Great Unleashing Notes

[Judith Culver]

Personal Finance Interest Group

Conversation at the Great Unleashing, 4/11/10

Minutes by Judith Culver

Convener:  Laura Sellens

 

Five people gathered to talk about current financial sustainability issues. 

 

We agreed that each family that is financially stable and has a plan for the future will be better able to make the transition.  Also the more households with financial health the better the community will be able to make the transition.  We want to support local families and local businesses at the same time.  We need to improve local opportunities for investment, microloans, debt elimination, and personal finance education.

 

Concerns:

Predatory lending practices and interest rates    

Collapse of the dollar

            Rampant consumerism

Federal and personal debt

Enough income for retirement

Poverty and the wealth gap

Colonial relationships (imperialists suck money out of an area)

            Retirement money in Wall Street, not local, especially in IRA’s

            How can we deal with the private problem of poverty

 

We talked about alternative currencies and gift economy (based on sharing) which can be goals for the future.  One concern is that most people have most of their obligations in US $ such as mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc.  Also retired people are concerned about exchange when they are no longer producing goods and services.

 

Having people of different generations in the group is important to understand the financial concerns and issues at all ages.

 

Local investment:  We need secure mechanisms to support local farms, businesses, students, and debt elimination.  Ideally, these would be based on personal relationships.

 

Debt elimination:  The problem is that the lending institutions are raising interest rates to the point that it is almost impossible to pay it off.  We discussed solutions including borrowing collectives with members guaranteeing others debt and receiving education; creating local loan fund at an interest rate far less that big banks,

 

Sources of education are:

Community college

Insurance, banking and investment companies

Programs for people transitioning to a better life, such as Whatcom Dream

Forum in May “A New Way Forward” by Connecting the Dots sponsored by

    Whatcom Human Rights Task Force

 

Solutions:

“Borrowing collectives” in which members commit to cover debt of the group

       (Grameen Bank)

            Study group, such as Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin

            Get local bank to buy up debt (credit card balances) currently with predatory

     interest rates (30%!!) at a lower rate

            Campaign to urge big bank customers to move to local banks

 

Actions submitted on group form:

Look into ways to raise community awareness about switch to local banks. 

     Source: Green America- Shirley

            Look into local microfinance

            Start YMOYL group

Meet with Derek Long at Sustainable Connections about local investment

     and microloans-Judith

           

Other actions discussed:

            Identify organizations and services in the community with similar purpose.

            Find out how much credit card debt there is in Whatcom County.

[Laura J Sellens]

Follow-up: First meeting, April 25, 2010. Elected to become official Transition Workgroup, with the goal of contributing to the Energy Descent Action Plan, Leader/liaison, myself, Laura Sellens.

Current topics of interest:
-Local investing, SlowMoney
-Break up With Your Bank, New Way Forward, advocating local banking
-Creating a local microloan network
-Debt education, frugality training

[Heather K]

Good to hear about Personal Finance group becoming a Transition Workgroup per Laura's comment, & contributing to Energy Descent Action Plan. (was there a time & place for the April 25th date?)

It might be helpful to others new to TW to have this info posted under the 'TW Work-Group' group as a Discussion...This TW site is blessed with so many great groups, but as yet the volunteer webteam has not yet organized the groups within sub catagories.

[Laura J Sellens]

Judith, thanks for the email.
I saw Heather's response and probably I'm missing something but my feelings are: 1) it wastes my time to post things more than once, and clogs up this already-busy website. and 2) if people are interested in personal finance, they'll look at our discussions and perhaps join our group, so you're right, we should keep putting lively conversation up here. 3) I'm not big on trying to get people to do things, and I tend to be stubborn when I detect that others are trying to get me to do things. As of today, I don't care about blogs. and 4) it seems likely to me that personal finance is a fringe element of the Transition Whatcom movement. NOT because it's not powerful, but because it's not as obvious how personal finances affect resilience. It's easy to see how growing your own food affects resilience, and see the response that group has gotten! It's like the Maslow's hierarchy of self-reliance. So it doesn't bother me if we have few members, and as people sink into transition as a lifestyle and start to see the genius in what we're doing, more may come and I would welcome that. But not to the extent that I want to spend time trying to recruit people.

So those are my thoughts, however mule-headed. I need to be active and simple and focus on DOING, not typing on the internet. By all means, if you want to blog, please do blog. Or whatever you think will help the community thrive in challenging times.

[Heather K]

It took me many months before I understood how this TW ning site worked, and to have a good sense of knowing who my audience was and when/where to post...

The reply I gave under the Questions & Tips Discussion was given in the spirit of sharing information. Not in the spirit of pressuring anyone to do anything...They were detailed suggestions in response to a question and each individual can make their own choice.

This discussion here titled "...Notes"... is not clogging up the TW website, it will only be forwarded to Judith & Laura, unless someone else who was interested clicked the "follow" button.

I do trust Judith's judgement on how & when to share relavant information to the wider TW audience....

I've not read all the TW emails in my box today, but I'll eventually read the two Judith posted as Discussion.

Laura J Sellens said:

Judith, thanks for the email.
I saw Heather's response and probably I'm missing something........help the community thrive in challenging times.

[Laura J Sellens]

Thanks, Heather. You're right, this website is something to get one's head around. I think the point I'm trying to clear up is, anyone who's interested in this discussion can click on it and read it, right? But they'd have to join the group if they wanted to reply. If that's true then I'm satisfied.

Heather K said:

It took me many months before I understood how this TW ning site worked, and to have a good sense of knowing who my audience was and when/where to post...

The reply I gave under the Questions & Tips Discussion was given in the spirit of sharing information. Not in the spirit of pressuring anyone to do anything...They were detailed suggestions in response to a question and each individual can make their own choice.

This discussion here titled "...Notes"... is not clogging up the TW website, it will only be forwarded to Judith & Laura, unless someone else who was interested clicked the "follow" button.

I do trust Judith's judgement on how & when to share relavant information to the wider TW audience....

I've not read all the TW emails in my box today, but I'll eventually read the two Judith posted as Discussion.

Laura J Sellens said:

Judith, thanks for the email.
I saw Heather's response and probably I'm missing something........help the community thrive in challenging times.

[Heather K]

Yes it's true Laura. We can click & read anything in any open group. To add comment we have to click the "Join" first. My perception is that the online "Group" format allows us to organize things, and to share thinking, planning, events, resources, among those with shared interests.

One challenge with the ning.com site, is how many emails can end up floading members, if they don't know how to set the screens to filter some out. And the reverse, that someone can miss future replies to a Discussion, if they don't click the follow button. (exception to this is when someone posts a reply, they will automatically be set to "Follow" any new comments).

Another way folks can notice that a new post has been made on any discussion, blog, or group, is to look on the Main page and scroll down to 'Recent Activity'. Unfortunately the way the ning.com site program works, is that it does not allow us a way to view these 'recent activities' on the main page beyond the last dozen or so posted.

Laura J Sellens said:

Thanks, Heather. You're right, this website is something to get one's head around. I think the point I'm trying to clear up is, anyone who's interested in this discussion can click on it and read it, right? But they'd have to join the group if they wanted to reply. If that's true then I'm satisfied.

[Laura J Sellens]

Our meeting took place at 1pm at Bloom restaurant. We decided not to schedule a next meeting until we have something to meet about, as we are spread out geographically, and busy. We agreed to post pertinent information on this group page so that new members or interested parties can see what we're interested in, and what we're up to. We have gotten a few new members since our meeting, so if any of you are reading this, if you would like to have a meeting so you can get involved, we can arrange that!

Heather K said:

Good to hear about Personal Finance group becoming a Transition Workgroup per Laura's comment, & contributing to Energy Descent Action Plan. (was there a time & place for the April 25th date?)

It might be helpful to others new to TW to have this info posted under the 'TW Work-Group' group as a Discussion...This TW site is blessed with so many great groups, but as yet the volunteer webteam has not yet organized the groups within sub catagories.