Kenya is using cell phones for money....60 minutes

Mobile money system is taking over the country. MPESA has the cell phone doing everything on the phone. Buy a cow on your cell phone. People buying the milk pay with a phone. They are using solar power panels for 180 bucks compared to 240 for kerosene a year, and the farmers pay by phone and get credit on their purchase of the solar panel and if he does not pay, they shut off his solar panel by phone. Villagers can get clean water by paying with their phones. These phones are the cheapest made with limited capability. No need for brick and mortar banks, and banking now is all over the nation with mobile money which the banking lobby is fighting. The success of this model could destroy the banking industry as we know it.

They are using solar power panels for 180 bucks compared to 240 for kerosene a year

The world's undeveloped countries spend $38 billion per year on kerosene for lighting. About 1.4 billion people in the world have no access to electricity. In 2010, this Denver company was formed to change this:



http://www.nokero.com/#

"Nokero" is short for "No Kerosene." The company founder is a mechanical engineer with a lifelong inventive bent. His first Nokero product, the N-100, was a lightbulb that used LED lighting elements powered by a single NiCad rechargeable AA battery. Small solar panels on the sides of this bulb charge the battery during the day, and a photovoltaic switch keeps the bulb off until the sun goes down or light is removed. The second iteration was the N-200, with the solar panel on the back of the bulb. I purchased several N-200s in 2011 as a curiosity, and still have one (gave the others away).

Nokero keeps improving their product and is now up to the N-233.

The company founder's only motivation was to use technology to free the world's poor from having to burn unhealthy kerosene for very poor illumination. One of his precepts was making his solar light bulbs affordable. The N-200 was a big hit in Japan in the wake of 2010's Fukushima earthquake and tsunami.

Peer to peer lending, and the ability for poor people to actually get loans with small weekly payments. The country is so poor, that when we buy a tube of toothpaste, they buy a few squirts, and all this is being done by the telephone which is igniting economic activity. Peer to peer lending is what used to happen in America banking as community members made loans to members in the community, but the too big to fail banks have invaded America and skewed lending and the control of our communities. We should take lessons from Kenya.

I saw this piece and was very impressed with the concept and how it is actually very functional . . . . . amazing actually. The man who charged his phone with a solar panel that cost less than $200 but pays $.38 per month on an installment plan . . . . . wow!

I think one can see the critical role of credit where the banking system is not vulture like. I believe the person who represented the company said they were going to make over 200 million dollars by charging pennies on each transaction. No need for brick and mortar. In America today in Every abandoned strip mall you see the pay day loans, the title loans, and the other vultures ripping off poor people. We need to introduce this model in America, and it needs to be done in competition with banks. Competition is the American way. The banking industry will have a fit if a retired couple is able to loan a thousand dollars to a young couple in Milton at five percent interest when that couple is getting 1% at the bank, and the young couple was faced with a 25% loan at a pay day. It is the path to stop the wealth transfer in America.

Local community banks and credit unions work. Loan committees made up of people in the community. The too big to fail model has stolen 17 trillion of wealth from America. The peer to peer lending represents a new paradigm which gives control back to the citizens.

Localized communal farming is getting more popular too.  More and more people are getting fed up with the corporate processed foods,  with the torture of food animals,  etc.