Brooks Memorial Library is pleased to announce that Michael Shuman, author of several books including “Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity,” will be featured at the first annual “New Economy Lunch at the Library” to discuss how buying local can positively impact the economy. The lunch talk will be at noon on Friday, October 11th in the library’s meeting room on the 2nd floor. The event is free and open to the public, and a brown bag lunch may be brought into the meeting room. The Library will be using the new videoconferencing equipment received as part of the Vermont Department of Libraries/Google grant.
Shuman will discuss how new investment tools – including those just legalized in a new Crowdfunding Law – could begin to move as much as $15 trillion from Wall Street to Main Street and create millions of new jobs. There will be time available for questions and answers. A growing body of evidence suggests that the most promising way to create new jobs is to nurture new, small, and locally owned new businesses. Small, local businesses constitute roughly half a typical community’s economy, and even more in rural areas and small towns. Yet almost none of Americans’ $30 trillion in long-term savings—in stocks, bonds, pension funds, mutual funds, and insurance funds—goes into these businesses.
In his new book, Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity (Chelsea Green, 2012), Shuman argues that the most important economic stimulus opportunity for the United States today—and one that would cost almost nothing to implement—would be to relax securities laws that stand in the way investing in local business.
Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur, and Director of Research and Marketing for Cutting Edge Capital. He has authored, coauthored, or edited eight books. His most recent book, just published by Chelsea Green, is Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity. His previous book, The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006), received as bronze prize from the Independent Publishers Association for best business book of 2006. He helped co-found BALLE, which represents 22,000 local businesses in North America in 80 communities, and is now a Fellow there. He is also a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute. At Cutting Edge Capital, a consulting firm that helps communities and businesses solving finance challenges, he manages its economic-development initiatives.
For more information, call or email the Reference Desk (802) 254-5290 x109
Location Brooks Memorial Library Meeting Room
Contact Info Jeanne Walsh 802-254-5290 ext 109
