AlterNet: Let's Cut Out the Banks and Finance American Innovation

Let's Cut Out the Banks and Finance American Innovation

By Sander Hicks, AlterNet. Posted December 12, 2008.

Then the U.S. government can be an investor instead of a reluctant donor.



Just this morning, I heard that my favorite union printing press had closed its doors. Last night, I heard that Olsson's, the great book/music place in Washington, D.C., closed all five of its stores last month. There are times when I work at my Vox Pop café in Manhattan and wait one hour for a single customer to walk in. Consumer spending is going steadily down. Unemployment is around 6.5 percent, and that's just the "official" rate.

I don't want to lose my company. I've worked so hard to build it over five years. I've been an entrepreneur since I started my first company at age 25. Along the way, I've seen how companies can grow, change the world, have an effect. I have seen how value is created.

Most of us have heard how great microfinance programs have been for poor, enterprising people -- many of them previously disempowered women -- in villages across the developing world. Why not try something like that here?

What if we had a big, grassroots, community-focused "green venture capital fund" in every town in America? What if there was new money available to all the creative souls out there yearning to quit their lousy job, or get out of the army of the unemployed and start a company that did something in the public interest?

We could do this. We could create a U.S. Social Ventures Administration -- a fund that that backed companies that offered a nice financial return on investment, but also a serious social return to the public. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/110406/let%27s_cut_out_the_banks_and_finance_american_innovation/