> if investment in poor people provides good returns why there is not enough investment? (i.e unsecured loans provided by the private sector) If I read this as

> if investment in poor people provides good returns why there is not enough investment? (i.e unsecured loans provided by the private sector) If I read this as a rhetorical question, then we are supposing that people always do the most profitable thing. We know this is not the case, because people are very shortsighted: there is no particular reason to think we would not be shortsighted in this matter either. Moreover, there are a lot of examples of things that have great ROI, but that the private sector is ill-equipped or unable to do, for whatever reason. The provision of public education, basic healthcare, infrastructure, are all great examples. These have great ROI in the long term at the population scale, but apart from some niches, are ill-suited to private enterprise.