by Matthew Bishop – Book Review for The New York Times. BIG BUSINESSA Love Letter to an American Anti-HeroBy Tyler Cowen Anti-business feelings in America now run so strong that even some leading bankers and hedge-fund bosses want capitalism reformed. Socialism (of some kind) is espoused by a growing number of Democratic politicians. A Harvard […]
“Watch out Vittana”, tweeted Stephanie Strom (@ssstrom), the philanthropy writer at the New York Times, in response to Matthew’s tweet that Kiva, the online microfinance powerhouse, may be about to enter the student lending marketplace. Matthew reported Kiva’s likely expansion in an article in The Economist that argues that lending to finance students in poor […]
The Social Innovation Fund established by the Obama administration is an important pilot of a new approach to scaling up successful ideas by social entrepreneurs, that we believe could be a model of philanthrocapitalism at its best. (See Matthew’s article on social innovation in The Economist.) However, what Steve Goldberg calls a “kerfuffle” has taken […]
We should all be giving away at least 5% of our income and the rich should hand over up to a third, argues philosopher Peter Singer in his new book The Life You Can Save, that came out last week. While we don’t share Singer’s rather puritanical disapproval of the lavish lifestyles of the super-wealthy – he […]
The New York Times has published its annual supplement on giving. This includes an article by Matthew called “about leverage”. This explains why philanthrocapitalists should continue to use “leverage” as their favourite buzzword, despite the fact that leverage on Wall Street helped cause the financial crisis, and we are now in a period of aggressive […]
On Wednesday, Women for Women International held its annual fundraiser. The impressive turnout at the gala dinner, hosted by Anderson Cooper, in New York’s Chelsea Piers was one encouraging sign that the gloomy predictions of a sharp fall in charitable giving due to the collapse of Wall Street and now an economic downturn may prove […]