A Little Better

[liralen]

Since I owed amberley for giving me a copy of Old Man's War, he asked me to donate it to a good cause. And since I was feeling bad yesterday, thought I'd give/lend more than that to someone on Kiva and donated the cover price towards their operating expenses. It's micro-loans person to person, rather than the Graeme method of getting a lot of money from donations and having the people local to the situation make far more informed decisions on who gets what loans. Graeme is really effective. But I guess I wanted to make a choice for myself this time.

Uhm... yes, now that you mention it, I did just finish reading The Ghost Brigades. *grin* It was a really, really excellent read and agonizing at the end. *sighs* Cathartic, too, for someone that's known for 40 year what they were for.

incandescens introduced me to Kiva, and I'm still a little baffled about how it actually works... but I'll trust it does.

If you don't know about micro loans... just ask in a comment or something and I'll expound.

Comments

[incandescens]

I've just had my first loan completed -- that is, the person who received it has now paid it all back, so I could withdraw the $25 or put it into another loan. It does seem to be reputable . . .

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Ah... cool. So it's just the money you loan, no interest at all, but you do get it back to give again. That's neat.

[incandescens]

Assuming the person in question manages to repay the loan (there have been cases of the planned scheme failing), all those who contributed to it get the money paid back to them, and can then either take it back or put it into another loan. Definitely no interest.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

That makes sense.

Do you know what happens if someone doesn't get all the money they need before their deadline? Does the money just go back to all the contributors?

[incandescens]

I think so, yes.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thank you!