Some thoughts from the prodigy

I shared the other day about my little brother Brian. He's the phenom of the family. Steve and I are both good at what we do, but there was an extra sort of mockery all our lives while we watched Brian do everything we did better and three years before we did it. I remember he and I used to have piano lessons back to back, and one would have to sit and listen while the other one had his time, and my teacher used to have to put me in some different books to try and hide the fact that Brian was actually about three years of talent past me when I was actually 3 years older than him. But anyway, he's smart, and decided to follow after the business minded folks in my family and join the fight in the international business markets. Like I said before, he's all about solving the world poverty problem, and finding ways for developing nations to get on their feet and such. He shared some thoughts with me tonight.

He said that his studies this summer at The London School of Economics and Political Science have given him a bit of a grim outlook on the situation. However, he did have one thing on his mind that brought him a glimmer of hope...Smoothies. Ok well there's a back story. I will probably not get all the details right, but basically, developed nations like the U.S. kind of have a corner on the market for agricultural exports like corn, wheat, soy, etc. Because we've got developed farming practices, government subsides for farmers, and so on. There is no shortage of those products so for a developing nation to be able to export those items would be pointless because to enter the business in that facet, they'd get beat out by nations like us pretty quick. The only thing that countries like us don't have a corner on right now is Coffee, but fair trade coffee really doesn't do that much business. He informed me that you can actually buy fair trade coffee at Starbucks, but you have to ask for it by name. And if people stop ordering it at a specific location, that location will stop carrying it. Thanks for not advertising that one Starbucks.

The hope comes in now. What's one thing that us middle class white folks love more than anything? Our coffee shops of course. Where else would we go to complain about our little problems over a latte and some miles davis. And what do all these coffee shops have? Smoothies. Smoothies can be made out of all sorts of exotic fruits and crazy things. Health nuts every where go crazy for the right combination of papaya and wheat grass or something of that nature. The thing that most of these developing nations have that the big Agriculture powers don't have is rare and exotic fruits. A lot of these developing nations could theoretically offer something that we can't offer if there were a market for it. Imagine this if you will: What if instead of drinking a smoothie made out of a sugary syrup concoction and some crushed ice, we made it from real fruit, imported from developing nations. This would allow them to export something that can't really be competed with as much, and that in turn will help develop the economy of that nation. Just imagine how many coffee shops you can think of in your area. There's a coffee shop at GCC for crying out loud!!! Bethel owns two places that serves smoothies. There's 5 starbucks locations within driving distance of my apartment. There's Bella Vita, Higher Grounds, and all kinds of other coffee shops in this area that serve smoothies. So there's a great solution. All we have to do to help develop struggling nations is do what we as Americans are best at...consume. But by consuming something like that instead of a cheap imitation, we give a developing nations economy a shot.

I asked Brian to get me the information he can find about places to buy these fruits and other products. He plans to get something going on Miami's campus where he goes to school, and I plan to do the same around here when he gets it figured out. If you want that information too, let me know. These little things can always make a difference. Who would have thought...smoothies could save the world.