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Oct. 11th, 2009
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what goes around comes around
Oct. 11th, 2009 05:11 pmWhat an interesting weekend.
So I was reading an article in Time Magazine about community service. You know, that whole taking-care-of-each-other thing that makes us socialists? In it were links to a couple of organizations set up to encourage peer-to-peer lending. If you read my entry yesterday, you know that things like this have been on my mind. We decided to go see that commie Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story and on our way over, we were talking about being socially responsible and doing something to make a difference. I mentioned that one organization I'd read about encourages entrepreneurship in rural China. Now, by "entrepreneur" they're not talking about people seeking millions in start-up capital to run internet businesses. They're talking about people looking for loans to buy wheelbarrows so they can sell their coal more easily, or to buy a cow so they can have and sell milk.
When we got back from the film (which I highly recommend for a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is that Moore is a damn good filmmaker), my daughter and I looked into a few peer-to-peer lending organizations and decided on Wokai, which serves two provinces in rural China. The number of loans they give out at any given time is very small, but that didn't scare us off.
( I'm including their spread-the-word letter here behind a cut to save those of you who aren't interested in reading it. )
So now we get to follow the path of our investment. At Wokai you can redirect the loan once it's repaid (and the repayment rate on loans is beter than 98%) three times. After that, it's absorbed into their general fund and directed by the company itself. I wish our entrepreneur success! It's pretty exciting.
So I was reading an article in Time Magazine about community service. You know, that whole taking-care-of-each-other thing that makes us socialists? In it were links to a couple of organizations set up to encourage peer-to-peer lending. If you read my entry yesterday, you know that things like this have been on my mind. We decided to go see that commie Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story and on our way over, we were talking about being socially responsible and doing something to make a difference. I mentioned that one organization I'd read about encourages entrepreneurship in rural China. Now, by "entrepreneur" they're not talking about people seeking millions in start-up capital to run internet businesses. They're talking about people looking for loans to buy wheelbarrows so they can sell their coal more easily, or to buy a cow so they can have and sell milk.
When we got back from the film (which I highly recommend for a wide variety of reasons, not least of which is that Moore is a damn good filmmaker), my daughter and I looked into a few peer-to-peer lending organizations and decided on Wokai, which serves two provinces in rural China. The number of loans they give out at any given time is very small, but that didn't scare us off.
( I'm including their spread-the-word letter here behind a cut to save those of you who aren't interested in reading it. )
So now we get to follow the path of our investment. At Wokai you can redirect the loan once it's repaid (and the repayment rate on loans is beter than 98%) three times. After that, it's absorbed into their general fund and directed by the company itself. I wish our entrepreneur success! It's pretty exciting.