I didn't do it this week, but I recently got involved in a peer-to-peer lending site called lendingclub.com. You can lend or borrow, and it's done completely without banks. As a borrower, I can borrow based on my income and credit situation, with an interest rate based primarily on my credit score, and the lenders are people just like me who want to support the people taking out the loans, and make a few bucks doing it. You can lend in 50$ increments, so if you had 500$ to invest, you could lend it to one person or lend 50$ to ten people. The community is huge too, some people seem to just borrow at a low rate, and lend at a higher rate and pocket the difference (while taking on risk as well).
But more to the point of this exercise, this is a perfect example of how economic power is being distributed from the few to the many. I wouldn't call these micro-transactions (maybe mini-transactions?), but extrapolated into the future, this trend could loosen the stranglehold the big banks have on western society, and that trend will spread around the world. As it is, people are using this money to start businesses, fuel economic growth, and they're doing it from the ground up, with only the support of the community and a good idea. In the future, that's all you'll need.
:)
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