• more about #microloans more comments →
    Scout: and, I'm sorry but Tanglad's time may be better spent trying to eradicate the good ol Payday Loan Company - now THERE is a terrible, terrible institut... more »
    MadameO asks - WWOD?: Check out Fonkoze in Haiti - fonkoze.org. They make loans to the poorest of the poor, as well as to the more traditional women's circle's/cooperative... more »
    Princess Leela: The international development community is prone to fads, and microcredit is the fad of the moment. The real difficulty comes in figuring out where it... more »
    CherriSpryte: I just spent a semester in my grad school stat class trying to quantify this exact topic. The survey data that I used was inconclusive, but there's li... more »
    robinsparkles: I have a microcredit loan out right now, I read about it in the paper about a year ago and immediately went onto the Kiva website and got really excit... more »
    clevernamehere: I'm all for taking a critical look at anti-poverty programs, but the arguments here seem really shortsighted unless Tanglad has some modifications or ... more »
    sportz.star: And in other news: Everything Is Complicated . . Poverty especially challenging, particularly where governments are corrupt . . . more at 11. more »
    haguenite: I have tremendous respect for The Netherland's fucking smart crown princess, and who is on the microcredit advisory committee to the UN, so I'm just g... more »
    EkaterinaBallerina: I read an article several weeks back about the new role of women in Rwanda, post-genocide. A mandate had been in effect that something like 50% of the... more »
    RainbowBrite: Microcredit is clearly not the silver bullet that will eliminate poverty worldwide, but I've got to believe it's better than nothing. I don't think it... more »
    casi nadie (loves MCC forever): Microloans work in some communities and not in others. They've had a pretty good amount of success in southern asia, but in latin america, they tend t... more »
    tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock: Silly, everyone knows the best way to solve a problem is to throw money at it. more »
    Sophie needs to study...damn: What's wrong with a menu of programs designed to help the poor. Surely one program isn't expected to cure all. What's wrong with one option that works... more »
    Shamrockette: Ahh, so it's like Survivor: Welfare. Right? more »
    PilgrimSoul: Oh, good lord. This is where I have to hand in my liberal card, because at a certain point, I've got to wonder whether these women would prefer to be ... more »
  • #moneychangeseverything

    Lifting Women Out Of Poverty: Complicated

    We've always heard that microloans were a good idea — in fact, we gave to Kiva earlier this year. But Tanglad at Racialicious asserts that microcredit may be too good to be true: