This is the best idea I've heard in awhile. Frontline World on PBS featured Kiva.org a small non-profit organization provides a way for anyone with a credit card to issue no interest micro-loans to entrepreneurs of cottage industries in the Third World. Right now, they are focused on Uganda as that seems to be a country most familiar to the organizations founders. The loan applicants are pre-screened and you can choose whom you would like to support and how much. You get your money back within 6 months to a year. So far, the default rate is 0%!
The IMF and World Bank have poured money into a system that will inevitably enrich the West and continue to deprive the world's poor. This is the way to end poverty: Direct loans, cutting out the middle man with no exploitation, greedy banks with usurious rates, military involvement, creepy dictators, or economic hit-men!
2 comments:
Go, Uganda!
I have never understood the need for middle men. Yet, they are ubiquitous. It's about time they were left out.
I just made corrections to the original blog. The group is, of course, Kiva.org not Kiva.com.
La B
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