Posts tagged economy

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Heartening set of stats on the rise of localization

  • Number of new independent bookstores that have opened since 2005:  437
  • Increase since 2002 in the number of small specialty food stores:  1,414
  • Increase since 2002 in the number of small farms:  111,839
  • Number of farmers markets active in 2010:  6,132
  • Percentage of active farmers markets started since 2000:  53 
  • Average percentage of shoppers at a large supermarket who have a conversation with another customer:  9
  • Average percentage of shoppers at a farmers market who have a conversation with another customer:  63
  • Percentage of bank assets held by small and mid-sized community banks:  22
  • Percentage of small business loans made by small and mid-sized community banks:  54
  • Growth in deposits at small banks and credit unions since 2008:  $77 billion
  • Number of chain pharmacy locations that opened in 2009:  177
  • Number of independent pharmacy locations that opened in 2009:  474
  • Number of Independent Business Alliances and Local First groups in 2005:  30
  • Number of Independent Business Alliances and Local First groups in 2010:  143
  • Percentage change in 2010 sales for independent businesses in cities without a Buy Local First initiative:  2.1
  • Percentage change in 2010 sales for independent businesses in cities with a Buy Local First initiative:  5.6
  • Increase since 2002 in the number of Starbucks company stores:  3,297
  • Increase since 2002 in the number of independent coffee shops:  4,923
  • Average portion of $100 spent at a Target store that stays in the local economy:  $16
  • Average portion of $100 spent at independent retailers that stays in the local economy:  $32
  • Average amount of local wages paid for every $100 spent at a full-service chain restaurant:  $18.68
  • Average amount of local wages paid for every $100 spent at a full-service locally owned restaurant:  $28.46
  • Minimum amount having a grocery store, bookstore, coffee shop and restaurant within half a mile of a house increases its value:  $21,000

(via Naomi Klein)

Filed under local economy

6 notes &

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.

2. Always include local nature – the land, the water, the air, the native creatures – within the membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.

4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products – first to nearby cities, then to others).

5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.

6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.

7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.

9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.

10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.

11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.

12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.

13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.

14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.

15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

Wendell Berry (17 Rules For A Sustainable Economy)
via Rev Billy

Filed under Wendell Berry economy Local sustainable

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IMF’ing mad

Bad Samaritans (Ha Joon Chang)Not long after I moved to the DC area, Janel and I joined a protest against the IMF and World Bank with some friends. (Our protest signs included classic phrases* such as “IMF’ing mad” and “There’s no IMF in TEAM”, and Dave played into stereotype by fashioning an off-topic sign that said “War is dumb”) In explaining what we were protesting, it came down to the fact that we didn’t think the neo-liberal economic agenda was going to benefit developing countries for a variety of reasons, but we aren’t economists and didn’t pretend that we could stand our own in a debate against anyone. (In fact, if any of the media that covered the event had happened to pull us aside for an interview, it’s an open question as to whether we’d be able to produce a soundbite any better than the people Dave was stereotyping with his sign). Ha Joon Chang’s latest book, Bad Samaritans, would have been a great help to us.

Not only is Mr. Chang an economist, he also examines some of the key neo-liberal trade theories from a historical perspective — so it is slightly less of a my-theory-vs-your-theory stalemate and more of a description of how things have and haven’t worked in the past. He uses some memorable metaphors to illustrate his ideas, such as this image to show why forcing an underdeveloped economy to open itself up through free trade and the gamut of modifications required by the World Bank or IMF:

“I have a six-year-old son. His name is Jin-Gyu. He lives off me, yet he is quite capable of making a living. I pay for his lodging, food, education and health care. But millions of children his age already have jobs. Daniel Defoe, in the 18th century, thought that children could earn a living from the age of four.

Moreover, working might do Jin-Gyu’s character a world of good. Right now he lives in an economic bubble with no sense of the value of money. He has zero appreciation of the efforts his mother and I make on his behalf, subsidizing his idle existence and cocooning him from harsh reality. He is over-protected and needs to be exposed to competition, so that he can become a more productive person. Thinking about it, the more competition he is exposed to and the sooner this is done, the better it will be for his future development. It will whip him into a mentality that is ready for hard work. I should make him quit school and get a job…

I can hear you say I must be mad. Myopic. Cruel. You tell me that I need to protect and nurture the child. If I drive Jin-Gyu into the labor market at the age of six, he may become a savvy shoeshine boy or even a prosperous street hawker, but he will never become a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist—that would require at least another dozen years of my protection and investment…

Yet this absurd line of argument is in essence how free-trade economists justify rapid, large-scale trade liberalization in developing countries.”

If you are interested in global economics (even if you don’t know much about it), I would recommend this book, which will definitely be a thought provoking read and probably start a few good conversations. It is surprisingly easy to read and doesn’t get nearly as bogged down in numbers as I expected it to.





*phrases probably copyrighted by Luke Shannon

Filed under economy book review capitalism