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Communities hide their resources. There are several reasons for this. One is that community members believe they will qualify for assistance if outsiders think they are more poor than they are, in the hopes they will get more aid. Another is that many things they think of as liabilities can be assets if seen the right way. If they are more transparent, they can become more empowered. They must use their own assets to become more self reliant, and there is greater benefit to them that way than in hiding those assets. Some of what results in assets being seen as liabilities is in the naming of them. The phenomenon of spin doctoring (newspeak) used to hide crimes by guilty governments, can also be used to redefine liabilities as assets.
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