Hello folks, I saw this article on someone's facebook wall and decided to bring it here because there's a fundamental flaw I noticed in this facebook post. Here's the article.
THE POOR, THE RICH AND THE BANK
A bank is a broker between the poor and the rich. The common place where the poor and the rich meet is the bank. The poor brings money in the form of savings. The rich takes it through borrowing. A poor person saves the money because they have more money than their thinking capacity. They keep the money in the bank so that they can go and think of what to do with the money they have saved. On the other side, the rich people come to pick that money through borrowing because they have more ideas than the money they have. On a practical side, please who can show me one billionaire who got rich through saving. I will show you a million Africans who have money saved in the banks and are still renting the houses that the millionaires and billionaires built through the poor people's savings which the rich borrowed from the bank. I have now realised that the best savings and interests are acquired through investments and not savings. It will surprise you that the only money that the rich allow in their account is minimum balance to keep it alive. Every cash they have is seen on one investment or another. Decide today to remove that money from your account (savings) and look for an investment to reap twice in due course.
On the surface, this write up is, to say the least apt. But there's something about the write up that I find totally awkward. First of all, it is out of place to downplay the importance of savings culture in a bid to promote investing. The poster took time to do a comparative analysis of savings and investment. But is there any basis for the comparison? Telling someone to bypass saving and jump into investing is like telling a newborn to bypass crawling and start running. A newborn must crawl first before walking, then running. The same applies to the journey to financial security. If you're starting from the scratch, the first step is to get a job, the next step is to save a sizeable proportion of your income. After accumulating a reasonable amount in your savings, you can then put it in an investment vehicle that you fully understand, be it real estate, retail business, paper assets and so on. The important thing is to make sure that you have a deep understanding of the investment vehicle you're putting your money. So saving is a very important step to financial security. I can remember my childhood days when we used to have saving challenge between me and my brother. It's a joyful moment when I open my Kolo and see how much I was able to put together. Nowadays, it's difficult, nay impossible to see young ones talk about saving. Every penny they get is used for sports betting. Everybody is thinking about how to use 100 naira to place a bet and win millions. This can be attributed to the get-rich-quick mindset of this age.
To be sincere, banks don't lend money to people without savings. Don't let all those online entrepreneurs and motivational speakers deceive you to believe that you can just walk into a bank and get a loan to fund your start up. Some years back, I went to a microfinance bank to get a loan for my start up. But their manager told me plainly that they don't fund business ideas. They only support existing businesses. He said that for me to qualify for a loan, I must have an account with them. Then after six months, they'll check my cashflow and then determine if I'm qualified for a loan. In other words, they're going to check my earnings and saving capacity within the six months probation period before they can lend me money. You see how the system works. So if you can't save, you can't get loans from banks. Don't let motivational speakers deceive you with examples of the Dangotes and Bill Gates of this world.
In summary, savings has not gone out of fashion. It's a very important step towards financial security. But one important thing is to allocate a part of your savings for investing. For those that are still saving, kudos to you and keep it up. For others that are yet to start, please put it into consideration. Gracias!!!
