This remarkable operation, explained by a Fonkoze release, offers two important lessons to investors.

First, it reminds us of what finance is really for. Haitians need food, water, doctors, and shelter – and yet they also need pieces of green paper. In a global economy where trillions change hands without ever being touched by anyone's hands, it is easy to forget how vital actual currency can be. A country that has effectively lost civil society can't be rebuilt without cash in hand.

The release from Fonkoze excerpts a letter from Jennifer Harris, of the US State Department, to the Air Force. Her description of the airlift, and its ramifications:

"Let me give you a flavor of what you did last night, and explain why keeping Fonkoze solvent - which is what you have just done - matters to Haiti's overall economic and security picture. … While $2 million sounds like pittance, and hardly a reason to divert a C-17, Fonkoze has by far the deepest reach into the country's rural poor - a remittance network that would take years to recreate from scratch. … "In view of all of this, I don't think it a stretch to say that you may well have stabilized the banking system for the country's most vulnerable populations last night. Had we not made it within yesterday's US banking hours window, it is not at all clear that Monday would have come soon enough. A viable banking sector for such a large portion of the population should in turn help to boost popular confidence in the Haitian government, all of which will figure into the more generalized security situation."

This is the second lesson: there is no hard line between public and private interests. The US Government believes that, to shore up the Haitian government, they must help private citizens get their own money. Indeed, the Associated Press reports that less than 1% of total US Government aid to Haiti – $379 million to date – is being directed to Haiti's government. Instead, the US is funding "established and tested" NGOs and nonprofits.

In the Fonkoze airlift, federal resources were used to ferry private US citizens who were bringing Haitians' money to Haiti. A disaster in a poor nation is highlighting the same question Americans ask in the wake of Federal bank bailouts: which dollars are private, and which are public?

The distinction, in the context of a humanitarian disaster, is not important. In understanding our economy, however, it reminds us to be wary of other conventional dichotomies. The choice traditionally presented by socially responsible investing (SRI) – between investing for value and investing for "values" – looks, in 2010, like no choice at all. From Goldman Sachs to Fonkoze, from TARP to a hundred dollars hidden in a Staples box, our actions as buyers, sellers and investors are inseparable from our choices as citizens.