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[Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

clhw wrote:

> I may have missed it but please define "Grameen bank".
> Spaseevo
> Lynn
>
>  
tvoivozhd---Grameen banks  function only in very poor countries.  They 
are basically NGO's operating on non-government funding.  They make very 
small loans to individuals but as part of a group, typically ten to 
twenty people---all members of the group are collectively responsible 
for repayment of individual loans, including repayment of any individual 
defaults..

The loans are for business purposes only---primarily businesses that 
operate from the home, though in the agriculture sector they may fund 
things like treadle-pumps for irrigating a couple acres of market 
garden, grain winnowing machines, hull-removers, small flour mills and 
sometimes for value-added, small commercial bakeries.

Production of cooking oil is a very popular and profitable business 
where cooking oil has to be imported.  It entails little equipment, at 
least in beginning stages, primarily a manual oil-extractor press, and 
nutritious oil-cake byproduct is fed to animals.

The list of startup enterprises is long and varied.  Because of intense 
initial scrutiny and continual monitoring by the Grameen Bank, and all 
members of collectively financially responsible members of a group, 
losses literally do not exist.  A basic departure from commercial banks, 
is that the loans are meant to benefit borrowers, not stockholders or 
thievish bank managers or the private lender extortion experts in the 
third world who specialize in high interest rates that traditionally 
have kept the poor, poor.