Very practical Marketing Book, If you need help to know your marketing weapon and high level steps of executing it then you are reading the right book...moreVery practical Marketing Book, If you need help to know your marketing weapon and high level steps of executing it then you are reading the right book. If you are not in the marketing business then this book wont be of much interest. (less)
The Bad Samaritans advances the debate on how developing countries can grow. We could recapitulate the essential message of the book with the following...moreThe Bad Samaritans advances the debate on how developing countries can grow. We could recapitulate the essential message of the book with the following: Free trade reduces freedom of choice for poor countries. Keeping foreign companies out may be good for them in the long run. Investing in a company that is going to make a loss for 17 years may be an excellent proposition. Some of the world's best firms are owned by the state. Borrowing ideas from more productive foreigners is essential for economic development. Low inflation and government prudence may be harmful for economic development. Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market. Free market and democracy are not natural partners. Countries are poor not because their people are lazy; their people are lazy because they are poor.(less)
I am not an economic or financial expert but i loved the simplicity of the book although it contains a lot of technical knowledge.
"if money was alive,...moreI am not an economic or financial expert but i loved the simplicity of the book although it contains a lot of technical knowledge.
"if money was alive, it would always be looking for ways to get bigger"
Why did the crisis happen? Lanchester says that it was because of a climate, a problem, a mistake and a failure.
"A world without poverty is a dream which many people hope we will realize in this new century. While most efforts to eliminate poverty have failed, t...more"A world without poverty is a dream which many people hope we will realize in this new century. While most efforts to eliminate poverty have failed, the approach taken by Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, has been very successful and is an example which can be replicated elsewhere.
In this well written account, Yunus, who was formerly a university professor, explains how he began the micro-credit programs with a $27 loan to poor Bangladeshi villagers, so that they could manufacture bamboo stools. The loan was repaid and Yunus again made other loans to villagers. What began as an informal experiment later grew into the Grameen Bank, which now has branches throughout Bangladesh.
Yunus had to battle against the banking establishment of Bangladesh and later against the conventional wisdom of the large international donors and finance institutions. These institutions believed that it would be too risky to give money to poverty-stricken people because they had no collateral and would probably default on the loans. However, the repayment rate of the poor borrowers was higher than that of the conventional borrowers, who take large loans backed up by property or other collateral. Yunus saw that the micro-borrowers were very serious about their obligations because they knew that this was their only chance to rise out of the trap of poverty.
Another key to the success of the Grameen micro-credit programs is its method of organizing borrowers in groups of five. The group is given instructions about the procedures of the program. Two people from the group get the first loans, and if they are regular with their weekly installments, then others in the group can get loans. The chairperson of the group is the last one to get a loan.
Conventional wisdom about development also holds that poverty-stricken people do not have the skills to be useful members of the economy and must be given costly training programs. Here again Yunus found that this was not so. He and his colleagues went into villages (and later to urban locales in developed countries) and asked the people what they would do if they could get a loan. While many poor people are at first startled by this offer, they eventually open up and offer good projects in which they can utilize skills which they already possess.
The success of the Grameen program in Bangladesh and elsewhere raises some interesting philosophical questions. Should poverty be eliminated in the context of a capitalist economic system or is a socialist solution required? Yunus is aware of this dichotomy and argues that we should put emphasis on a ‘social-consciousness-driven private sector’. This is similar to David Korten’s (see accompanying review) call for a ‘mindful market economy’. Whatever shape the economic system of the 21st century takes, it appears that a vibrant sector of micro-enterprises can play an important role in raising the living standards of the world’s neediest people."
- First Part of the book discuss the reasons why micro-lending must be an independent entity, not owned by a government nor NGOs.
- Then he discussed a...more- First Part of the book discuss the reasons why micro-lending must be an independent entity, not owned by a government nor NGOs.
- Then he discussed a new idea different from profit-maximizing businesses (PMBs), the new kind of business might be called social business. Entrepreneurs will set up social businesses not to achieve limited personal gain but to pursue specific social goals.
- Then he started talking around Grameen Bank and it's social business around the Grameen concept.
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