Muhammad
Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist, godfather of microcredit, and founder of the now-famous Grameen Bank, enchants many different types of people with his imaginings of a better future. A popular public speaker, Yunus is a relatively short man with a silver mane, a beaming round face, and a perpetually optimistic demeanor. He seems humble even when making grandiose claims, and, with his warm-heartedness, makes whatever he has on offer seem delightfully agreeable. At his talks, he regularly draws standing ovations from socially conscious progressives, business-oriented free-marketers, and numerous personalities in between.
What Yunus has on offer, his supporters would say, is a method for ending poverty. These supporters make up a large group that includes the Norwegian committee that awarded Yunus and his Grameen Bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. This makes things all the more frustrating for Yunus’s detractors. Those to the left would argue that the economist is selling “...
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