»Round up the usury suspects

Heard Muhammad Yunus, the Bengali economist and founder of Grameen Bank, speak today.

His autobiography, Banker to the Poor, touches on Bangladesh's historical patriarchy, terrible fight for independence, and periodic natural disaster as sources of its contemporary poverty.
Yunus is plain-spoken and inspirational: in fact, many of his stories sound too good to be true. While the economic ideas behind the bank are revolutionary, the social aspect is rooted in an almost unbelievable faith in human nature. But it works, and has worked for almost three decades; moreover, the system of microcredit he pioneered has been implemented in dozens of countries and cultures worldwide.