By Matthew Lu.

We at Prospective Value have, of late, mentioned in passing the role rating agencies played in catalyzing this crisis and the role they continue to play. Taking those agencies broadly under the heading of “media” as well, I’d like to point to Jon Stewart, the anchorman of Comedy Central’s Daily Show, anything-but-facetious interview with Jim Cramer.

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It is a popular punch line these days to question if it is possible to be a capitalist and still sleep well at night with your conscience.  I sleep very well that you, and the great part is I never have to stop being a capitalist!  If I told you that you could have a 97% chance of earning 5% per year for the next two years is that something you think you would be interested in?  What if I also told you that while earning this return you could help lift hundreds and possibly thousands of people out of extreme poverty in developing countries by developing local economies and funding local entrepreneurs.  This is exactly what is possible through an organization called MicroPlace.  MicroPlace was started by a Stanford Business School graduate who became interested in microfinance but realized there was no way for individual small investors to participate, the microfinance community was dominated by large banks and investors who had the infrastructure in place to provide micro credit.  MicroPlace gets around this problem by grouping together small investors and having them fund bonds issued by MicroPlace, who in turn partners with local field partners in various countries to provide micro credit to deserving entrepreneurs.

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