Washington Post, March 10, 2008:

"I just want to live a little better, and one day own a little house or something," said Socorro Diaz, 54, a borrower who sells women's lingerie and jewelry. "I'm trying to change my life. Bit by bit."

Grameen America, which offers loans from $500 to $3,000, hopes to reach people like her, part of the large segment of poor Americans without access to credit, said Ritu Chattree, the vice president for finance and development.

...

"You think this is normal, because you grew up with it," said Yunus of such high-interest lending in a recent interview with the Financial Times. "This is an abnormal situation, because of the problem with the financial system, so we have to adjust the financial system."

His adjustment begins with this experiment in the immigrant neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens.

The article goes on to discuss the role of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, where its unusual fusion of concern for the poor with bloodless, bottom-line capitalism has enabled an incredibly impoverished nation to retain some level of capital and income security, through the economic empowerment of women based not on hand-outs but on stability, ownership and autonomy. Grameen in Bengali means "rural" and a lot of its bankers walk barefoot in Bangladesh to collect on loans, with a lower default rate than most other banks.

Hope they inflict some ruthless, bloodless capitalism in West Baltimore, too. More like this.