the Evil Line

A positive, but pretty lukewarm, take on microcredit:

Though its users avoid the kind of intimidation employed by moneylenders, microcredit could not work without similar incentives. The lender does not demand collateral, but if you can’t pay your share of the group loan, your fellow borrowers will come and take your TV.

Even after explaining, convincingly, all the ways microcredit doesn't work as advertised, Boudreaux and Cowen still come away saying it's a good thing.

Also from the making-the-world-better department, consider this profile of Norman Borlaug:

If he'd killed someone instead of saving hundreds of millions of lives, then they'd have been interested.

It's worth noting that "hundreds of millions" may not be an exaggeration here.