Locavesting: The Revolution in Local Investing and How to Profit from It
by Amy Cortese
(John Wiley, 2011)
Having just completed in October my 36th year as a small business owner, I was interested in reading Cortese’s book as soon as I learned of it. Having always been interested in the promotion of importance and betterment of local business for my community, Locavesting caught my eye.
Locavesting is fundamentally about fixing our broken economic system. It’s about restoring a more just and participatory form of capitalism, one that allocates capital for productive use in the community. It’s about forming alternative ideas and practices rather than a win or take all economy. It’s about rebuilding our savings, our communities and strengthening the core of our culture, and hopefully about influencing the culture of our country, which I feel is being challenged by too much government influence. As announced this week, the U.S. debt is now equal to our economy which means our entire debt is as big as everything we produce in our country.
Locavesting emphasizes investing in what you know, local companies that you can see, touch and understand their community value and contribution. It’s about spending your dollars for services where service is strengthened and the dollar investment is recirculated in the local market, planting the seed for further growth equals a more self-reliant community.
As it seems to me, our government is intent on growing our dependency on manipulated entitlements. Locavesting is offering new considerations and explanations on how the work we do is one with ownership. A work lifestyle like this might help us make more of a difference. Perhaps the contributions we make for our community can somehow combat the reckless spending of “Too Big to Fail” business and government. Local business can at least take the bull by the horns in our communities and contribute to the local well-being day by day. We all know about the battle “Main Street” is fighting. It’s up to each of us to be a part of the solution. We don’t need to accept the malaise, and we must remember that our small steps can lead to a broader awareness.
Cortese presents arguments and statistics reinforcing the financial benefits of dollars being recirculated in the local markets. She explores which small businesses make a difference to our community culture. However, Locavesting is not anti-big business. The emphasis is on considering the implications of how our choices benefit local enterprises.
Reading Locavesting has enhanced my feelings as we move into 2012 on the importance of broadening this type of awareness. Not only do I want to be more aware of community from a personal standpoint, but also as a part of the Lemuria team as we broaden our outreach interests. We need to be more aware and more effective with our local community efforts and work with greater determination to achieve our outreach goals.
I was disappointed when I finished that Cortese does not have a two or three page suggested reading list. I feel that by not suggesting more reading on this subject, she missed the boat on further stimulating her message to her readers.
Consciously, Lemuria plans to utilize the core of our work to expand our mission into a larger community footprint. We welcome your input and participation.
JX//RX
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