Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity

Michael Shuman

Chelsea Green Publishing, Feb 20, 2012 - Business & Economics - 288 pages

Local Dollars, Local Sense is a guide to creating Community Resilience.

Americans' long-term savings in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, pension funds, and life insurance funds total about $30 trillion. But not even 1 percent of these savings touch local small business-even though roughly half the jobs and the output in the private economy come from them. So, how can people increasingly concerned with the poor returns from Wall Street and the devastating impact of global companies on their communities invest in Main Street?

In Local Dollars, Local Sense, local economy pioneer Michael Shuman shows investors, including the nearly 99% who are unaccredited, how to put their money into building local businesses and resilient regional economies-and profit in the process. A revolutionary toolbox for social change, written with compelling personal stories, the book delivers the most thorough overview available of local investment options, explains the obstacles, and profiles investors who have paved the way. Shuman demystifies the growing realm of local investment choices-from institutional lending to investment clubs and networks, local investment funds, community ownership, direct public offerings, local stock exchanges, crowdfunding, and more. He also guides readers through the lucrative opportunities to invest locally in their homes, energy efficiency, and themselves.

A rich resource for both investors and the entrepreneurs they want to support, Local Dollars, Local Sense eloquently shows how to truly protect your financial future--and your community's.

What people are saying

LOCAL DOLLARS, LOCAL SENSE: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street To Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity

User Review  - Kirkus

In an installment of the environmentally responsible publisher's Community Resilience Guide series, an astute economist weighs in on a hot-button issue: how to keep local dollars invested in local ...

User Review -

A good way to achieve real prosperity in America is to invest money in local businesses, instead of the multi-national conglomerates of this world. This book shows some ways to do it.
First of all, forget about the usual method, that of buying shares in a local store. The vast majority of investors are "unaccredited," and for a local store to legally offer shares to the public requires an accountant, a lawyer, and several thousand dollars in expenses. A way around that is for the business owner to, for instance, offer a $100 gift card for sale to the public. The buyer then gets $125 in goods or services on that card. The business owner gets extra money coming in, and the customer gets something extra for their "investment."
The average Mega-Bank is getting less and less interested in approving a loan for someone who wants to start a business. They would much rather put their money in a higher-risk investment that offers a higher rate of return (credit default swaps, anyone?). Depositors should consider moving their money to a community bank or credit union, which is where loan-seekers should go for a loan. These are institutions where the head office is in your town, or a neighboring town, instead of a neighboring stsate. They will be much more interested in helping local businesses, and treating depositors and loan seekers as more than just a number.
Consider resurrecting regional stock exchanges, which would trade only companies from that state or region. Consider changing the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) rules, to make it easier for smaller companies to sell shares to the public, and make it easier for the average person to buy those shares. If you do nothing else, invest in yourself. Pay off your credit cards, pay down your mortgage as fast as possible, consider going (or going back) to school, to increase your available skills as much as possible, and consider a DIY retirement fund.
This will certainly change perceptions about finance. It is easy to read, and gives a number of ways to keep your money in your town (where it belongs).  

Contents

• ALiving Rate of Return: 1
• ZeroCost Stimulus: 14
• The Hidden Power of Cooperatives: 44
• Institutional Lending: 71
• AntiPoverty Investing: 100
• IfIWereaRichMan: 117
• Unaccredited Investing in SECLand: 132
• Local Exchanges: 157
• Everybody into the Pool: 184

About the author

Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, and a globally recognized expert on community economics. He is one of the architects of the crowdfunding JOBS Act signed into law by President Obama in April 2012.

He’s a fellow at Cutting Edge Capital and Post Carbon Institute and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). He teaches economic development at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He has authored or coauthored nine books, including Local Dollars, Local Sense; The Small Mart Revolution; and Going Local. Shuman has performed leakage analyses and related economic development planning in more than ten states and has analyzed opportunities for food localization for several states, cities, counties, and regions across the nation. He has given an average of more than one invited talk per week, mostly to local governments and universities, for thirty years—in fortyseven states and eight countries. He has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, such as the The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, and has written nearly one hundred articles for such periodicals as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Parade Magazine, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Previously, he has been a W.K. Kellogg National Leadership fellow. He is also a member of both the State Bar of California and the District of Columbia Bar, and he lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his two children.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity; Community Resilience Guides
• Author: Michael Shuman
• Contributor: Peter Buffett
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012
• ISBN: 1603583440, 9781603583442
• Length: 288 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Investing; Business & Economics / Small Business