Among all the bad news, its good to find things that work really well. One thing to reflect on for the fourth is that markets work and they do so primarily because of entrepreneurism. As Tom Barnett says "there is a myth that we built this country all by ourselves." Actually we had access to lots of outside capital and then worked our tails off to leverage it into something much bigger and more profound. Now you can see the same thing happening lots of other places.
But the cool thing is that in 2008 we are not stuck with the industrial age way of initiating this growth pattern - its not all big companies signing deals for timber and such; you can do it at an individual level through microloans and enable someone else to reach the next rung. Best way I have seen so far to do this is Kiva, and there is a nice meme running right now:
- Tom Barnett: "...everyone who wants to make a difference should just go ahead and get their own foreign policy and stop waiting on change from above."
If you are looking for something to do on the 4th, surf over to Hoff's blog, where he has started a Security Pro Funding Pool for Kiva. His goal is to raise $1,000 for Kiva businesses. Its an incredibly cool thing to do and a great way to celebrate the good stuff that's been done both in markets and technology. Being a banker to the working poor can be fun. Who knew?
