This week's New York Times article Europe Takes Africa's Fish and Migrants Follow raises a perplexing problem:

A vast flotilla of industrial trawlers from the European Union, China, Russia and elsewhere, together with an abundance of local boats, have so thoroughly scoured northwest Africa’s ocean floor that major fish populations are collapsing.

That has crippled coastal economies and added to the surge of illegal migrants who brave the high seas in wooden pirogues hoping to reach Europe. While reasons for immigration are as varied as fish species, Europe’s lure has clearly intensified as northwest Africa’s fish population has dwindled.

Last year roughly 31,000 Africans tried to reach the Canary Islands, a prime transit point to Europe, in more than 900 boats. About 6,000 died or disappeared, according to one estimate cited by the United Nations.

The question then arises: who bears the brunt of responsibility for these dwindling fish populations and the subsequent affect on local fishers? The foreign boats which deplete the waters and the foreign consumers which demand them to do so? The local governments, who strapped for cash, make decisions to sell resources needed by their people to fill the government coffers and/or fund state programs?

Kenya’s economy, troubled even before the recently disputed election, is suffering from a “youth bulge” which may have helped increase the acceleration into violence the country saw hours after the votes were counted. According to Stephanie Hanson of the Council on Foreign Relations, “research shows that countries with a “youth bulge” are particularly vulnerable to civil conflict.” The country suffers from high unemployment rates, especially among these young people, who make up a majority of the population. Nevertheless, the youth should not be written off altogether. Their “potential to lead positive political change” suggests that “policymakers should spur job creation and education opportunities.” In other words, given the chance to lead productive lives, the population will be more likely to thrive, and perhaps help mitigate rather than escalate crises.

Business Week's "The Ugly Side of Microlending” presents a seemingly untold story regarding microfinance. Many (if not all) in the aid and development sector laud the triumphs of micro-credit for the world's poor; and, in truth it has been a driving force for positive change in a number of people's lives. However, when there is a profit to be made a variety of more unsavory business practices arise.

Keith Epstein and Geri Smith do a great job of investigating the variety of for-profit banks that operate within Mexico, painting a bleak picture for unsophisticated and largely uneducated borrowers. Drawn by lack of regulations and a government bogged down by corruption Mexican banks are charging anyway from 50% to 120% annual interest on loans.

So, what does that mean exactly? After a 104 week payment plan of $23 a month, an average borrower will end up paying more than double for a $1,100 Whirlpool refrigerator. What's more-- large corporations such as Wal-Mart are moving onto the scene, having obtained their Mexican banking license last year.

The flip side of microfinance is one that should receive more attention. With the advent of micro-credit to the world's radar screen one cannot blithely assume that all lending institutions are created equal. So what's the answer? More regulation? Increased education? I suppose one cannot discount that America has similar institutions-- the Pay Day cash lending services that frequently appear in strip malls often invite sharp criticism domestically. Either way—it seems clear that for profit banking institutions charging astronomical interest rates seem to be perpetuating the very poverty they are supposedly attempting to alleviate.

A sobering piece on Chinese/American trade by James Fallows in this month's issue of The Atlantic:

Through the quarter-century in which China has been opening to world trade, Chinese leaders have deliberately held down living standards for their own people and propped them up in the United States. This is the real meaning of the vast trade surplus—$1.4 trillion and counting, going up by about $1 billion per day—that the Chinese government has mostly parked in U.S. Treasury notes. In effect, every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China.

Fallows concludes:

Like so many imbalances in economics, this one can’t go on indefinitely, and therefore won’t. But the way it ends—suddenly versus gradually, for predictable reasons versus during a panic—will make an enormous difference to the U.S. and Chinese economies over the next few years, to say nothing of bystanders in Europe and elsewhere.