If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is not the same thing as money. Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.

Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn’t need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn’t matter how much money you had.

Wealth is what you want, not money. But if wealth is the important thing, why does everyone talk about making money? It is a kind of shorthand: money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. But they are not the same thing, and unless you plan to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money can make it harder to understand how to make money.

Money is a side effect of specialization. In a specialized society, most of the things you need, you can’t make for yourself. If you want a potato or a pencil or a place to live, you have to get it from someone else.

How do you get the person who grows the potatoes to give you some? By giving him something he wants in return. But you can’t get very far by trading things directly with the people who need them. If you make violins, and none of the local farmers wants one, how will you eat?

The solution societies find, as they get more specialized, is to make the trade into a two-step process. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, silver, which you can then trade again for anything else you need. The intermediate stuff– the medium of exchange– can be anything that’s rare and portable. Historically metals have been the most common, but recently we’ve been using a medium of exchange, called the dollar, that doesn’t physically exist. It works as a medium of exchange, however, because its rarity is guaranteed by the U.S. Government.

The advantage of a medium of exchange is that it makes trade work. The disadvantage is that it tends to obscure what trade really means. People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage– just a shorthand– for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want.

Build wealth, dont just make money!

Regards

Wilbert Chaniwa
Founder
Nexus Business Network

Central banks control the monetary system of the world and determine when business cycles are going to change simply by increasing or decreasing the money supply in the banking system. This small group of powerful insiders know when to sell high and buy low because they determine when the market cycle is going to change. What has just happened with oil and gold prices is an example of the power brokers who rule the world.

When Cecil john Rhodes died, he left a series of wills in which he wanted to set up a secret “society of the just”, based on the Jesuit Society, to carry out his vision of a world united under British rule. Interestingly enough, he worked very closely with the British and French Rothschild families to finance the merger and consolidation of all the various South African diamond and gold concessions. One of his directives was to educate well selected men (and recently, women) from key colleges and universities from around the world, in the philosophy of bringing the world under British rule. These people are known as “Rhodes Scholars” and include former President Clinton and many others in government.
Regarding the power of central banks, if you will take a piece of paper money out of your wallet — any denomination — you will see these words, “Federal Reserve Note — This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” You might ask yourself why the paper money does not state that it is a note from the Treasury of the United States? If the Federal Reserve is not the Treasury, what is it? The Federal Reserve is a “central bank.” To put it in every day terms, it is a private corporation which claims to provide a service to the people of the United States by providing the money used in our banking system.

When Congress refused to renew the Bank’s charter in 1811, the War of 1812 ensued, and in 1816 Congress re-chartered the bank with a capital stock of $35M. “From 1816 to 1828, it was the sole arbiter of the financial affairs of the nation, both public and private. Its power in politics was immense and it swayed elections as well” (Walbert, 11).
Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce….and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

Needless to say, the move to re-establish control over the economy of the United States did not abate. Between 1840 and 1913, there was much done to try and re-establish a private corporation to control our monetary system.
Three years later in 1913, the central bankers took action. This time the people involved in this effort included some of the wealthiest people in America: Senator Nelson Aldrich (grandfather of David Rockefeller); Jacob Schiff and Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, an international banking house; Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Henry P. Davidson, Senior Partner of J.P. Morgan & Company; Charles D. Norton, and Frank Vanderlip, President of National City Bank which today is CitiGroup. The passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was done through chicanery. Those in the Senate who favored the Act did not go home while those that were against it went home for Christmas. In a special session convened with quorum, the Act passed at 11:45 p.m. on December 24, 1913 — an evil act of bondage for the American people.

Today, only five countries in the world are without a central bank: Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba and Libya. All of these just happen to be on former US Presidents George Bush’s “Evil of Axis” list.

So the question begs. What was the real reason for the recent Global Financial Meltdown. Look closer at the companies involved and the history, and the picture will become clearer.

Regards

Wilbert Chaniwa
Founder
Nexus Business Network

1. Do Not Blame – the first step is to acknowledge that whatever happens in an individuals or a nations life is as a result of whatever action would have been taken by that individual or nation. Blaming does not solve any problems. One needs to take responsibility and make your problems your own. Do not wait for someone to come and solve your problems. Brainstorm and come up with solutions to Africa’s problems that do not include Handouts

2. Equip Yourself For Economic War – Education is the most lethal weapon to win the war against Economic colonization. Education gives you a skill that you can sell in exchange for remuneration. The more you know, the better you understand. It’s very important to know how money is made and managed. Financial Literacy is a must

3. Embrace Capitalism - Capitalism generally refers to an Economic System in which the means of production are all or mostly privately owned and operated for profit, and in which, investment ,distribution ,income ,production and pricing of services are determined through the operation of a market economy. This is a system that Africans should implore and habituate as this is the road to financial freedom.

4. Manufacture Products (Be a Seller, Not Just a Consumer) – the moment a nation is able to produce products and sell them, it means that there is an opportunity for income to come into that country. Consuming and importing only means there is financial outflow of cash. Money in is far better than money out. If it goes out, let it circulate within your business community.

5. Implement Spider web Doctrine - When that dollar comes into your African community, rather than going outside to spend the money to buy from other communities (importing), the Africans should spend their money buying from themselves and supporting each other’s businesses thus building the community. Charity begins at home

6. Build Wealth – create a personal means for income to be generated for generations to come (passive
Income) leave a legacy and not debt

By Wilbert Chaniwa
Founder
Nexus Business Network

Unfortunately in life there are only two groups of people. Its either you are a leader or a follower. An entrepeneur or an employee. You either choose to sell or be sold to. Produce or consume.

This phenomenon is synonimous throughout society and we are inherently making these decisions daily as we make our paces through the journey that we call life. There is nothing wrong with being on either side of the fence but it pretty much determines where you are going to end up as far as financial freedom is concerned.

Being a leader,trendsetter, entrepeneur, producer or seller is the difficult side of things because it involves convincing or getting buy in from other people, it means most of the time you are thinking outside the box about what the rest of society does not normally think anout. You are constantly exercising your imagination to the “possibilites” of things that have not been thought of before, and usually you are faced with a lot of resistance to change, but as with every great risk, there is a greater reward; so its either you choose the easy way..or the hard way, but whichever way you go, the rewards are reciprocated. Its in all of us to choose mediocrity or exceptional.

Wilbert Chaniwa
Founder
Nexus Business Network

Business is essentially about creating cashflows. The fewer cashflows your business posseses, the more likely the business is to be affected by environmental factors, low and high demand periods, in terms of income streams. The most successful business in the Blue Chip company group on the New York Stock exchange have their hands stuck in a lot of pots. Property, Stock Options and investments and shares in businesses that have support services to their main line products and not to mention shares in competitor companies are only but a few ways to spread the risk of your business.

And so it would apply, as an individual, you need to also reduce the risk. Its not enough to depend on a salary of one job or run a business that only has one product or service,as your means of income. Increase the pots that you have as cashflows. Have 2 jobs, set up a small business that you manage on weekends or after hours, create an investment portfolio through various hedge funds available on the market, invest in other businesses that have different product and service lines other than your own. Think actively about how to create more than one cashflow to keep your risk low.

Until you have this in place, you are in a position of high risk and low returns. Increase your options.

Regards,
Wilbert Chaniwa
Founder
Nexus Business Network

Eskom has been granted a 31.3% tariff increase by the National Energy Regulator of SA(Nersa). The hike will come into effect on 1 July 2009. Eskom had wanted a 34% increase but they have only been allowed to increase tariffs by 31.3% which is still a substantial amount. With the current state of the South Africa economy, this hike is not going to go down well with consumers. This increase will affect every consumer no matter who you are. But the consumer, as hard as it will be, will have to bare with Eskom as they needed this increase in tariffs. Eskom have been trying since January last year to get a hike. They need to increase the electricity infrastructure in the country to meet the increasing demand of electricity.

The wait is almost over, the cost of telecommunications and Internet connectivity is set to be slashed soon when the 17 000km SEACOM fibre-optic undersea cable comes online this month in Southern and Eastern Africa. The cable is set to go live on 27 June. SEACOM would offer wholesale internet bandwidth - several times the current availability - to companies such as Neotel, Telkom, MTN and Vodacom. That should mean that these companies will be purchasing their bulk bandwidth at a fraction of the cost that they are currently paying and thus they should pass on this savings to us the consumer! I would be very mad if they do not do so!

I for example spend R389 a month for 2GB of bandwidth from Vodacom. This 2GB is just not enough for me during the month and to get it up to 3GB I would have to pay an extra R200 for that extra 1GB!!! There is no indication yet from any of the companies on how much we will now be paying for Internet bandwidth but the hope is that it will be a substantial drop. I am hoping to hear something along the lines of R100 for 5GB!

This SEACOM cable should not only mean we have cheaper bandwidth but it is also going to result in us having faster internet connectivity. Faster connectivity will mean that we will be able to do more online in a shorter space of time and also be able to watch HDTV and multi-media over the internet. Could this signal the demise of DSTV? We may not need satellite dishes anymore if we can watch TV via the internet! I see a lot of changes taking place thanks to this cable and it should all benefit us the consumer and businesses as a whole.