Here in USAmerica's heartland the workers investments in pensions and bank accounts as well as insurance reserves has all been used against them. Our money has been used, and continues to be used to finance LBOs that pack up our factories into boxes and then into eighteen-wheelers and then into cargo containers at ports...final destination...who knows....The Peoples' Republic Inner and Outer Stalagmitistan?

We could be asserting our collective power over our pool of funds if we build the solidarity and the institutions that are required. The US Steelworkers are working on an initiative to invest hundreds of billions of dollars as part of regional investment strategies across North America....and yet little interest has been expressed in these initiatives outside of Ohio and Pennsylvannia. Bad news travels fast. Good news travels slow. What to do about this state of affairs??

We'll have a chance to talk more about labour-sponsored funds in the future...

But I would have a question for our American friends : I see that Ohio seems to be very open to social and economic innovations. Is this perception true? If it is, what explains it?

I believe the interest in employee-ownership in Ohio goes back to the 1980s when alternatives to plant closings were being diligently pursued by some academics (especially at Kent State) and some activists within labor in Ohio and Pennsylvannia. There seems to be a friendly if not close relationship between these academics and activists and key personnel in certain Labour-sponsored Investment Funds in Canada, particularly the Crocus Fund. Ohio has been a friendly environment for the types of dialogue that this core of activists raise since it has been, and still is, a largely unionised manufacturing economy. I think I'll ring up Dan Bell and ask him...;)