Second, my concept ... essentially, borrowing money from your future self for something with a postive ROI expectation value.

Economists can (OK, do) roughly value certain life milestones, such as the increase in lifetime earnings for finishing high school (for the sake of this discussion, let's use $500K for that number). They also believe that certain goals (e.g. passing grades for a semester) can be cash-incentivized. So you let an individual borrow a portion of their future benefit (10%? $50K buys a lot of incentive from a HS student) in the present, with a promise to repay that over a very long time period at a very low interest rate (something that works out to about 20% in total repayments, before factoring inflation, if I had to peg it to something for the sake of argument). A website would have a schedule of incentive schemes, possibly scaled by degree-of-difficulty (passing grades being tougher for weaker students, e.g.), and upon meeting the short-term milestones of that goal, and the final goal itself, incentives would be paid out. This could apply to any process that has a {present value of all future returns} greater than the amount needed to repay: reduced medical costs for weight reduction and smoking-cessation, job certifications (passing a CPA or actuarial exam), time off from work to acquire a work-related skill, cost of improving a home/installing energy-reducing features, etc. Yeah, some of those may not work, but I'm sure there's no shortage of quantifiable processes or goals with a positive future ROI. & I can see that measurement could be tricky, but in the school example we could have schools sign on to the program, in the certification example we get a copy of the certification from the certifying body, etc.

There's an additional monetary multiplier, in that the younger version (the borrower) is almost certainly in a lower income bracket than the older version (the lender), and the money is valued more highly ... I'd happily give $20 inflation-adjusted dollars (a pittance now) to my younger self just to go have fun with (who felt $20 was a lot of money), even taking into account that I wish I'd worked/studied harder when I was younger so I could coast more now. And when it comes time to repay the loan, the fact that I am effectively repaying myself might reduce deadbeatedness.

Of course, not everyone will repay their loans, and the payoff in this venture would be very long-term. So who would provide the seed money for this until repayments match outlays? Well: - The same people who loan money to Kiva, not to make a profit, but because they believe incentivizing people is more effective than aid, and if they make a few dollars off it eventually, that's gravy - The same people who give gift annuities to schools (a similar mechanism) - Foundations with money to invest and an ethical dictate to do something with that money - People trying to solve long-term problems (eradicating diseases, improving the education system) who just want their money to do the best thing possible - Alumni of the program who see the value (the same way universitites have an easy time getting money from graduates who believe school was one reason they have high incomes) - People who see it as a Very Good Idea and choose to fund that instead of a non-profit (I understand you personally may not consider it a VGI, but weaker concepts have attracted more money)

Please proceed to poke holes/refine. thnx. -b.