Local Economy

Public Banking Can Improve The Lives Of Workers And Help Save The Planet

June 12, 2021 C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout. Create! Finance and the Economy, Local Economy, Public Banks, Worker Rights and Jobs

The movement to create public banks is gaining ground in many parts of the U.S., particularly as part of an effort among activists and progressive lawmakers to extend banking access to low-income communities and communities of color in the post-COVID-19 economy. But how does public banking help protect the local community and assist with development? If public banks become part of the Federal Reserve — as a bill introduced by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aims to do — what would be the consequences? Leading progressive economist Gerald Epstein, professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has studied the issue of public banking extensively and sheds ample light on these questions in this exclusive interview for Truthout.

Report: Incarceration Destabilizes Neighborhood Economies

November 24, 2020 Hannah Gaskill, Maryland Matters. Educate! Community Safety, Local Economy, Maryland, Mass Incarceration

A report released by the Maryland Center for Economic Policy suggests decreasing the state’s prison budget will lead to a healthier economy and increased public safety. The report, released Wednesday, found that Black Marylanders are 4 1/2 times more likely to serve prison sentences than any other racial or ethnic group. Indigenous Maryland residents are twice as likely to be incarcerated than any other racial or ethnic group. “None of what we’re doing is making any of us safer and it’s most certainly not making those Black communities that are being robbed of human capital ― it’s not making them any safer...

The MEC Saga Shows That Canada Needs More Co-operation

October 10, 2020 Kevin Harding, The Tyee. Educate! Canada, Cooperatives, Local Economy, Privatization

The campaign to “Save MEC” — Mountain Equipment Co-op — has rallied more than 140,000 Canadians together to save a business that is being sold to an American private equity firm. But this grassroots and groundswell campaign wasn’t about saving a retailer; it was about saving a co-op. In fighting for a member-owned, democratic business, the campaign tapped into a passion in Canadians for co-operation. That passion, which drove thousands of people to engage on social media, sign petitions, demand support from banks and donate more than $100,000 to a legal fund to challenge the sale of the co-op, proves that what Canada needs is not another American-owned store but more co-operation — more of doing business in a different way.

Breaking With The Defunct Idea Of Development

October 3, 2020 Daniel McCurdy, Alliance for Global Justice. Create! Cooperatives, Local Economy, Nicaragua, Tourism

One of the particularities of tourism in Nicaragua is its democratization. Since the Sandinista government won elections in 2006 and came to power in 2007, the promotion and expansion of the tourism sector is increasingly important for Nicaraguans, contributing significantly to a rise in incomes for many lower-income families.[i] Contrary to the focus on tourism (or even ‘ecotourism) for export in many countries, the Nicaraguan government’s tourism policies incentivize Nicaraguan working-class family tourism.

The Economy Of Sharing Is Alive during Nicaragua’s Independence Celebration

September 17, 2020 Jorge Capelán, Alliance for Global Justice. Create! colonization, Independence Day, Local Economy, Nicaragua

This week is very important in Central America, especially in Nicaragua. On September 15, the region celebrates the signing of its declaration of Independence from Spain in 1821. On September 14, another historic milestone is celebrated: The defeat of US filibuster William Walker and his troops by Nicaraguan forces in 1856. Walker had repealed laws prohibiting slavery in an attempt to get the support of US southern states. US President Franklin Pierce recognized Walker’s as the legitimate government of Nicaragua an endeavor to bring Nicaragua under US control that failed over and over again with the Nicaraguan people throughout history.

Pandemic May Turn People Back To Local Farms

April 20, 2020 Polly Fitz, Door County Pulse. Create! COVID-19, Economic shutdown, Food and Agriculture, Local Economy, New Economy

At Waseda Farms in Baileys Harbor, store manager Sayard Geeve said, “The phone is ringing off the hook.” Flying Tractor Farm in Sturgeon Bay has been selling more of its meat products. Cold Climate Farms in Nasewaupee is getting calls from people asking whether its staff can ship food. As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads throughout the country and here on the peninsula, local farms are affected differently from many other operations. Farmers with products available now are coming up with new ways to safely get their food to customers, and as they prepare now for the outdoor growing season, they’re dealing with uncertainty about what their customer base will be this summer. Farms that produce year-round have seen an important, regular revenue source dwindle or disappear.

Things Got A Whole Lot More Local Than I Expected Due To Coronavirus

March 31, 2020 Neal Gorenflo, Shareable.net Create! Coronavirus, COVID-19, Local Economy

On March 12, I shared five #LocalYear commitments to help me go more local. Little did I know how local things would get in just one week. The next day local schools closed due to the coronavirus. Three days later six San Francisco Bay Area counties, including ours, issued a “shelter in place” order affecting seven million people in California’s coronavirus hotspot. Three days after that, Gov. Gavin Newsom did the same for all of California. Ordinary life in California has come to a near standstill. Birdsong has replaced the howl of traffic in my neighborhood. Downtown Mountain View is a near ghost town. Many shops and restaurants are closed, some for good. Aside from daily walks, my family is staying at ground zero of local — our house.

Coronavirus, Economic Networks, And Social Fabric

March 15, 2020 Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org. Create! Coronavirus, COVID-19, Local Economy, New Economy, Recession

The COVID-19 pandemic offers intriguing insights into how networked our modern world has become, and how we’ve traded resilience for economic efficiency. Case in point: someone gets sick in China in December of 2019, and by March of 2020 the US shale oil industry is teetering on the brink. What set off this unraveling? It was China’s deliberate—and arguably necessary—pull-back from economic connectivity. This tells us something useful about networked systems: unless there is a lot of redundancy built into them, any one node in the network can affect others. If it’s an important node (China has become the center of world manufacturing), it can disrupt the entire system. What would redundancy actually mean?

Resisting War Through Education And Local Cooperatives

July 1, 2018 Kathy Kelly, Intrepid Report. Create! Afghanistan, Cooperatives, Local Economy, Peace

War profiteers deliver hellish realities and futile prospects, but the Afghan Peace Volunteers have not given up on bettering their country. In recent visits to Kabul, we’ve listened as they consider the longer-term question of how peace can come to an economically devastated country where employment by various warlords, including the U.S. and Afghan militaries, is many families’ only way to put bread on the table. Hakim, who mentors the APVs, assures us that a lasting peace must involve the creation of jobs and incomes with a hope of sustaining community.

From Local Pants To Local Energy: The Case For Localizing Our Economies

February 9, 2017 Erica Etelson, www.truth-out.org Create! Local Economy

By Erica Etelson for Truthout - During a panel discussion this May on Community Choice Energy, a rapidly growing initiative in California and six other states that enables communities to seize control of local electricity services, I argued for the economic benefits of building out local, decentralized renewable energy assets such as rooftop and community solar arrays. I was followed by a panelist who chided my “misguided” belief in the virtue of locally-generated, clean energy. “Who cares whether our electricity is locally generated?” he quipped. “I’ve never heard of anyone demanding local pants, and local electricity doesn’t make any more sense than local pants.”

Become #Ungovernable

January 8, 2017 Staff, www.ungovernable2017.com Organize! Inauguration, Local Economy, Trump, Trumpism

By Ungovernable. We pledge to create a resistance movement that makes Trump unable to govern our oppression; unable to deceive the people, to make the people accept his reign of hatred. We refuse to give hatred a chance to govern, a chance to roll back civil and human rights, a chance to deport millions of people, a chance to create camps and registries for Muslims, a chance to expand the prison industrial complex, a chance to expand its drone wars, or a chance to turn back the gains won by our struggles. We pledge resistance to this renewed attack on our communities. As we resist, we will create new governing institutions, new economic relationships, and new ways of being human. What we will not do is sanction and/or normalize “overt” white supremacy. Let’s start now. Let’s make the so-called inauguration day a day to resist a day to be ungovernable and plan for a new future and new way.

Small Town Refused Walmart When Last Grocery Store Closed

January 8, 2017 Melissa Hellman, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Food desert, Local Economy, Walmart

By Melissa Hellman for Yes! Magazine. For two months in 2012, longtime Iola, Kansas, resident Mary Ross trudged through the sweltering heat, waving gnats from her view as she walked door to door with a petition. It was the hottest summer since moving there with her family about 30 years ago, but Ross was determined to gather signatures requesting a grocery store be established in the small rural town of fewer than 6,000 people. Iola had lost its last independent grocery store four years earlier, shortly after the Wal-mart Supercenter—with its own expansive aisles—came to town and drove out all of the competition. “I live in a small town. That was my choice,” she says. But since Iola’s three smaller grocery stores went out of business, she has to drive 8 to 20 miles to find healthy food choices and the specific ingredients for her home-cooked meals.

Municipal Leaders Share Visions For Cities Building Community Wealth

February 18, 2016 John Duda, www.community-wealth.org Create! Cooperatives, Local Economy

By John Duda for Comunity Wealth - How can cities redeploy their economic development resources to focus on building a more inclusive economy grounded in broad, local ownership? How can policymakers get strategies like worker cooperative development the support and resources needed to reach truly meaningful scale? How can collaborations between communities, local government, and key institutional stakeholders build pathways to economic equity for the people left behind by the traditional trickle-down economic playbook?

Branding Tradition: A Bittersweet Tale Of Capitalism At Work

February 10, 2016 Steven Gorelick, www.localfutures.org Organize! Creative Economy, Local Economy, Vermont

By Steven Gorelick for Local Futures - Expensive labor-saving technologies not only make it difficult for small producers to survive, they also reduce the number of jobs available among those that remain. It’s true that 24 jobs have been created in Island Pond by the Sweet Tree operation; but 100,000 taps divided among numerous small-scale operations would provide livelihoods for 5 to 10 times as many people. The local economic benefits would also be far greater: the profits from Sweet Tree’s operation will be siphoned into investment portfolios in Connecticut, while the profits from those smaller producers would circulate locally.

Newsletter: Looking Back And Ahead

December 27, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Black Lives Matter (BLM), Climate Change, Elections, Local Economy, New Economy, Podemos, Racism, TPP, Venezuela

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. As we look back over 2015, we see progress and, as we look forward to 2016, we see continued challenges ahead. Overall, the strategic path of resisting harmful policies and practices and building alternative systems to replace the current dysfunctional ones, known as 'stop the machine, create a new world,' is being taken by a growing number of people. The movement continues to grow on multiple fronts and is unifying around issues, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that impact us all. We are on our way to the 3.5% of activated people necessary to defeat the plutocracy, but there is still much to do. And we must be prepared to face even more difficult times before we break through the current paradigm and transform our economic, social and political systems.

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