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Improving Economic Well-Being

 

cooperative housing

 

discussion on globalization ... Larry Davidson, international business ("everything is fine, everyone has to adapt") got an empassioned response from the audience at the library ... got to have the chamber ... "You are opposing the creation of jobs"

 

How can we do (or what) ... to help the economic situation

 

can't do that until you inject an alternate paradigm ... typically, people stutter in response to the current explanation ... there are compelling explanations for reality that lead us to come to conculsions about what we can do

 

What is "here"? Bloomington? Monroe County? ... which one of those are we talking about? ... decide what it is within that boundary we can do

 

primary interests are poverty in the county ... a lot of the population is here because of the--

 

county regulations go to county line, but economic influence goes across the county line (a "corridor")

 

start in the county and export the idea to their community

 

we are a donor county (one of 13 in Indiana) .. we generate an immense amout of wealth that leaks out ... we are one of the most affluent counties, but lots of ... corporate colonialism, extracting income here

 

main export of Monroe county is education

 

profits of RCA did not stay here ... today, even the income taxes would be captured elsewhere ... it doesn't do any good to have jobs where the income goes elsewhere, we have to deal with the problems of infrastructure

 

create our own cooperatives, own businesses ... sustainability centers, keeping self-employment and money in the community ... cooperative efforts to reduce costs ... push the government, inform the public, but also have own projects

 

The Big Kitchen is for meals but also to train people to work in the food service industry ... IU is outsourcing

 

not to say the people couldn't try to have the salary and benefits .. cooperative would still try to do the best by themselves

 

IU Bookstore ... let's say Borders take over that, would have to provide the same service at the same cost ... they have to make a profit somewhere, it has to come from the employees

 

county economic development problem - taking away the benefits and jobs, those people are still working here ... externalizing the cost ... anyone who cares about county economics should object to the lowering of benefits

 

Who is interested in economic development in this county? ... (The ability to make money) ... no one in government

 

Clink Merkwood, county govt

 

Bloomington Technology District downtown ... real estate scam, perpetuated by the University

 

If you made it an issue with the Governor (in addition to I-69, privitization hurts local working people), the community would respond

 

They never reduce the administration in size or salary ... hire adjuct faculty

 

Bloomingfoods ... there are cooperative ideas that also employ people ...

 

401Ks should be local

 

Be careful ... we can't create jobs ... corporations can't create jobs ... Economies create job. We can protect the economy, looking at what it is that the economy is comprised of

 

Governments do create jobs: military

 

There were so many people who used to work here on light assembly lines ... major industry now in Bloomington is IU, Hospital, Cook, School System ... 10,000 government employees in the area ... college of arts & science alone has 1200 faculty

 

  1. 1 thing you can do: educate people about income leakage ... that represents dollars leaving the area ... become aware of how it happens, where it happens, how to reverse it ... keep it from leaking outside the borders to this county

 

Stop subsidies ... when Wal-Mart comes and says they are going to create 200 jobs, they are not doing that ... If they sell something, it means someone else didn't

 

We have to make things for people to do ... do something that puts a

 

What would people buy here that they can't buy here now? ... Solar water heater - no one listed ... Tree-free paper, better environmental products

 

 

Economic empowerment is the point, not jobs

 

We can't create jobs

 

Buy Local

 

incubation

 

Arcada, CA ... passed ordinances to prevent the establishment of chain stores ... we can stop subsidizing competition for local businesses

 

tradeoff of higher prices for service and local dollars staying local

 

limitations on local businesses because they are usually individually owned ... small local business here, but they want to retire and go out business

 

Boxcar Books - a non-profit model

 

Galbraith books ... board says: best return to stockholder ... and down to organizational teams ... no one is looking at the whole culture ... the organization is accomplishing their goal, best return to the stockholder ... who is making the decision about the long-range problems? ... we have organized ourselves to a point where we make

 

We shouldn't be looking at corporations to make those decisions ... they behave rationally ... we didn't have any sense of what happens five years out ... the world could explode in

 

human beings are a social animal, a herd animal ... we have organized ourselves into a place where we are blind to this

 

 

we can get our representatives locally talking about how to get people in

 

"Steve's paradox" ... how can we have a $1 billion academic factory in the middle of the economy, but high level of poverty

 

 

Summary

  • Fight the IU outsourcing
  • Promote local cooperative businesses to win IU contracts (stop $$$ flow out of county), paradigm alternatives
  • County economics is not stopped by an artificial border
  • Education on income leakage
  • question ROI of taxation abatements


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