock you.
It is a public data since being tax exempt
it has to be disclosed in the Form 990.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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