A Dissenting Voice

This guy hates Kiva.  Basically it comes down to interest rates and "neoliberalism," and one of those critiques is probably reasonable.

Add to this the fact that there appear to be no controls on interest rates even contemplated, and the fact that the first world neoliberal braintrusts who love this model so much are treating the high interest rates like the dirty little secret of microfinance and hiding it is much as possible, and the disaster that increasing the developing world's dependence on microfinance much more would be becomes all too clear.

It actually is harder to find anything about interest on Kiva's site than I remembered it being.  I'm guessing the vast majority of lenders don't do the scrupulous research that characterizes the typical dude with a blog.  So maybe they are playing that down.

But that's enough to convince me of anything.  I mean, we don't to make the perfect the enemy of the good, if I can be permitted to use a tiresome cliche.  And when it comes to choice between neoliberalism and people who say cusses about neoliberalism, I'm giving benefit of the doubt to the former.

In other news, an odd blog has come to the same conclusion I did: Vittana is a "cool internet site."  I was totally ahead of the curve on this one.