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Financing & Financial Services

The Money Problem

Over 125 years ago, the Populist Movement launched a third party in the US and their most compelling platform plank was "greenbacks," the elimination of the rigid gold standard and a freeing up of the money supply. Here we are over a century later and Richard Nixon freed us from the last vestiges of Gold in forty years ago and our central Banksters have expanded the money supply at the behest of Presidents and their Bankster allies.

The Italian Solidarity Economy’s Slow Revolution

(EDITOR'S NOTE: In the article below Alberto Corbino gives us a view of the Solidarity Economy movement in Italy. He will be doing a lecture tour in the US this summmer. The idea is to continue discussing the subjects he reports on in the article here at universities, colleges, and centers of solidarity economic justice movements.

Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Fair Trade Organizations & Networks
Visions & Models: 
beyond capitalism
solidarity economy
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
Workplace Democracy
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

SBA Recognizes Worker Cooperatives as Small Businesses

 

Energia in Holyoke, MA is a multi-stakeholder cooperative

(Photo courtesy of Cooperative Fund of New England)

Institutions & Structures: 
Cooperative Financial Institutions
Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives
Worker Cooperatives
Visions & Models: 
cooperative economy
Movements & Struggles: 
Workplace Democracy
Economic Sectors: 
Community Development
Financing & Financial Services
Organizational Support & Development

Announcing a Global Teach-In

Building a new economy and new wealth through democracy networks, green jobs, and an alternative financial system
Regions: 
United States
Eastern Europe
Western Europe
Visions & Models: 
high-road economic development
green economy
Practices, Tools & Strategies: 
Networking & Collaboration
Strategies for Change
Democratic Dialog & Deliberation
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services
Ecological Processes

Hundreds of thousands leaving banks for credit unions

40,000 moved their accounts on Bank Transfer Day, but leading up to that, 650,000 moved after Bank of America and other banks announced planned debit card fees.

Move Your Money Campaign --Amy Goodman

Campaign Grows to Divest from "Too Big to Fail" Banks to Local Banks, Credit Unions...Saturday Nov. 5 set as "Bank Transfer Day"
Regions: 
United States
Institutions & Structures: 
Cooperative Financial Institutions
Credit Unions
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
#Occupy Movement
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

The Public Option in Banking: The German Model

Publicly-owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany’s “economic miracle” after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
#Occupy Movement
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

Credit Union Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union celebrates 25th Anniversary in New York City November 3rd
Institutions & Structures: 
Credit Unions
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
Practices, Tools & Strategies: 
Financing
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

Mondragon Training Journal: May 18, 2011: Saiolan, Mondragon's Business Innovation Center

 

Dr. Isabel Uribe 

Ever since I first learned about Mondragon cooperatives in Dr. Christina Clamp's graduate class at Southern New Hampshire University, I have been fascinated with what black people might do with the lessons from the Mondragon experience. 

Union leaders to pull funds from five banks, look to CUs

report from Credit Union National Association
Institutions & Structures: 
Credit Unions
Unions & Worker Organizations
Movements & Struggles: 
Organized Labor
Practices, Tools & Strategies: 
Financing
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

What can 2,500,000 Berkshares Buy

The real economy is people.
Regions: 
United States
Institutions & Structures: 
Community Currencies & Barter Networks
Visions & Models: 
local living economies
diverse economies
Practices, Tools & Strategies: 
Financing
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services

Food and Finance

The evolution of food and finance since the 1970s.
Economic Sectors: 
Food
Financing & Financial Services

Mondragon Diaries: Day Five

Our first stop is another component allied with Mongragon University called SAIOLAN. It's an incubator project for helping to launch new coops and high-tech businesses as well as training new entrepreneurs.
Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Producer Cooperatives
Cooperative Financial Institutions
Credit Unions
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
cooperative economy
diverse economies
Economic Sectors: 
Organizational Support & Development
Manufacturing
Financing & Financial Services
Retail Trade
Trade & Exchange

Mondragon Diaries: Day Four

Most new small businesses fail. That's a fact, whether they are in the Basque Country or in the U.S. Or anywhere else. Yet the Mondragon Coops, which all started as small worker-owned businesses, have hardly ever failed. Why? The key is in Father Jose Maria Arizmendi's original founding conception of cooperatives as the interlocking of school, factory and credit union.
Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Worker Cooperatives
Credit Unions
Teacher Cooperative Schools
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
cooperative economy
diverse economies
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
Workplace Democracy
Economic Sectors: 
Financing & Financial Services
Retail Trade
Trade & Exchange

Mondragon Diaries: Day Three

Our topic this morning is the wider range of the cooperative movement, both in the Basque Country and Spain. Mondragon is a part of the Basque Cooperative Confederation. There are currently 755 cooperatives in the Basque Country, and only 80 of them are the worker-owned MCC coops. There are a total of 537,000 members of all the coops, but only 54,919 are worker members, and 37,860 of these are the MCC worker-owners. 

Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Cooperative Financial Institutions
Credit Unions
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
cooperative economy
high-road economic development
socialism
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
Workplace Democracy
Economic Sectors: 
Organizational Support & Development
Manufacturing
Financing & Financial Services
Retail Trade
Trade & Exchange

Mondragon Diaries: Day Two

...As we left, many in our group were debating the pros and cons of global economic justice. I shared their concerns, but I also saw something else. Here was the beginnings of some of the most advanced productive forces in the world, the means of both economies of abundance and the means of clean and safe renewable energies and far lighter ecological footprints.
Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Worker Cooperatives
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
cooperative economy
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
Workplace Democracy
Economic Sectors: 
Manufacturing
Financing & Financial Services
Retail Trade
Trade & Exchange

Mondragon Diaries: Carl Davidson's Five Days Studying Cutting-Edge People and Tools for Change

I'm with a group of 25 social activists on a study tour organized by the Praxis Peace Project. Our focus is the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, a 50-year-old network of nearly 120 factories and agencies, involving nearly 100,000 workers in one way or another, and centered in the Basque Country but now spanning the globe. We're here to study the history of these unique worker-owned factories, how they work, why they have been successful, and how they might be expanded in various ways as instruments of social change.
Regions: 
Western Europe
Institutions & Structures: 
Worker Cooperatives
Cooperative Financial Institutions
Credit Unions
Visions & Models: 
solidarity economy
cooperative economy
Movements & Struggles: 
Economic Justice
Economic Sectors: 
Organizational Support & Development
Manufacturing
Financing & Financial Services
Retail Trade
Trade & Exchange

THE EVERGREEN CO-OP MODEL: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WITH A PLAN TO STABILIZE A COMMUNITY

The Evergreen cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio was the story everyone wanted to hear at the opening session on Saturday Aug. 7, 2010 of the U.S. Federation for Worker Cooperatives conference in Berkeley. 

Evergreen Cooperative Laundry Manager: "Owning Your Own Job Is A Beautiful Thing."

Evergreen Cooperative Laundry managers take ACE conference attendees on a tour of the facility. CEO Jim Anderson gives a workshop on the cooperatives.

The John Logue ACE Award; other ACE Awards

The Association of Cooperative Educators established the John Logue ACE award at its 58th annual conference in Cleveland July27-30, 2010. Ohio Employee Ownership Center staff members, Bill McIntyre and Logue's wife, Olga Klepikova, talk about Logue's work, vision, "moxie" and his impact on Ohio and the U.S. Other ACE awardees for 2010 are also mentioned.

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