Mao Yushi, the Famed Chinese Economist, Shares His Thoughts on How to Structure MF Programs to Fight Poverty

Mao Yushi, 茅于轼, is a well known economist in China. He was among the first in China to advocate using micro finance to fight poverty.

In my eyes, he is a scholar who believes the power of the "Invisible Hand" and has a strong conscience of social justice as well. Recently, he was ridiculed by some pundits for saying that an economist should be "vouching for the Rich but working for the Poor" (为富人说话，为穷人办事)

It is not surprising that Mao sees the power in micro finance.

Here is an interview of Mao (当务之急是地下金融合法化) where he further articulated his thoughts and position on micro finance, private capital and what the right state policy should be:

农村小额贷款这一块主要的问题是对股东的要求，它要求每一个股东只能参与10%，而且这10个股东互相还不能关联，那就是说这10个股东互相都不认识，这个事怎么办得通啊？

现在有一个特别之处就是小额贷款公司是在工商部门注册的，不是金融注册。工商注册规定只贷不存，

就算出事，几百万，甚至一千万，也影响不了大局的。不会像以前那些大国有银行出现几十个亿、几百个亿的不良资产，这些地下金融没有那么大的本事。

这次金融危机，我们应该把各方面的潜力充分发挥出来，对付金融危机，比如说现在回乡的农民很多，... 农民回去之后，这些人中有一些人想创业，但是没有资本。像这种情况，我们的小额贷款公司就可以帮他忙。