I studied international development as an undergraduate, and I ended up studying Bangladesh pretty often since it’s such a unique, and tragic, case. Therefore I’m really happy to find that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has gone to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. Grameen pioneered the micro-credit individual responsibility model of jump starting cottage industries in an economy ravaged by decades of marxist dictatorship and mismanagement. Unlike those for the TVA style projects preferred by major development organs like the World Bank, these loans get paid back. And as a friend of mine who worked for NDI in Bangladesh for a year said: “They piss the hell out of the Muslim fundamentalists here, so they must be doing something right.”