Word: prospers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...nascent peer-to-peer (P2P) loan industry, in which regular people exchange cash with the help of an online facilitator, had about $650 million in outstanding debt in 2007. Prosper, the first such matchmaker in the U.S., which started in 2006 and now has 600,000 users, and Lending Club, described below, are sort of financial eBays: borrowers post a request, and lenders bid on how much and at what interest rate they want to give. Several--or several dozen--people fund the loan at a rate agreeable to all. The intermediary runs a credit check, calculates returns and takes...
...default rate is less than 0.5%. That's partly because P2P members are motivated to pay back or lend to an actual person rather than a big bank. Since May 2006, Marilyn Paguirigan of Honolulu has lent a total of $30,000 to more than 100 people on Prosper, most of whom she has never met. "I measure my returns in not just the dollar amount," says Paguirigan, who happily makes 6% to 7% on her loans. "It's in the fulfillment I get from helping people." Here's a typical P2P loan...
...said to date back to the 14th century siege of Castelnaudary during the Hundred Years' War, when citizens created a communal dish so hearty their revivified soldiers sent the invaders packing. But since then several cities have laid claim to the true recipe. In a conciliatory gesture, chef Prosper Montagné decreed in 1929 that "God the father is the cassoulet of Castelnaudary, God the Son that of Carcassonne, and the Holy Spirit that of Toulouse...
...second largest metropolis. Chief among them is Puebla, two hours southeast of the capital. Set in a valley and ringed by a series of volcanoes - including the 14,636-ft (4,461-m) Malinche - Puebla was founded in 1531 along an important pre-Columbian trade route. This helped Puebla prosper during Spanish rule, resulting in one of the most elaborate and colorful town squares, or zócalo, in the New World, with High Baroque churches and hidden, Moorish-inspired courtyards...
...returnees have found a nation that has learned to live on its wits and prosper in the global economy, just like the nations of southeast Asia. In Asia, it's often been said - though never proved - that economic success leads ineluctably to political openness. That hasn't happened in Tunisia as yet; but it would be really something - for North Africa, the Arab world, and international society generally...