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.

Contents

• A Living Rate of Return: 1
• ZeroCost Stimulus: 14
• The Hidden Power of Cooperatives: 44
• Institutional Lending: 71
• AntiPoverty Investing: 100
• If I Were a Rich Man: 117
• Unaccredited Investing in SECLand: 132
• Local Exchanges: 157
• Everybody into the Pool: 184

About the author

Michael Shuman is research director for Cutting Edge Capital in Oakland, economic-development director for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), and a fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. An economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, Shuman has previously authored, coauthored, or edited seven books, including The Small-Mart Revolution (which won a bronze prize from the Independent Publishers Association for best business book of 2006) and Going Local (1998). He has led community-based economic-development and local-food initiatives across the country. He has given an average of more than one invited talk per week for twenty-five years throughout the world and has written nearly 100 published articles for publications such as the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Parade, and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. He lives in Silver Springs, Maryland.

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 / Investments & Securities / General; Business & Economics / Personal Finance / General; Business & Economics / Personal Finance / Investing; Business & Economics / Small Business