Kiva Fat Cats Eat Sardines While Waiting For Pie
The Pondering Pig Kiva Investment Group Board Meeting continues...
PPig: Hey, thanks, Jessica Flannery, founder of Kiva, for sticking your head through the door to give us a few words of encouragement. I found this interview/podcast with Jessica on Britt Bravo's blog. If it wasn't for Jessica and her husband Matt, we might still be wondering how to spread some of our wealth around.
OK, maybe we're not wealthy in North American terms, maybe we do have to meet at Portley's Lunch Counter after he closes, but compared to the guys in Mozambique and Honduras and Azerbaijan- North Americans are pretty fat cats.
Look at the Human Development Index...
Ok, don't look at it. It's pretty boring. I'll tell you about it. The HDI is a fairly questionable list of every country that keeps statistics and how they compare to each other on how long people live, how much education they have, and how much money they make. You can question the statistics right down the line - and you should - but the true statistics are bound to make countries look worse, not better.
According to the Index, guess who are the fattest cats in the world? If you guessed the United States you guessed wrong. We're down at number 8. Canada is couple rungs above us at number 6. The fattest cats in the world live in sardine country, naturally ...NORWAY!
And the skinniest cats live in a little African country you never heard of: Niger. People in Norway live twice as long as people in Niger. They're forty times wealthier. And the educational statistics from Niger are, well, fatal.
Belladonna: So what's this got to do with Kiva, Pig? You suggesting we should fix up Niger, than move on to the next country on this list?
PPig: Well, I was wondering if something like that makes strategic sense. Not Niger, because Kiva isn't working there yet, but maybe Mozambique. They are the skinniest cats on the Kiva website according to the HDI.
Kirstie: I think poor people are poor, period. It doesn't matter where you live. Kiva borrowers have a dream, they have a hope, they think they can feed their families better, maybe fix their roof - whatever, if they can get a business loan to build up their businesses. I don't see why it matters what country they're in.
PPig: True enough. But we do have to choose. I counted 41 people hoping for a loan on Kiva this morning. If you loan $25 to everybody, that's $1025 today and more coming tomorrow. We have to pick a person, so to speak. Who is it going to be? Right? Am I right? How do you decide? I'd like to know and Portley's Lunch Counter is open for discussion on this topic.
Image credits: Nations Online, Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Hermatikk, Patrushka
PPig: Hey, thanks, Jessica Flannery, founder of Kiva, for sticking your head through the door to give us a few words of encouragement. I found this interview/podcast with Jessica on Britt Bravo's blog. If it wasn't for Jessica and her husband Matt, we might still be wondering how to spread some of our wealth around.
OK, maybe we're not wealthy in North American terms, maybe we do have to meet at Portley's Lunch Counter after he closes, but compared to the guys in Mozambique and Honduras and Azerbaijan- North Americans are pretty fat cats.
Look at the Human Development Index...
Ok, don't look at it. It's pretty boring. I'll tell you about it. The HDI is a fairly questionable list of every country that keeps statistics and how they compare to each other on how long people live, how much education they have, and how much money they make. You can question the statistics right down the line - and you should - but the true statistics are bound to make countries look worse, not better.According to the Index, guess who are the fattest cats in the world? If you guessed the United States you guessed wrong. We're down at number 8. Canada is couple rungs above us at number 6. The fattest cats in the world live in sardine country, naturally ...NORWAY!
And the skinniest cats live in a little African country you never heard of: Niger. People in Norway live twice as long as people in Niger. They're forty times wealthier. And the educational statistics from Niger are, well, fatal.Belladonna: So what's this got to do with Kiva, Pig? You suggesting we should fix up Niger, than move on to the next country on this list?
PPig: Well, I was wondering if something like that makes strategic sense. Not Niger, because Kiva isn't working there yet, but maybe Mozambique. They are the skinniest cats on the Kiva website according to the HDI.
Kirstie: I think poor people are poor, period. It doesn't matter where you live. Kiva borrowers have a dream, they have a hope, they think they can feed their families better, maybe fix their roof - whatever, if they can get a business loan to build up their businesses. I don't see why it matters what country they're in.
PPig: True enough. But we do have to choose. I counted 41 people hoping for a loan on Kiva this morning. If you loan $25 to everybody, that's $1025 today and more coming tomorrow. We have to pick a person, so to speak. Who is it going to be? Right? Am I right? How do you decide? I'd like to know and Portley's Lunch Counter is open for discussion on this topic.
Image credits: Nations Online, Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Hermatikk, Patrushka
Labels: Kiva Investment Group
posted by Christopher Newton at 10:05 AM
5 Comments:
I'm not continuing this meeting until we cut that pie! Where's the vanilla ice cream? Is anyone making coffee?
For the record, the folks I've loaned to have made their second repayments. Peter Kariuki has repaid 12% and Nellie Waruguru has repaid 20%. The dairy business in Kenya is definitely booming!
Heck, if Wall Street was that consistent, more mugs would have more $$$ to loan through KIVA!
Well that pie is only so big, and we are going to have to choose who gets a piece of it.
I find it hard to decide who to give loans to (well, unless they are called Julia from Honduras like the loan I jumped on this morning, she's buying stock for her store and I just had to help her with a name like Julia). I think everyone is worthy and I just want to lend to everyone. But I can't. So I have to choose...
Question - what does Kiva do if a loan doesn't get funded, and how long do they keep it going? I can see it being very discouraging to a lender to not have a loan funded for a while.
Two remarks...
1. @Norwegian sardines... did you notice that, although the sardines were packed in Norway, the company selling them actually branded themselves as Danish? (For Gringos this may not mean a lot, but for a European, the difference between Norway and Denmark is at least as much as between the US and Canada. (I almost wrote Mexico instead of Canada, but controlled my fingers at the last second.)
2 @Julia: I do apply a few criteria to my loans (and I am not even half the prolific loaner that you are... sorry, got a family to feed as well here). In short: they need to be Latin America, they need to pass my "due diligence" check: does the business seem feasible, can the amount loaned actually make a difference, and can the loan be paid back in a period that is short enough to see real growth in the business. I wrote a (too) long discussion of this in one of my blog entries. Another criterion is diversification: I try not to put all my money in a single country or a single MFI to reduce specific risks associated with that, but I haven't always been very consistent with that.
BTW, I really liked the description and risk analysis that came with this loan. Of course, I immediately invested in it...
I prayed actually, and Mexico was the place that came to heart. Then I looked for women first since life is usually more difficult for them. After the women, I looked for men supporting their families.
I haven't noticed any "deadbeats", but it would be diligent for me to look into Kiva's screening process. I'd be curious about that. Wouldn't it be difficult to say "no"?
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