Imagine covered parking everywhere that you can just plug your car into - with solar panels up top. In more and more places today, you can own your own solar panels in a community-owned solar array and receive a credit on your electric bill.
We are talking about the disintermediation of investment - why do we need a Wall Street middleman to put our money to work?
Look at your tattered main street and imagine bringing back the old movie theater as a venue for local performers. Think about that foreclosure down the street. Could that become a corner store that sells good local food? Get together with your neighbors to buy it back from the bank.
Local investment is simple and prosaic, typically done with a handshake, with a distinct lack of adrenaline. It doesn't involve run ups and flash crashes and is nothing at all like a casino.
We are not offering investment advice. We are asking you to redirect your investment as an act of free speech to right the balance of our society in the name of Mother Earth. It is not an act of civil disobedience, it is obedience to the ideal of a civil society.
Divestment was an important tool to help end apartheid in South Africa. Let's apply it now to end the excesses of Wall Street.
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Saturday, October 15, 2011
1 comment:
Wall street cannot misuse our money if we do not let them get their hands on it! I pledge to redirect all or part of my investment dollars away from Wall Street and into:
- Locally owned renewable energy, such as community solar gardens
- Local food production, distribution, and retail systems
- Foreclosure redevelopment into community centers, corner stores, libraries, day care centers, community gardens
Put a community solar garden on your town dump! Gather your neighbors to fix up that blighted foreclosure! Help a family go back to work the land...
In your pledge indicate the percentage or dollar amount of investment you are willing to redirect. Indicate where you have redirected your investment, or where you would redirect your investment if you could.
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Divestment can be a powerful tool, but I would also recommend discussing other measures as well. Some people won't divest no matter what. A lot of the money loaned out by banks isn't individual's money either, it's deposits of corporate accounts, or the money created out of thin air through the federal reserve system which is the point of entry of new money into the monetary system.
ReplyDeleteI also want to point out that many people aren't doing these sorts of investments because they aren't profitable in the current business and economic climate. If community gardens, local production of various goods, and renewable energy were profitable, banks would be investing in them--even the biggest banks.
We need to reform our tax system so that the free market makes these projects profitable naturally, rather than forcing them to happen. The traditional liberal approach has been to regulate and use grants. This approach doesn't work. If you pump money into a business that isn't profitable, it'll stop working as soon as the money runs out.
But there's another approach. In my suggested tax reforms I explain more about how we could make changes to our tax code that would allow the free market to solve these problems. I would encourage people to read and consider this other perspective.
But until then, divestment and investment in credit unions and small, local banks can have a positive effect, even if it doesn't completely fix the problem.