Post Carbon Fellow Michael Shuman’s report Vermont Dollars, Vermont Sense was reviewed in the November/December edition of Vermont Woman.

From the article:

The authors challenge trends widely accepted by Wall Street’s “globalization.” That “too big to fail” corporate economy is underwritten by national trade agreements, government subsidies for fossil fuel, and tax policies that keep multinational corporations’ overhead and energy costs relatively low. But as coal and oil supplies diminish and wages go up in China and India, the cost of import and export will inevitably also go up.

Right now US corporations manufacture durable goods—like appliances, automobiles, and computers—and their parts in locations far away from US customers and labor rules, but these goods represent only about a quarter of US purchases. Services and nondurable goods, like food, clothing, and paper, are where we spend most of our dollars—and nondurables must be produced or distributed locally. Not only do Shuman and Hallsmith argue that small is beautiful; they make the case that locals and the long game for investments are a wiser bet.