{"id":1355,"date":"2014-04-18T19:09:41","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T19:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2014-04-18T19:09:41","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T19:09:41","slug":"bitcoin-to-beets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/?p=1355","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin to Beets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/fb:like>\n\n

FEATURED ARTICLE<\/p>\n

OPINION: From Bitcoin to Beets
\nPosted on April 17, 2014 by Slow Money<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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By Woody Tasch
\nThe recent collapse of Mt. Gox and the \u201cinconvenience,\u201d in its CEO\u2019s words, caused by the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin investors\u2019 money, should make us all think about the history of finance and \u2026 organic beets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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We invented joint stock companies in 1600, came to what appeared to be an inexhaustible continent, took everything, cut it up into pieces and started selling it to strangers, only to find ourselves finally selling Ones and Zeros and Sliced and Diced Who-Knows-What Derivatives to invisible strangers. In milliseconds and in incomprehensibly large quantities.
\nThen came Bitcoin.
\nThen came Bitcoin \u201cmining.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Now, I could rant about the absurdity of roomfulls of servers, funded by venture capitalists, applying the extractive, industrial mentality of mining to the techno-seductiveness of virtual currency, but I\u2019d rather talk about organic beets.<\/p>\n

As in, thousands of us starting to invest in local, organic food enterprises\u2014something startlingly common sensical yet seemingly radical in today\u2019s byzantine world of hypersecuritized capital markets.<\/p>\n

Under the improbable banner of something called Slow Money\u2014let\u2019s call it the polar opposite of Bitcoin\u2014we are acting on the visceral sense that there is such a thing as money that is too fast, securities that are too abstract and complex, and companies that are too big.\u00a0 We are fermenting a peaceable little non-technological revolution in investing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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It\u2019s as if we were taking all the macro numbers of economic growth\u2014the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Case Shiller Index, GDP, Consumer Confidence, the value of all the barrels of oil still in the ground\u2014and throwing them into a jar along with some friendly bacteria of the Care of the Commons, Sense of Place, Diversity and Nonviolence Kind.<\/p>\n

Over the last few years, the Slow Money network has put over $35 million into over 300 small food enterprises around the country (and a few in Canada, France and Switzerland), supporting small and mid-size organic farms and the many small food businesses that create jobs, revitalize Main Street, build carbon in the soil (where we want carbon, as opposed to in the atmosphere), improve health, and create fertility at the base of a restorative economy.<\/p>\n

This is a small part of a larger movement that is asking:\u00a0 After all the globalization and financial razzmatazz, don\u2019t we need to bring some of our money back down to earth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A number of NGOs are emerging to rebuild local economies, including the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, the Post-Carbon Institute and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.\u00a0\u00a0 Small new investment intermediaries are emerging too, including RSF Social Finance, Mission Markets and Farmland LP.<\/p>\n

To fix our economy from the ground up, we need to do more than Buy Green and Buy Local.\u00a0 We need to do more than regulate the excesses of Too Big Too Fail.\u00a0 We need to Invest Local.\u00a0 \u00a0We need to take a little of our money out of there\u2014the abstract, complex, ultra-fast world of global investing\u2014and put it to work here\u2014near where we live, in things that we understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Food is a great place to start.\u00a0 Slow Money investments are supporting dairy coops, organic grain mills, regional food hubs, seed companies, restaurants that source locally, compost companies, niche organic brands, grassfed beef producers and more.\u00a0\u00a0 Investments have ranged in size from a few million dollars to a few thousand dollars. \u00a0\u00a0Investors include experienced angel investors and family foundations, but are mostly just plain regular folks who want to know where their food comes from and where there money goes.<\/p>\n

You may ask: Is this investing or is this philanthropy?
\nThe answer is embedded in the experience that more than half a million Americans are having as members of CSAs\u2014farms that sell shares of their production in advance of each season. I\u2019ve asked thousands of CSA members around the country: How many of you ever calculated quantitative metrics supporting your decision to join a CSA\u2014food miles, price, nutrient density, pesticide levels, organic matter in the soil or any other such factors? In many years of asking this question, only a few people have raised a hand and said they had done any such calculating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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This suggests that hundreds of thousands of Americans are using a sense of innate value to pre-pay for food from a local farmer. They are entering into an arrangement that is part investment decision, part consumption decision, part transaction, part relationship, part capitalism, part socialism, both deeply conservative and deeply liberal.<\/p>\n

This is where we must head if want a healthy economy. Away from Bitcoin and towards beets. Away from anonymous transactions and towards healthy relationships.\u00a0 Away from computer screens and towards farms and fertility. Beyond financial diversification and towards diversity\u2014ecological diversity, cultural diversity, economic diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Because, after all, what is more diverse than a gram of fertile soil, with its billions of micro-organisms and thousands of species, most of them not yet named?<\/p>\n

Top of Page<\/a><\/p>\n

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Slow Money<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FEATURED ARTICLE OPINION: From Bitcoin to Beets Posted on April 17, 2014 by Slow Money By Woody Tasch The recent collapse of Mt. Gox and the \u201cinconvenience,\u201d in its CEO\u2019s words, caused by the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin investors\u2019 money, should make us all think about the history of finance … Continue reading Bitcoin to Beets<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bouldervalleyvoices.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}