USA loans

[Guest]

.

[saabnet]

In response to the fourth attempt to recruit members of my Team Poverty2Prosperity.org to the Unhappy Kiva Lenders team by Tom and Sverre, I temporarily joined the Unhappy Kiva Lenders team and posted the following note to their message board.

Hi there,

Tom and Svere, you've sent 4 messages to my team members through our team board. I think that's enough. Could you please (kindly) stop the repeated attempts to recruit members from my team. One message to our team was enough. Please don't do it again or I will have to report you to contactus@kiva.org for violating the Terms of Use agreement. Disrupting another team's board with repetitive messages is in bad faith.

Thank you for your consideration.

Posted by Poverty2Prosperity
Jul 12, 2009 - 6:13 pm PDT

I received a lender message back from Tom, the team captain, just a single word, "Done!" So, I'm hoping that takes care of future messages from Tom on my message board.

Also, of interest, were the two follow up messages posted to the Unhappy Kiva Lenders' message board which I saw just before I quit the team:

OK as a team member who thinks US loans are a huge mistake for Kiva, I also want to suggest that spamming other groups is lame and counterproductive. In fact, it kind of makes me embarrassed to be part of this group. Please stop spamming other groups.

If someone wanted to damage or shut-down a movement against Kiva US loans, I can think of hardly any better way than to repeatedly rant about the subject on unrelated team message boards.

Posted by steve roh
Jul 12, 2009 - 6:34 pm PDT

AND:

Yes, and I concur Steve.

I am also not prepared to listen to any more of Sverre's bullying and bashing.

Posted by Suwattana and Ross
Jul 12, 2009 - 6:52 pm PDT

It seems this spamming is easily seen as being disruptive to other team's message boards.

-Scott

[Unilove]

Thank you for the update and for your action.

[waywardcats]

In response to the fourth attempt to recruit members of my Team Poverty2Prosperity.org to the Unhappy Kiva Lenders team by Tom and Sverre, I temporarily joined the Unhappy Kiva Lenders team and posted the following note to their message board.

I received a lender message back from Tom, the team captain, just a single word, "Done!" So, I'm hoping that takes care of future messages from Tom on my message board.

-Scott

Thank you Scott for taking the initiative to do this.   I hope that it puts an effective end to this tactic from these members of the Unhappy Lenders team whose actions I am certain would not be condoned by the majority of unhappy lenders.

-Kerry-

[Dagfinn]

I just happened to have the Swedish tv news on and to my surprise they had a story about US loans at Kiva on.  I was caught by surprise but I think it was someone in Sweden being worried that money for poor in Africa now loosing out to poor in US.

I find such newscasts more worrying than our Tom and Sverre - I try to follow and se if it comes up again and record it so I am not only second-guessing.

-- Dagfinn A

edit

I realised I have a PVR so I rewinded and got the story.  A Swede, Linus Lennstrand came on claiming that hundreds of Swedes were worried that the finance crisis that brought about US loans (I do not claim this people I cite the newscast remember:) now in effect take money that otherwise would have gone to Africa into US.  A professor said afterwards it is so - and this would make it worse for the 3. world.

He also claimed that everyone (yes everyone) should have a chance to work they way out of poverty.  I think that Kiva should look into this and respond to SVT (the tv channel - it is the main news channel in Sweden).  I write them.  I trued calling them to correct the story but was not able to get through but have written an email.

[cpbailey]

Irony being that several of the clips of U.S. borrowers are actually not interviewed in English.  So maybe loans in the U.S. are providing jobs for someone from elsewhere anyway...and money may be sent to the home country to help out family there.  Just like American cars have parts from around the world, and Toyota is made in the U.S. as well. 

Here is one sample: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=118707&_tpos=7&_tpg=2

Just goes to show that It's a Small World after All...

It could be that people who want one loan from each country are snapping up the U.S. loans now.  We shall see how various choices kiva has made affect things in a couple months.  For example, currency risk could mean those MFIs who wish to share the risk might linger.  People may elect to loan to the U.S. or Ecuador which is dollar based instead.  People may have heard about Kiva because of the U.S. loans and will branch out when those aren't available.  More loans seem to be end of term or longer than was typical before.

Two more days until the BIG LOAN DAY!!!!!  For everyone who loves loans that I am indifferent to, thank you for leaving my favs.

Colette

[mejane]

I received a lender message back from Tom, the team captain, just a single word, "Done!" So, I'm hoping that takes care of future messages from Tom on my message board.
-Scott

Scott on behalf of all of us who are members of multiple teams and have been getting the spamming in "stereo."  Jane

[linusl]

I just happened to have the Swedish tv news on and to my surprise they had a story about US loans at Kiva on.  I was caught by surprise but I think it was someone in Sweden being worried that money for poor in Africa now loosing out to poor in US.

I find such newscasts more worrying than our Tom and Sverre - I try to follow and se if it comes up again and record it so I am not only second-guessing.

-- Dagfinn A

edit

I realised I have a PVR so I rewinded and got the story.  A Swede, Linus Lennstrand came on claiming that hundreds of Swedes were worried that the finance crisis that brought about US loans (I do not claim this people I cite the newscast remember:) now in effect take money that otherwise would have gone to Africa into US.  A professor said afterwards it is so - and this would make it worse for the 3. world.

He also claimed that everyone (yes everyone) should have a chance to work they way out of poverty.  I think that Kiva should look into this and respond to SVT (the tv channel - it is the main news channel in Sweden).  I write them.  I trued calling them to correct the story but was not able to get through but have written an email.

I am the swede that Dagfinn is referring to, Linus. Unfortunately he has misunderstood my part in that particular news story. I never claimed anything about why Kiva started the US loans or that swedes are worried about the consequences of this. Those phrases were stated by the reporters.

My part in the story was to talk about how I used Kiva and what I thought about it. I was also asked for my opinions about the US loans. My answer was that I don't have anything against them in principle but that I myself would rather lend to someone in a poorer country in for instance parts of Africa or Asia, because I think the loan would have a greater positive impact there.

I can also see that Dagfinn has a problem with my answer to why I have chosen to lend money to entrepreneurs in developing countries, namely that I believe that these people also should be given a financial chance to raise themselves from poverty. I can't really see the reason for his problem, but he is of course entitled to his opinion.

If you would like to see this news story for yourselves it's available here: http://playrapport.se/#/video/1623237 (in swedish only, unfortunately).

[wthepoo]

Welcome Linus,

and thanks for your clarification (regarding what you said and what the reporters made of it).

I will let Dagfinn answer for himself, but I believe he will be the first (well, now the second ) to agree with your statement that everyone should have a chance to work their way out of poverty (and just pointed out that that also applies to US entrepreneurs, then).

Thanks also for the link - it was great to see you (and your family, I presume?), but I have to admit that I didn't understand a lot.

Best wishes,
Wolfgang.

[mejane]

Linus

Thank you for taking the time to come and explain.  It is very much appreciated.
Jane

[JohnR]

Linus, I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying, but the little girl, whom I assume is your daughter, is very cute!

John