I’ve been doing this through Kiva.org for a few years now. I agree with you—it’s a very conservative idea. I love it!
I’m sorry to sound dumb, but I don’t understand the checks and balances here. Who finds out who is poor?
As long as we’re not loaning money to people who have no means or intention of paying it back. I do believe that entrepreneurship is the answer to poverty. It has been throughout history. Its what builds nations. I’m just a little touchy about loaning money to those who can’t afford to borrow, given recent events.
I don’t know. I went to the kiva.org site and looked through several pages of “entrepreneurs”. Saw listings for three guys from Tajikistan but the photos were of the same guy just in different poses.
The skeptic in me wants to know how, without physically traveling to Vietnam/Costa Rica/Bosnia, does one verify that the funds actually make it to the borrower, and that the borrower is genuine.
This all assumes that professional lenders i.e. banks are giving up profitable lending opportunities. I highly doubt that. Grammeen bank, which was all the rage, basically hasn’t been heard from in a while. They were getting by on donations and subsidies. In the free market, if you offer $50 loans to people, you can either A: verify who you are loaning to, which costs more than $50, or B: Not verify who you are loaning to. When you don’t verify who you are loaning to, all sorts of problems occur.
Unfortunately, I just got done doing 135 micro loans. Only about 50 are current, most went bust, even after I was as ruthless as possible.
A true socialist would be aghast at such a program. They would promote the sharing of poverty.