Ms Portman, the 25-year-old Harvard graduate who co-chairs the Village Banking campaign, said it would seek to use social networking to galvanise her generation to support microfinance.
"I have seen that ending poverty is possible – it is just a mouse click away," said Ms Portman, whose video diary about Finca’s work will feature on its page on MySpace, the social networking website. "People check their MySpace pages 10 times a day, why not harness that tool to build support for microfinance."
Here is the story. Complain all you wish, as celebrity activism goes this is a step up. Here is an article on micro-finance spreading to Africa.
Of course, if governments allow for financial system freedom with only the most small and reasonable amount of regulation, as well as registering and enforcing real private property, people could just get bank loans or credit cards…
Micro-finance is a symptom you find in countries whose governments over-regulate the financial sector and/or do not respect private property.
Portman isn’t really Vader’s wife, but since you brought it up…
“Is microcredit really what these countries need? Won’t the same processes that corrupt existing
institutions in the third world, corrupt the loan process? Hasn’t the Grameen Bank been revealed to
be a pleasant cover for getting free money to loan, while pocketing the spread? Aren’t the loan collection
enforcment methods kind of bizarre?”
“… I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Of course, maybe myspace really will provide the next financial revolution. You ask for investment dollars from all your mypsace friends for a venture, work out the contracts with a bunch of emails (which are enforceable legal documents), and off you go.
Portman: very beautiful, very smart, but a pretty crummy actress…..
“I have seen that ending poverty is possible – it is just a mouse click away,” said Ms Portman
…apparently, an irrationally optimistic person as well.
Natalie is a very good actress.
I first saw her in The Professional with Jan Reno and Gary Oldman.
She did an excellent job in that movie.
I’ve loaned money via Kiva.com and the process is simple if you have a paypal account. I think the idea is brilliant – especially if you’re concerned about sustainability and more efficient asset allocation.
Here’s my full thoughts on it from a couple month back:
http://slowgroove.blogspot.com/2007/03/kivaorg-microfinancing.html
Natalie Portman is the fifth element.
[Read any of Yunus' books or check out the video of his speech at MIT and you'll see what a powerful impact these loans can actually have.]
although true cynics often cannot help pointing out that Bangladesh remains one of the poorest countries on Earth.
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