When children by gunfire die,
When the dreamer and the warden clash,
When statues betray the sculptor, we proclaim
This is not who we are.
Thanks to my good friend Dima Trakovsky, who is an amazing filmmaker and the Co-Founder of his own production company, Filmkraft, I now have three short (1 – 3 minute) videos telling the story of three Capital Good Fund clients: Sherlie (Car Loan), Mamadou (Immigration Loan), and Ana (Immigration Loan). I embed them below. Enjoy!
It does not matter who lit the flame
That burned the Reichstag down,
Only that it burned and so few
Considered what cremation means
To those who long for proper burial.
I spend a lot thinking about whether or not for profit entities can be relied upon to be forces for social good, if they can be at all (see my post on impact investing, for instance). Thus Nike’s recent decision […]
Imagine I told you that by switching your money from one investment vehicle to another—with the click of a button!—you could not only earn the same return on your investment with the same level of risk as before, but also […]
We’ve all heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a poor [wo]man a fish and you feed her for a day. You teach her to fish and you give her an occupation that will feed her for a lifetime.” It’s a great concept, one that is popular with those who are more free market-oriented–they like the notion of hand-me-ups instead of hand-outs–as well as with those who tend toward socialism, as they like the idea of empowering the poor.
This is an oversimplification, but one way to think about the Civil Rights Movement, especially from the mid-to-late 1960s, is that there were two philosophical approaches: Dr. King’s faith-based, inclusive, nonviolent strategy; and Malcom X’s Black Power, “the bullet or the ballot,” movement.
We 21st century humans are pretty good at studying and learning the lessons of history but terrible when it comes to turning this knowledge into action. Consider the myriad books that have been written about the two World Wars, the Vietnam War, Stalinism, the Rwandan Genocide, the HIV / AIDS epidemic, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other events
SNAP
Goes the can of beans,
The soda-can-dreams
That fizz and hiss
On their way to oblivion.
America is the land
That without irony
Sells both the cigarette
And the nicotine patch.