What Is Microfinance?
Here’s a post from the archives. I had saved it and never got around to actually publishing it!
Who the hell is Mohammed Yunis and why on earth did he win the Nobel Peace Prize?
Well he pioneered the use of micro-loans to poor entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. Dubbed as the “Banker to the Poor”, he began fighting poverty during a 1974 famine in Bangladesh with a loan of $27 out of his own money to help 42 women buy weaving tools to save them from the clutches of the usurious moneylenders.(Yeah, back in the day, $27 was actually worth something).
So whats so revolutionary about microfinance that he deserves the Nobel Prize?
Apparently people think that it will become a catalyst to eradicating poverty. Even the Economist had an article about some guy who was giving out micro-loans to poor tea plantation workers in Assam, India to buy Solar powered headlamps(made by his own company!) but the economics made sense and it was a win-win for everyone.
So how do you benefit? You can become a lender yourself through and offer micro-loans to other people starting with as little as $50. And thus you can do your part to eradicate poverty. Yeah!
If you found this post helpful, consider donating to my coffee fund!![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
- CountryWide Introduces Mortgage Modification Programs A few days ago, Ben Bernanke said that mortgage lenders should reduce the principle amount on loans to home owners to prevent major defaults. While this is quite a bizzare thing to say, at some level it makes sense. Rather than foreclosure on a house and sell it for 50......
- Global Markets Crash: All Non-Correlated Markets Converge In A Downturn Following the decline in the US markets and a show of no-confidence in Bush's Economic Recovery Plan, global markets crashed in unison. According to Yahoo! Finance: Britain's benchmark FTSE-100 slumped 5.5 percent to 5,578.20, France's CAC-40 Index tumbled 6.8 percent to 4,744.15, and Germany's blue-chip DAX 30 plunged 7.2 percent......
- Heard On The Street What's the difference between a pigeon and a Wall Street banker? The pigeon can still make a deposit on a Porsche! Meanwhile, in what looks like a stunning display of stupidity, the Federal Reserve recently hired someone to "assess the safety and soundness of domestic banking institutions." The new employee......
Related Websites
- The Best Counter Argument to 'Green Shoots' that Main Stream Media will Never Discuss One of my biggest pet peeves with the financial media is the near fixation on one side -- the Buy! Buy! Buy! side -- of the story. If an analyst or money manager speaks out with a bearish forecast, it's a reasonably good bet that you won't see them appear......
- 320 Nobel Americans Solid Gold With the final Nobels awarded, we are proud to update this glorious list. 320 Americans* have won the Nobel Prize since Teddy Roosevelt scored the first for us back in 1906. This torches the rest of the globe. In fact, our nearest competitor is the United Kingdom......
- Win a $100 Home Depot Gift Card for Father's Day! Looking for that perfect gift for your hard-working Dad? If you're like most people, you can never think of something to give Dad for Father's Day. I will admit, Dads are not as easy to shop for as Moms. You can't go out and buy perfume, makeup, or jewelry for......
[All content is copyright of Living Off Dividends & Passive Income]
July 16th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Never know there is such a great idea of microfinance. In Malaysia, poor people have no choice but to borrow from loan shark at interest rate of 4% per month!