"Ever since Bill Clinton and the World Bank enthusiastically embraced
the microfinance concept in the 1990s, we at Local Futures have been
skeptical of its benefits, seeing it as part of a whole package of
“market solutions” to our social and environmental crises that, in the
long run, make things much worse. We have pointed out that these loans
often target rural populations who were not previously in debt: they
represent the long arm of capitalism reaching into remote rural areas,
encouraging a shift away from dependence on the land and the local
community, towards competition in a resource-depleting global economy." -
Helena Norberg-Hodge, The Economics of Happiness
