Microfinancing

Last week an Indian banker was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Truly amazing. This man has made a living from giving loans, as little as $27, to the poor of India. He boasts changing lives by bringing entrepreneurs out of poverty. There is a 50% success rate among his customers, though most pay him back. His greatest boast entails lending money to women in rural villages who then buy HIS cell phones (he happens to own the largest cell phone company in India). The women then charge fellow villagers to use the cell phone because they cannot afford to buy one. Chances are most never will, if they spend all their meager savings renting the cell phones from this man's customers. In a society where people are reduced to feeling like microbes due to poverty and overpopulation, I wonder if it matters to them whether they are consumed by a shark or a minnow. In any case, I think the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has really captured the spirit of these times. I suppose, in the current materialistic mind, which is encompassing the Industrial World, the possibilities for profit and sainthood are endless and entwined. I do not believe in saints, con men or profiteering philanthropists. It is part of my practice to see and speak the truth as I see it.