Luxagraf

Micro-lending is something I’ve posted about before, but lately I’ve been considering actually doing it. It interests me because its a chance to invest in something on the community scale. Investing in large corporations makes me uncomfortable on a number of levels — I started thinking about it one night and realized if corporations are legal entities granted person-hood, that the stock market is essentially a collection of zombies feeding on your money. Where’s the actual benefit for the person next to you? Investing on that level is at heart incredibly impersonal — like flipping a quarter in a tattered coffee cup as you walk on by.

On the other hand micro-lending is money that goes to real people and those people are part of a community and that community fits in the larger human sphere and so on. In short it’s much more tangible and therefore appealing to me.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, Get Rich Slowly has a nice review of Muhammad Yunus’ book Banker to the Poor. Yanus won the Nobel Peace prize last year for his work in helping create the micro-lending network that exists today and Get Rich Slowly has some nice quotes from the book and a video that explains the concept.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll actually do it, but I think it’s worth considering at least, if you’re looking to invest your spare money in something.

Visit Site: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/09/25/banker-to-the-poor-micro-lendi...