Money

In the "how to change the world class" we just watched this interview with Muhammed Yunus, who I'm sure many of us have heard of before since he won the Noble Peace Prize and such. But seriously, he's a cool guy, and I'd just like to spend a few minutes admiring him. He seems like the kind of guy who actually understands how to apply economic theory to real life. In his interview, he specifically said that his most influential teacher told him to remember that life is not based on theory but vice versa. So if a situation doesn't seem to fit with a certain theory the answer is reexamine the theory and adjust it. The article explains the basics of his most notable achievement, Grameen Bank, which has revolutionized micro loans:

The University welcomed Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, to Foellinger auditorium on Monday night.

Interim President Stanley Ikenberry presented him with the Presidential Medal, which is the highest honor the University can give.

He added that the opportunity to bring students in contact with Yunus was the best part of the event.“I thought students responded remarkably; there was an excitement in the room,” Ikenberry said.

Yunus is widely recognized for his creation of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which provided micro-loans to the poor. Micro-loans give small loans to those in poverty and are intended to spark entrepreneurship. The first micro-loan was $27 to a total of 41 villagers in Bangladesh.

“You need a dollar to catch a dollar,” he said.

Yunus said that prior to micro-loans, conventional banks in Bangladesh gave money to men and wealthy individuals.

So, he created this bank to give money to women and the poor.

Since the bank’s opening, Grameen Bank has awarded over $8 billion to rickshaw drivers, artisans and other people living in dire poverty.

He explained that the bank is unique because the borrowers own the bank themselves. He said that when banks make money, it goes back to the borrowers because they are the ones who are the shareholders.

He continued on and said that conventional banks require people’s past credit and business history, which is something that the poorest people do not have.

“We made it simple. We are not interested in your past, so you don’t have to tell us anything. We are interested in your future,” Yunus said.

He addressed the criticism that micro-loans can only work for entrepreneurs.

“I never could accept this argument because we started out with the poorest people,” he said.

He said the women he gave loans to at first were basket weavers who were too afraid to accept money.

These women told Yunus to give the money to their husbands.

“That’s not entrepreneurial behavior,” he added.

He said that businesses today are concerned with profit maximization. Businesses based on selflessness, or “social business”, does not really exist.

Yunus said that giving back to the community is also an exciting thing, and that’s what we should focus on.

Students who attended the program agreed with Yunus’s ideas, and said they took away their own thoughts about social business.

Mitchell Popadziuk, senior in LAS, said that before the presentation the idea of business benefiting people seemed like an oxymoron; however, now it seems possible.

“Literally while I was sitting there, I was thinking about way to create my own social business and other ways to promote this idea,” he said.

Roshan Murthy, freshman in Engineering, said he is taking a class about micro-finance right now, and social business is something he wants to become involved in.

“I’m an engineer, and I plan to do exactly what he said today,” he said.

I am so impressed by Yunus' creativity when it comes to dreaming up a system outside of the popularly accepted one. In his interview he said that when he was starting this project, he had a lot of trouble getting a bank to agree. Eventually they consented because he agreed to be the guarantor, so that if the poor person defaulted on the loan he would be the one paying it back to the bank (all the banks gave the same reason for not wanting to loan to the poor: nobody does it. you can't do it). After he got it working in one village, they still weren't convinced that it wasn't a fluke and would actually work anywhere. He spread it across and entire province, one specifically chosen because of its poverty, and still the bank was not impressed. Yunus built his own bank with specifically structured policies in response.

What I want to ask is, our economy is in the pits right now because of the guys in charge of the housing market decided to loan to poor people, people who previously were thought not to be able to afford loans. Yunus won a peace prize for doing the same thing. Why did his way work and not ours? What can we do to have the same kind of success he's had with Grameen Bank? Should we try or should we believe that the bank is right and it only works in certain areas?