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Economy Needs to Become More Local

In an earlier period of hard times for Americans, my grandmother Florence I. Skoloda sat at her kitchen table and noted in her little blue diary that she had paid $20 on her grocery bill having just received a $32 pension check.

The pension was from the federal government based on my grandfather John's service in the Spanish American War. He had died two months before her entry dated Nov. 12, 1938, just a few days after Kate Smith sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" for the first time on her radio show.

Posted in Economy/Trade, financial crisis, Localism

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2008
10:50 AM

CONTACT: Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)

Brooke Gullikson Tel.
612-379-3815
Email: bgullikson@ilsr.org

Court Paves Way For Publicly Owned Broadband

Institute celebrates Minnesota city’s milestone in community-owned fiber optic project

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - October 9 - The Honorable Judge Jonathan Jasper, a judge of the 10th District District Court, has ruled that Minnesota cities have the authority to issue bonds to finance community fiber-optic networks. Monticello, MN, a town of 12,000, has been locked in a legal battle with its incumbent phone company, TDS Telecom, who filed a complaint to prevent the city from building the network its citizens overwhelmingly approved in a referendum last year.

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Since 1974, ILSR has worked with citizen groups, governments and private businesses in developing practices that extract the maximum value from local resources. A program of ILSR, the New Rules Project focuses on local, state and national policies that enable that goal.
Posted in Media, Localism

After Bush Abuses, We Need New Farm Policies

One of the first and most fundamental changes that must occur when a new presidential administration takes charge in Washington is the reform of the Department of Agriculture.

The Cabinet-level agency with responsibility for farm and food policy has operated during the Bush years as a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate agribusiness. Invariably, when left to its own devices, the department has opted against the interests of working farmers.

Posted in Environment, Food/Water, Politics, Localism

They Stood Up to the Banks

The American people stood up, and the bailout package went down.

Like other moments in U.S. history when the robber barons or the big banks went too far, the American people reined them in this week, refusing to hand over billions of dollars that would put themselves and their children and grandchildren into debt to pay off the collapsing fortunes of some over-sized and under-regulated banks. In the face of predictions of economic calamity, they said "no" to more help for the super-rich. They told their representatives in Washington they'd had enough.

Posted in Activism, Economy/Trade, Politics, Bailout, Localism

Big Chain Pharmacy Can't Fill the Prescription

We were lucky to have a small, pharmacist-owned drug store in Newport for 10 years, until Rite Aid bought out Scarlett Drug this summer. The big chain took the pharmacist and some of his staff into its employ, along with many of the drugstore's devoted customers.

By all accounts, the little pharmacy was thriving in a Main Street storefront, even though it had opened its doors long after Rite Aid had staked out one corner of the town's major intersection. The Little Druggist That Could filled almost three times as many prescriptions per month as the big chain.

Posted in healthcare, Localism

Buy Local and Help Main Street

STEVENS POINT -- On the Saturday after the big financial meltdown of September, people milled around the farmers' market on the public square here as if nothing had happened. Of course, many of them knew otherwise. But what is a person to do? The tomatoes are ripe for only so long, and a long winter is ahead.

Besides, at times like this, we have to take care of one another here at home. Financial markets may have no conscience, but the rest of us can do better than that.

Posted in Economy/Trade, Localism
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