“If you are poor, it’s because you have allowed yourself to be”.

These are not my words. They were spoken by some professor whose name I can’t remember, partly because it was many years back, but mainly because I didn’t hear it in the first place. What I remember is that the words left me livid.

My fellow drunks in the dingy bar room in Kangemi were threatening to wring the poor bloke’s neck. If only they could reach him through the tiny, heavily meshed TV perched on one corner! It was a Talk Show on...