Indian woman ditches corporate world for dirt-poor village

Yahoo – AFP, Penny MacRae, 16 april 2013

A villager collects water from a well beside a drinking water reservoir in Soda,
 India on November 20, 2012. Soda is a byword for backwardness in this remote
 corner of Rajasthan where the houses are made of mud, electricity supplies
are erratic, literacy levels are below 50%

Chhavi Rajawat, an MBA graduate and one-woman whirlwind, is seeking to drag her impoverished ancestral village in the desert state of Rajasthan into the 21st Century.

Rajawat, who spent her family holidays in sun-scorched Soda, became its sarpanch or elected village head three years ago after villagers implored her to take charge with dozens turning up at her home in state capital Jaipur to persuade her.

Chhavi Rajawat talks to villagers in

Soda, a remote village in India's

Rajasthan on November 19, 2012.

"The villagers broke all caste, gender and religious barriers to elect me," said Rajawat, a glamorous 33-year-old whose 10,000 constituents are mostly farmers and labourers largely untouched by India's economic boom.

She ditched her corporate career with one of India's biggest telecom firms to become sarpanch and has been working ever since to bring better water, solar power, paved roads, toilets and a bank to her ancestral village.

Soda is a byword for backwardness in this remote corner of Rajasthan where the houses are made of mud, electricity supplies are erratic, literacy levels are below 50 percent and the fear of drought is never far away.

The villagers said there had been no progress since Rajawat's brigadier grandfather, now in his 90s, had served as sarpanch two decades ago and they wanted someone else in the family to take on the role.

"I didn't have a choice," said a smiling Rajawat, who represented India at a recent UN poverty summit.

Her story reveals the potential of good grassroots leadership in making a difference in a country plagued by corruption and inefficiency. It also shows the limitations.

Chhavi Rajawat (2nd L, back) is pictured

 during a village meeting in Soda, India

on November 20, 2012.

Swarmed by villagers as she walks down the road, Rajawat greets them by name as they share family news and pepper her with questions about progress on various projects.

"Nobody has been able to do what she has done -- no other sarpanch has done as much," said 30-year-old farmer Jai Singh.

Rajawat was visiting a computer centre in a no-frills stone structure that she set up with the help of a corporate sponsor. The spartan interior doesn't bother the youngsters who tap away eagerly on keyboards on long trestle tables.

"It's a huge opportunity for them to get some skills -- there was nothing before," said teacher Mohammed Sadeek, 25.

But Rajawat, who now divides her time between Soda and Jaipur, chafes impatiently at the sluggish pace of change.

"India can't keep advancing at the same slow rate -- it must go faster. Otherwise we won't be able to give people the schools, the electricity, the water and the jobs they need," she said.

She was also checking on the progress of a scheme equipping primitive homes with toilets, which have made a big difference to locals who earlier had to relieve themselves outside -- and the women only after darkness set in.

There are many women sarpanchs in India because a number of these posts are reserved for them. But what sets Rajawat apart -- aside from her iPhone, big-rimmed sunglasses, blue jeans and youth -- is her education.

She holds a master's degree in business administration from the Indian Institute of Modern Management in Pune, rated one of the nation's top 10 business schools, which she says helps her draft funding plans and proposals.

"She's unique. We need her kind of people, they are a breath of fresh air, they have vision," said government district collector Muktanand Agarwal.

Among the achievements is her arrangement for medical checks of villagers by doctors from the state capital Jaipur, a bone-jolting two-hour drive away.

Chhavi Rajawat interacts with villagers in Soda, a remote village in India's 

Rajasthan state on November 19, 2012.

She also organised the opening of the first bank in Soda -- a branch of the state-run State Bank of India -- a significant success as 90 percent of India's 600,000 villages have no banks.

But all that change doesn't come without raising some local hackles.

When she constructed a drinking water reservoir that has created a shimmering blue lake in the middle of the village, she got her first taste of the bureaucratic hurdles that have repeatedly thwarted her.

"I was told we could not use government machinery to clean up reservoirs. Finally, they (the government) told me to do it on my own," she said.

And that's what she did -- raising money from friends, family and companies to fund many of her projects.

Baskar Petshali, secretary of a local welfare charitable trust, say her problems stem from the fact "she's a clean politician" who refuses to give bribes to get jobs done.

A senior state government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Rajawat's initiatives "praiseworthy" but added she "wants do things very quickly -- she treads on toes and upsets vested interests".

Rajawat is hopeful better leadership will come with the Indian government's new drive to make lists of services and funds available on the Internet.

"If everything is online, people will start demanding accountability from their politicians," she said.

She has not decided whether she will continue in development work once her five-year terms ends, but she is hoping her example will inspire other educated young people to take time out to serve their communities.

"Your roots are your foundation. You have to start at the bottom to make a difference -- and there is so much left to do."

Bristol goes rogue: British city launches own currency

AFP/Google, by Judith Evans (AFP), 16 Aug 2012

Bristol pound banknotes, which all contain symbols of local pride 

(AFP/File, Handout)

BRISTOL, United Kingdom — As Britain loses faith in its banks and feels shockwaves from the euro crisis, one city is trying to keep local wealth in local pockets with the launch of its own currency.

The Bristol pound -- usable only with member businesses in the city in southwest England -- is to launch in September, and organisers are deluged with local firms wanting to sign up.

"The perception of banking and money is that it's a very ruthless system: people are out for what they can get," co-founder Ciaran Mundy told AFP.

"This is about saying yes to something new. It's tapping into a different set of values about money."

The scheme has "captured people's imaginations", he added, in a recession-hit year when British banks have been beset by scandals and ministers talked openly of a possible euro collapse.

Hundreds of businesses have joined, from the acclaimed Arnolfini arts centre to the Chandos deli chain, and the launch had to be postponed from May to September 19 because of the level of interest.

Bristol is the first big city in

 Britain to launch a local currency.

(AFP/File, Adrian Dennis)

Security professional Richard Wright signed up his company Wright Guard as soon as he heard about the Bristol pound, hoping it would help him fight back against encroaching security giants.

"I'm Bristol born and bred, and I always want to support local businesses," he told AFP. "I'll want to keep the Bristol pound flowing."

The notes feature symbols of local pride from nineteenth-century religious writer Hannah More to the Concorde aircraft, partly developed in Bristol, and images of the St Paul's Carnival Caribbean street festival.

Evoking a long history of dissent, one side of the £5 note shows a tiger writing on a wall in graffiti: "O Liberty!"

Other British towns have launched local currencies, but Bristol, home to half a million people, is the first big city, and its scheme is ambitious.

Businesses can pay local taxes in Bristol pounds and the council has offered its 17,000 staff the option of receiving part of their pay in the currency.

Mundy's team -- funded initially by grants -- have designed an electronic system for payments by text message, plus what they say are forgery-proof notes.

Stores selling products from cider to skate shoes said they were considering joining the scheme, which Mundy believes will have a tangible economic effect.

"Eighty percent of the money leaves the area if it is spent with a multinational -- but 80 percent stays if it is spent at a local trader," he said.

Such localism might seem strange in a city that grew to prosperity as an international port and is now a centre for aircraft manufacture.

But Bristol is also a left-wing haven with an activist tradition. The People's Republic of Stokes Croft, an urban renewal group, made headlines last year with a campaign that became a riot in protest at the opening of a Tesco supermarket.

They have greeted the Bristol pound warmly.

"We need to run things from the bottom up and from the grassroots, so that people have control over how things happen where they live," said spokesman Chris Chalkley.

But Louisa Jones and Joh Rindom, co-owners of Stokes Croft vintage clothing store Shop Dutty, thought the scheme would just add to their administrative burden.

"We're sceptical that having a micro economy within a macro economy is a bit backward," Rindom said.

Ben Yearsley, investment manager at Bristol-based financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, also won't be rushing to convert his sterling.

"It's just a big gift voucher scheme... I'm sceptical that it's going to make any difference," he told AFP.

"Local businesses need to compete on quality and service."

The Bristol pound will not be legal tender and must be exchanged through the Bristol Credit Union, with a three percent charge for conversion back to sterling.

This and charges on electronic transactions will pay its running costs.

Despite the naysayers, Mundy hopes hundreds of thousands of Bristol pounds will be traded in its first year, increasing to "double figures of millions" by the third.

A man holds euro notes and the

 "Chiemgauer", the local currency of the

 southern German city of Raubling.

 (DDP/AFP/File, Lennart Preiss)

His model is the Chiemgauer, a German complementary currency of which millions of euros' worth is traded yearly.

Online database complementarycurrency.org lists more than 225 such minority currencies worldwide, of which 102 are in Europe.

They have won a high-profile advocate in Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist who helped design and implement the convergence mechanism for the euro.

"We will never have a stable, sustainable monetary system with a single monopoly of a single type of currency, whoever manages it," he said in a lecture in Brussels.

"Everybody can do something at their own scale... sustainability requires diversity," he added.

Mundy said that the ultimate test of his system would be the market.

"If people freely decide to market and trade with each other (in the currency), they should be able to do it," he said.

"If we're not doing a good job they won't use the system. Consumers will decide." 

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"The New Paradigm of Reality" Part I/II – Feb 12, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)  (Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Dictators, Global Unity,..... etc.)


"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Lose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Pedal wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.)

What We Can Learn From Iceland

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Channel:  Wanderer of the Skies - April 14, 2012

“… Your nation of Iceland is being used as a testing ground for the rolling out of financial strategies for the betterment of your planet. It would be wise to follow their progress in this respect, as it will be the fate of all nations in a very brief period of time. We have always advised you that such an action would never come from the larger powers and nations of the world, but they will follow in lockstep once the actions begin their domino effect…..” 

Ala. county votes for largest municipal bankruptcy

Yahoo/Associated Press, Nov 10, 2011

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Leaders of Alabama's most populous county on Wednesday voted to declare an estimated $4.1 billion bankruptcy, the largest for a municipality in U.S. history.

The Birmingham News reported the Jefferson County Commission's action came after spending about six hours over two days meeting with its lawyers to discuss legal options.

Those options included a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing and a settlement with creditors on the county's $3.14 billion sewer debt.

Jefferson County has been trying since 2008 to avoid filing bankruptcy over the debt, which resulted from a mix of outdated sewer pipes, the lagging economy, court rulings and public corruption. At the same time, it faces a separate shortfall of as much as $50 million in its operating budget because courts struck down a major local tax as unconstitutional.

Commissioner Jimmie Stephens made the motion to file bankruptcy, saying it's time to resolve the issue.

The vote comes just two months after a preliminary deal was struck with Wall Street bankers that would have allowed the county to avoid the embarrassment of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in the U.S. However, despite the deal providing a hopeful sign, there was still a possibility that bankruptcy would be necessary.

The deal was to have required state lawmakers to approve a mix of local tax hikes, budget changes and other legislation to resolve the billions in debt.

Jefferson County has about 658,000 residents and is home to both Alabama's largest city, Birmingham, and its medical and financial centers.

The settlement proposal with Wall Street investors led by JPMorgan Chase & Co included the lenders agreeing to forgive about $1 billion in debt, the county refinancing about $2 billion, and the a series of sewer rate increases.

If Jefferson County follows through in filing for bankruptcy, it would overshadow the one filed by record-holder Orange County, Calif., in 1994 over debts totaling $1.7 billion.

Pennsylvania's capital city of Harrisburg recently sought bankruptcy protection under similar circumstances as it struggled with about $300 million in debt from a trash incinerator that began operating in 1972.

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Analysis: Europe's debt crisis to shake corporate America

Market rout spawns calls for outside-the-box remedies

Reuters, by Alan Wheatley, Global Economics Correspondent, LONDON, Tue Aug 9, 2011

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange,
August 5, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

(Reuters) - In a sign of the harm that tumbling markets are doing to the global economy, calls multiplied on Tuesday for a concerted campaign of bold policy-making to stop the rot.

Globally coordinated asset purchases, debt relief for under-water U.S. home owners, a cut in euro zone interest rates and a reduction in Chinese banks' required reserves were just some of the ideas aired to cut the negative feedback loop of a 10-day slide in world share prices that has fanned fears of a new recession.

"We're in a situation where sentiment is so very badly damaged that everything should be on the table in terms of policy options to tackle the crisis," said Mark Cliffe, chief economist at ING Bank in Amsterdam.

"Almost anything is worth a try," he added.

The obstacles to a policy "grand bargain" are well known. Interest rates in many countries are already near zero, while governments are under market and political pressure to borrow less, not more.

China has no appetite to let the yuan rise, which would stoke export-led growth in the United States and elsewhere. In Europe, critics blame the European Central Bank and Germany for deepening the euro zone's debt crisis by opposing radical proposals to bail out indebted members of the bloc's periphery.

It is a measure, then, of the sudden deterioration in global growth prospects that economists are urging policy makers to think outside the box to get round these constraints and make good on their repeated promises to cooperate to ensure financial stability.

"Should we be dished up half-hearted and lukewarm measures, the markets will give a decisive thumbs-down and central banks will be pressed to do more later -- in less favorable circumstances," said Paul Mortimer-Lee, global head of market economics at BNP Paribas in London.

WAITING FOR THE FED TO LEAD

All eyes for now are on Tuesday's policy meeting of the Federal Reserve. The consensus is that the U.S. central bank will not launch a third round of asset purchases -- quantitative easing (QE) in market jargon -- but could well lengthen the maturity of its government bond holdings and reinforce its pledge to keep monetary policy ultra-loose for much longer.

Mortimer-Lee said such an outcome would be worthy but insufficient. What is needed, he said in a note, is coordinated QE from the United States, Britain, the euro zone and Japan to increase liquidity and stimulate demand for risk assets.

Keep markets awash with cash is always a priority for policy makers when markets are stressed. If banks hoard money and refuse to lend to each other, the wheels of the economy can grind to a halt.

To that end, Mortimer-Lee said overnight money market rates should be allowed to fall below central banks' official policy rates. He also advocated joint central bank intervention to prevent a further destabilizing rise in the Japanese yen and Swiss franc.

Harvard University economics professor Kenneth Rogoff agreed that both the Fed and the ECB ideally would adopt expansionary policies to keep exchange rates on an even keel.

Writing in the Financial Times, Rogoff also advocated very large debt write-downs in the smaller countries on the edge of the euro zone combined with a German guarantee of central government debt in the rest. In the United States, a scheme was needed to write down mortgages that surpass the value of the homes they are financing.

If political obstacles rule out direct debt reduction, excess debt now shackling the global economy could be partly inflated away by targeting inflation of 4-6 percent for several years, he argued.

NO QUICK FIX

John Wadle, a banking analyst at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong, said he backed the thrust of Rogoff's comments. What markets needed, though, was a concrete commitment by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to tackle the debt overhang using the Fed's balance sheet and regulatory sticks and carrots.

"Bernanke and Geithner need to jointly make an announcement of a coordinated set of measures to rebuild confidence and economic fundamentals," Wadle told clients. A Fed press statement at this point would fall short.

Desperate times call for desperate remedies. But not everyone agrees that it is time to press the panic button.

Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said their measures of financial stress are rising but are not as elevated as during previous market slumps. So the urgency for the Fed to ease is not as great.

And some seasoned market-watchers are convinced that there is little policy makers can do in any case in the short term to redress what are deep-seated global imbalances in savings and investment.

Charles Dumas, chief economist and chairman of Lombard Street Research, a macroeconomics forecasting consultancy in London, is convinced the world is headed for recession in 2012 because countries with excess savings are doing too little to consume and import more from economies such as the United States that need to save more.

Japan had tried and failed for 20 years to stoke domestic consumption; hopes that China would switch its engine of growth to homegrown demand were similarly fanciful, Dumas said. But the greatest measure of blame attached to Germany, he argued.

"You can produce fancy economic solutions until you are blue in the face, but they won't work until Germany gets out and starts spending," Dumas said. "And they won't do it."

(Reporting by Alan Wheatley; editing by Ron Askew)

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"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.) - New !


Paul Hellyer - Abolishing Fed and new energy disclosure key to US survival

G20 agriculture ministers to confront food crisis

Deutsche Welle, 21 June 2011

More food than ever will be needed to
feed the world

Demand for food is outpacing supply, driving up prices and eating into reserves. Agriculture ministers from the Group of 20 nations will meet in Paris this week to discuss how to combat food shortage and soaring prices.

While the G20 nations agree the world needs more affordable food, they are divided on how to achieve this goal: whether to tame prices through regulation or increase agriculture production - or both.

Agriculture ministers meeting in Paris hope to iron out their differences amid surging demand for food and biofuels that is putting upwards pressure on farm prices expected to remain high for years to come.

Their meeting is seen as a preparation for the November summit at which G20 leaders hope to agree to concrete steps to reduce food price volatility in agricultural commodities.

Calls for tighter regulation

Agreement is expected on the launch of an agricultural market information system to share key data on global stocks and production. The initiative comes as the world economy battles a food price shock due to production shortfalls, strong demand and speculators pushing prices higher.

Many speculators are laughing all the
way to the bank

But France wants far more to come out of the meeting than just an agreement on a food stock database. The country has made tighter regulation of commodity markets a top priority of its G20 leadership, which ends with the November summit. French President Nicolas Sarkozy blames speculators for the food price inflation, which, among other things, has caused unrest in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The French proposal envisions putting a lid on how much of a market an investor can buy into or imposing a minimum cash deposit for commodity derivative transactions. It also calls for greater transparency of who is making the transactions.

Even some commodities experts, like Frank Neidig at Bankhaus-Lampe in Düsseldorf, admit to a problem with speculators. Neidig notes that while crop growers prefer to lock into fixed prices and play it safe, other stakeholders like to gamble and haul in the profits. Markets, he said, are becoming increasing crowded with speculators "who are the least bit interested in real grain deliveries."

French idea

The French idea, however, has yet to win the support of the United States, the United Kingdom and several other countries that believe speculation isn't the cause for the high food prices. Many of them argue against regulation in favour of measures to increase agricultural output through investments and the use of new technologies.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy
wants to clamp down on
speculators

Ralf Südhoff, director of the Berlin office of the United Nations World Food Program, argues that " a little bit of everything" is needed to avoid a food crisis. "We need to establish greater transparency and larger reserves," he told Deutsche Welle. "And we need to dramatically increase production in developing countries in a sustainable way and get speculators under control to calm markets and avoid price swings."

Südhoff said G20 agricultural ministers will discuss the establishment of regional reserve centers to respond to food needs in emergency cases and ways to increase food production in developing countries. But whether France, he added, can garner support for its proposal to curb speculation remains to be seen.

The clock is ticking. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization projects that the world will need to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed its population and that food prices already this decade will be 30 percent higher than in the previous decade.

The need for more affordable food is real. That's a fact G20 leaders will need to swallow fast.

Author: John Blau

Editor: Thomas Kohlmann

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“Locavesting”: Capitalism for Main Street

Reuters, JUN 7, 2011

Amy Cortese

You’ve heard of eating local and shopping local – now a new book urges you to take the same approach to your portfolio. Locavesting: The revolution in local investing and how to profit from it guides readers through the idea that investing in local businesses, instead of faceless conglomerates, can not only benefit your local economy, it can boost your bottom line, too.

The book, by freelance journalist Amy Cortese, evolved out of a story she wrote on local stock exchanges in the wake of the financial meltdown.

“People were coming up with new ways to funnel more investment capital to the locally owned companies that create jobs and healthy communities and are too often ignored by the financial establishment,” she says. Locavesting is about restoring the bonds between investors and companies. “It’s capitalism for Main Street.”

Cortese gives Reuters an inside look at the world of locavesting and how you can get started.

The book really exposes the cracks in today’s financial system — how does it highlight the need for “locavesting”?

I think what the financial crisis did was strip bare the inner workings of Wall Street and expose just how greedy and self-interested it had become. And there was a stark contrast between what was happening on Main Street — where people were out of jobs, homes were being foreclosed, small businesses couldn’t get funding — and here you had the big bailout, and shortly afterwards, Wall Street came roaring back. It really exposed, for a lot of people, the dichotomy of Main Street versus Wall Street. And a lot of people, myself included, were looking for alternatives. The fact was, Wall Street was not taking care of Main Street — and neither was government, really. So if something was going to happen, people had to take it upon themselves.

Early in the book you pose the question, “What would the world look like if we invested 50 percent of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?” Any ideas?

I don’t think we’re ever going to get anywhere near 50 percent … but five percent, 10 percent, even one percent would make an enormous difference. Right now there’s an estimated $26 trillion that Americans have invested in the stock market. You could argue that very little of that goes to locally-owned companies, because mainly they’re small and private. And we’re just not set up to invest that way. So just imagine if only one percent of that $26 trillion was diverted to locally-owned companies, I think that would have a huge impact.

Socially responsible investing often gets a bad rap for high fees, low returns. Is locavesting up against that same pre-conception?

It may be too early to answer that. SRI is very different. One of the raps against it is it’s not very proactive — you’re screening out undesirable companies but you’re not proactively seeking out the ones that you want to support and invest in. And that’s what local investing does. However, that said, there is an economic cost to investing in small companies. You have to vet them, you have to do all the legwork that you would do for a larger investment. So there is that cost built in, and that’s the challenge: coming up with models that make it economical and efficient to invest in small companies without spending so much to research them.

Is there money to be made in investing in local business — besides the contribution you’re making to the local economy? Is it actually lucrative?

There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all kind of answer to that. I think it’s going to vary. But I would say yes, of course — small businesses can be very profitable. They can have very good revenue models and they don’t even have to be high growth to be a good investment. Every big company has started as a small company. That said, it will really vary. Some of the locavesting models and companies are, by design, providing a fairly modest return — maybe four to six percent. But that’s not so bad these days. And I would argue that local businesses can be much less risky. You know them, there’s a level of familiarity and there’s accountability that comes with a locally-based company that you don’t get with a big complex corporation. Yes, small businesses can be risky — but no more risky than a giant corporation halfway around the world that you can never truly fathom.

What advice can you offer someone who wants to start investing locally?

The first thing I would recommend is to do your banking with a community banker or credit union.

Secondly, there are things called community loan funds. Most communities have something like this — they’re regional funds, kind of like a certificate of deposit, where you put your money in and usually the rates range from two to four percent. It’s a place to park your money, and the money goes to work in your region.

I would also suggest food co-ops, energy co-ops. They’re a good thing to join in general. You can claim a patronage rebate at the end of each year usually based on what you’ve spent. Often, these co-operatives, which are democratically run and very community-based, they look to their member owners to raise money. And here again is a way to lock-in rates as high as six percent on your money for a three- or four- or five-year loan.

There’s also something called direct public offerings, which are like an IPO except there’s no Wall Street middleman getting his seven percent cut. What the wall street underwriter has traditionally done in the past is pre-sell the shares to their institutional clients. If you’re a company and have a loyal customer base, you can market those shares directly. And that’s a better deal for everyone — it’s taking a layer of cost out and a lot of companies that couldn’t afford to go public suddenly have access to public funds. And for the investors it’s getting in on the ground floor.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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