nuke-the-whales

Hollywood's Favorite Anti-Poverty Crusade Actually Making People Poorer

Pareene · 04/24/08 02:55PM

"Smart" celebrities who "care" about things love microcredit, the most buzzed-about poverty-ending economic fad since eating the poor. Mohammed Yunus, the guy who invented it, won a Nobel Peace Prize! And Harvard-educated Natalie Portman works tirelessly to promote the idea that small loans to impoverished people will lead to an entrepreneurial spirit that will lift everyone out of poverty. The only problem with "microcredit" is that it's actually loan-sharking, and it's destroying the lives of the people it's meant to help. France24 actually did some journalism and talked to recipients of the micro-loans instead of just taking the word of noble economists as gospel. Watch as collectors from Grameen Bank, the gigantic bank that largely runs the microcredit scheme, advise villagers to sell their children! Now, instead of just being broke, Bangladeshi villagers are deep in debt and killing themselves to escape their creditors. Finally, they are living the American Dream. So. Watch that clip here or just click through to see Natalie Portman babble at those ladies on The View about all the good work she's doing.