IN a recent column, Peter Singer, who is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton, wrote that while John Stuart Mill argued that individuals are the best guardians of their own interests, research suggests that they can do with some help. He took the example of Professor of Economics at Yale, Dean Karlan, who looked at ways of helping some of the poorest people in the Philippines to achieve their goals. He found, that like people everywhere, they had difficulties to resist the temptation to spend even the little they had, even when they recognised that it would be better to save for a goal that could make a more substantial difference in their lives.Â