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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Toni Hawryluk wrote:

> > Tvoivozhd---compassion is a poor engine for reform---it quickly 
> burns out and relapses to the status quo.  Self interest is more 
> reliable.  If the poor were perceived as a potential, but undeveloped 
> market, you would have the business class clamoring to exploit a new 
> opportunity.  However our own poor within our own borders are 
> perceived as worthless, indolent creatures upon which it is useless to 
> expend money except for maintenance via soup kitchens and to some 
> extent, temporary shelters.  Grameen banks have proven this concept to 
> be faulty, but we do not have
> Grameen banks here or in poor Arab sections of rich Arab nations.
>  
> When I read the "story" of the original Grameen
> bank (this was some years ago) I was struck by
> two things :
>  
> first - the piddley (from a current industrialized
> population viewpoint) $.amounts which, lent to the
> "right" person, produced *such* results, and
>  
> second - that the "right" people were *all* women.
>
> Toni


tvoivozhd---not surprising at all.  In most societies dominated by 
instiutionalized religion (including our own) women are excluded from 
participation.  It wasn't long ago that women in the U.S. could not own 
property, could not vote, could not hold public office and if slaves 
could be pursued, savaged and if their owner so chose, put to death 
without repercussion.  Here the glass ceiling is a well-known phenomenon 
and wild disparity between pay for males and females, with one good 
result, most biisinesses are now started and owned by women in the U.S...

Women in any society tend to be more responsible than males, make better 
banking risks.  The Grameen Bank in addition, inculcates even greater 
responsibility by lending to groups of women, making a group responsible 
for the debts of each individual woman, so they watch and cooperate with 
each other to minimize their own financial risk. Moreover, women in the 
Grameen experience, put aside a portion of their earnings to be 
re-invested in their initial or related business, so the multiplication 
factor is very high., and small initial amounts of capital quickly grow 
to large size.  Grameen banks quite literally do not have credit losses.